rkg

One on yahoo!Japan right now - surface isn't the greatest, but... https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/254783290 Best, rkg (Richard George)

John, Often anything that remotely resembles a chrysanthemum gets assigned to the Saotome bin - while it was one of their favorite themes, there are other points... That metal surface on your piece is wrong for saotome work - your piece looks like the material you typically see in heianjo-ish inlaid pieces - I think of it as "doughy"/It seems to corrode quite easily. Saotome: http://www.rkgphotos.com/facebook_stuff/kiku_surface_bori_saotome_front/kiku_surface_bori_saotome_front.html https://www.facebook.com/pg/Kod%C3%B4gu-no-Sekai-%E5%B0%8F%E9%81%93%E5%85%B7%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C-266005023454853/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1065621873493160 https://www.facebook.com/pg/Kod%C3%B4gu-no-Sekai-%E5%B0%8F%E9%81%93%E5%85%B7%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C-266005023454853/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1023433461045335 http://home.teleport.com/~rkg/photos/tsuba/saotome_front.jpg and then here's one with some corrosion, though some people argue these weren't done by the same group: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Kod%C3%B4gu-no-Sekai-%E5%B0%8F%E9%81%93%E5%85%B7%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C-266005023454853/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1061310870590927 Heianjo/onin/etc: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Kod%C3%B4gu-no-Sekai-%E5%B0%8F%E9%81%93%E5%85%B7%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C-266005023454853/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1022965847758763 http://www.rkgphotos.com/facebook_stuff/kiku_heianjo/kiku_heianjo_front/kiku_heianjo_front.html https://www.facebook.com/pg/Kod%C3%B4gu-no-Sekai-%E5%B0%8F%E9%81%93%E5%85%B7%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C-266005023454853/photos/?tab=album&album_id=801865696535447 https://www.facebook.com/266005023454853/photos/a.839075476147802.1073741842.266005023454853/839075609481122/?type=3&theater lots of corroded ones online :-) Good Luck, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, Is there a current schedule of events for the SF sword show available anywhere? The one on the sf token kai page is like from 2015, and... Thanks, rkg (Richard George)

Luca, There are some extant early kozuka that are not "standard sized"/they can be pretty large. You can see oversized kozuka hitsu on early kyo sukashi pieces, etc. as well... On those early "kozuka hitsu" shapes, I don't really know why they sometimes have the little divot you associate with a kogai on the kozuka side, though I've always wondered if maybe they were "flipped" and used when kogai on your uchigatana was all the rage, or maybe they were being mounted with the kogai in for a while, or... Yeah, the kogai hitsu looks newer - almost shoami- like... Interesting that Aoi attributed it later - the last thing I'd ever say about them is that their descriptions are er, conservative... Best, rkg (Richard George)

Luca, First off, is the book you're referring to that small one? Note that the colors in it are kind of "off", so you have to be careful using it as a reference (relative to other pieces in the book you can see the color shift in the brass over time, but when you compare it to a real piece...). I've written a lot over the years about color stuff, so I'll not do that here again... Typically, pieces that look like this are either revival stuff or typically assigned to early edo or earlier. (like most heianjo/onin-esque work - or so Torigoye says - which does make sense as there does seem to be this gap in time in extant pieces, but I digress...). The iron used in these isn't really special, other than the old stuff is kind of "doughy" /seems to corrode pretty easily which is what this looks like (to me at least). - the late stuff is typically done on that fine grained sand iron that everybody had access to at the time (which this doesn't appear to be), so I'd discount this being revival work (and maybe even early edo). The hitsu do indeed look ato-bori, though there's something about the number/type of amputations that make me wonder... If they are indeed ato bori, that would indicate the piece could be old (given that the mania for sticking doodads on your sword really didn't appear to take off until the late muromachi/momoyama periods...) In any case, the hitsu, especially the goofy large kozuka one, would seem to me to point to pre edo. On the other hand, it seems like the implementation of the inlay (from the missing bits it appears kind of shallow) and maybe the color/lack of buildup on it would discount it being really old (like muromachi period). (sometimes its good to look at pieces that are worn/have a bit of damage so you can see now they were made...) So... I would have called it momoyama period work. Who attributed it to the edo period? Could be that the seller was just being cautious perhaps? Just my .02 that is probably only worth what you paid for it, but... Best, rkg (Richard George) EDIT: here's a link to a recent yahoo!Japan auction of a similar piece - don't know how much longer it will remain up, but... https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/w179141823

