rkg

Hi, Has anybody recently gone through shipping higher dollar pieces from Japan to the US using EMS? How did it go? Thanks, rkg (Richard George)

A picture of the piece (well, the nakago ana) is in Wakayama's Toso Kodogu Meiji Taikei (volume 2, p.260 if you want to look it up), so I guess at least he thought the mei was good, but.... That work really isn't (IMHO) - most natsuo stuff makes me go "ooh" - the workmanship on this doesn't... George M's assertion that its a student piece that received a "courtesy mei" sounds like as good an explanation as any, though I guess we'll never really know (maybe he did it for