I was trying to figure out if this was only for namban or what, but it looks like it isn't, so... If you've seen my rants at all in the past, you know I've got a lot of my faves posted on youtube or in various formats on the kodogu no sekai facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Kod%C3%B4gu-no-Sekai-%E5%B0%8F%E9%81%93%E5%85%B7%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C-266005023454853/ but... One of the great perks of shooting tosogu for people is getting to see some amazing fittings in hand. Unfortunately the downside of that is that they sometimes become available. Another downside is that often when I'm busy I don't get to shoot my own pieces - this is one of these times I finally just gave up on waiting to have a moment to reshoot this and went back to my ol' raw files and picked a couple of out-takes: Not what I normally collect, but.... I'll get to reshoot it eventually... I hope :-/ Best, rkg (Richard George)

I think that's an eggplant, but could be a mon, I've never checked the Mon book for that - interesting. I had piece with a similar implementation up for sale earlier: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/22591-closet-cleaning-sale/ Best, rkg (Richard George)

Hey guys, I'm spending too much time shooting stuff - I'm always late to the party... First up, uchigatana koshirae - this is one of the coolest ones I've ever seen in hand: Next, on this whole kinko vs iron vs pre-edo vs edo vs... thing... Reading this it seems like maybe it would be best to take a breath,and talk about art in general... Art affects people in many ways - sometimes its visceral (the dreaded "I don't know what it is, but I like it" thing), or it already within your realm of experience (shiny objects, things with recognizable subjects, you're seen something similar before, etc) but a surprising amount of it has to do with "being in on it" - A running joke in art circles these days is that the creatives are selling their artists' statements about their work rather than their work itself (or are cashing in on their fame (I personally see no other rational explanation for paying what people do for a lot of Hirst's work, for example - how much did that shark in formaldehyde go for again?) or are speculating, or.. - but I digress). I'd posit that a lot of old iron work is in this latter category - if you're not "read in" on where the artist was coming from (Buddhism, tea culture, the bushi ethic, the times it was made in, perhaps its history, the wabi-sabi aesthetic, etc) or happen to like iron/sculpture, the work probably isn't going to do much for you - and even in you're "in on the joke", it still might not - that's the nature of art - your reaction to it is kind of personal... Back to work, rkg (Richard George) EDIT: Oops - I see Fred already posted an image of this piece. my bad...

Pete, I forgot about that one - excellent suggestion - it might even still be in print.... http://www.sanmei.com/contents/en-us/d24.html rkg

The short answer is that there aren't any really good ones - I have a couple that are a good start - Joly's Legend in Japanese art and Edmunds' Pointers and clues to subjects of chinese and Japanese art (which if I recall correctly is kind of a more readable version of Joly's stuff): https://www.amazon.com/Pointers-Subjects-Japanese-Scholarly-Reprints/dp/1588860019/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498319655&sr=1-1&keywords=pointers+and+clues+Japanese https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=joly+legend+in+Japanese+are Oh, and a copy of Papinot's book is helpful too... The trouble is that often you have to go do an internet search to find a reasonable explanation of a great number of themes. Even if you can get the subjects' name, their meaning is wrapped up in the culture so you are still stuck w/o understanding that - I always likened it to this star trek episode where the universal translators could translate the aliens' words perfectly but because the language was based entirely on their own culture you still had no clue what they were talking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok Good Luck, rkg (Richard George)

Here's a toryusai school piece: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Japanese-samurai-sword-TSUBA-Katana-Edo-period-/121934654158?hash=item1c63df2ace:g:-54AAOSwBnVW8~kd The trouble is that this appears to be offered by one of the dreaded "resellers" - maybe you could get it for a fair amount less if you can find the shop he is er, representing? rkg (Richard George)

Nara? Best, rkg (Richard George)

I'm too busy to shoot very much of my own stuff (though I did get to do some quality time with the microscope this morning, but I digress), but in case anybody cares, I just put up another video of I piece I shot earlier - this time of a head scratcher - I call them "drippers", as they have globs of bronze on the surface that appear to be "dripped" on and then abraded flat(ish) Enjoy, rkg (Richard George)

I probably shouldn't comment, but... I've had issues in the past with Aoi art with er, optimistically kantei'd pieces, doctored pieces, as well as what I jokingly call "dealer lighting" used on items... you can pm me if you want specific examples... The bad part is that while they do appear to take stuff back, sometimes you don't put 2 and 2 together until years after you've bought the piece - and it gets a little hard to return things after that long... That said, I'm sure there are worse sellers (as Curran points out, there's some horrific stuff on yahoo Japan being pawned off on the unwary), so... But back to the OT - there are a LOT of these "copy" menuki out there - I'm not sure I'd ever buy gold menuki w/o being able to study them in hand (and maybe under the microscope) first - well, maybe if you're only paying scrap value, but... Best, rkg (Richard George)

update: the eggplant themed tsuba and owari piece are still available. Update: tsuba 1 mokko ko-shoami: $100 SOLD tsuba 2 kamakura? $295 tsuba 3 kiku shaped ko kinko $350 SOLD tsuba 4 stone/bamboo shoami $350 SOLD tsuba 5 signed yamakichiei $375 SOLD tsuba 6 owari tsuba $1500/offer tsuba 7 snow/stone tempo $325 SOLD tsuba 8 heianjo/kaga HOLD tsuba 9 kagamishi/ko-kinko $495 SOLD tsuba 10 ko-kinko $495 SOLD Thx, rkg (Richard George)

It appears that the owari piece is available again. And just for Stephen (well, actually everybody since the video image is old), here's some (new) still images: And also some spinny pics of the piece: http://www.rkgphotos.com/facebook_stuff/owari/owari_front/owari_front.html http://www.rkgphotos.com/facebook_stuff/owari/owari_back/owari_back.html Its papered (to Owari), really... And the piece comes with a generic box. As above I'm looking for $1500 or an offer I can't refuse on the tsuba. Thanks for looking. Best, rkg (Richard George)

Grev, These are not what I normally collect, but I really like them - I got hooked shooting a batch of them for somebody in the distant past... You see them around, though Pete is right, you also have to search for "Toryusai" group tsuba as well. They seem to come out in bunches for some reason. You can sometimes find OK pieces starting at a about couple of grand US (much less than that and they are either pretty bland or have issues (beware rust on the iron ones - they seem to pit very easily for some reason (and that's often hidden by unscrupulous sellers so you have to check any iron piece you get very carefully), and actually any patina damage can be bad - nobody knows how they created some of their finishes, and therefore damage to one of those can't be "fixed")). If you -really- want one, you might be able to contact that certain nameless collector - he sometimes sells off the bottom, though the price of admission usually starts at USD5000 and goes up from there quickly... Yaaa! Back to work, rkg (Richard George) EDIT: I forgot to mention that they're apparently "in" this year, so the prices above may no longer be valid

In honor of Stephen, here's some (still) pics of the last piece left: http://www.rkgphotos.com/facebook_stuff/eggplant_heianjo/eggplant_front/eggplant_heianjo_front.html http://www.rkgphotos.com/facebook_stuff/eggplant_heianjo/eggplant_heianjo_back/eggplant_heianjo_back.html Again, I'm looking to get $295 for this one. Best, rkg (Richard George)

Stephen, Not exactly - I've been getting a LOT of positive comments on showing pieces this way, so I decided to do these like this too. As noted there are stills of almost all of them on the Kodogu no sekai page/I'm happy to send images/links of anything you're interested in - of course, there's only one piece that isn't spoken for left, but... rkg

Gallery section?? Though I'm loathe to post images here anymore (I've had images stolen from here and used commercially w/o my permission (story omitted) - which is stupid as I'll usually grant it for anything even remotely education related,etc - Its not like I'm hard to find (I have had the same email address for thirtysomething years) but I digress), you can of course link to the videos. I'll be putting up some more when I get a moment/get a chance to try and get some more music I can use. Best, rkg (Richard George)

Wow, that was completely chaotic.. I can't seem to edit my original post, so here's an update (I thought I had done this earlier today, but it isn't here, so...) tsuba 1 mokko ko-shoami: $100 SOLD tsuba 2 kamakura? $295 tsuba 3 kiku shaped ko kinko $350 HOLD tsuba 4 stone/bamboo shoami $350 SOLD tsuba 5 signed yamakichiei $375 HOLD tsuba 6 owari tsuba $1500/offer HOLD tsuba 7 snow/stone tempo $325 HOLD tsuba 8 heianjo/kaga HOLD tsuba 9 kagamishi/ko-kinko $495 HOLD tsuba 10 ko-kinko $495 HOLD Best, rkg (RIchard George)

Hey guys, If you look at the kodogu no sekai page you've probably already seen this, but... I'm deaccessioning a a few pieces - since I've been on a video kick, here's a video showing them: The prices are as follows: tsuba 1 mokko ko-shoami: $100 HOLD tsuba 2 kamakura? $295 tsuba 3 kiku shaped ko kinko $350 HOLD tsuba 4 stone/bamboo shoami $350 tsuba 5 signed yamakichiei $375 tsuba 6 owari tsuba $1500/offer HOLD tsuba 7 snow/stone tempo $325 tsuba 8 heianjo/kaga HOLD tsuba 9 kagamishi/ko-kinko $495 HOLD tsuba 10 ko-kinko $495 shipping is extra, at actual cost. there's more images of most of these on the kodogu no sekai facebook page, or you can contact me for more images, vr image sets, etc. Note that I'll be away from my computer for most of the day, so you may not hear from me until this evening on any inquiries. Best, rkg (Richard George)

Cheep and Cheerful-palooza :-) rkg (Richard George)

http://nihonto.us/BOXES.htm Best, rkg (Richard George)

I've just put up several more in case anybody's interested. Thx, rkg (Richard George)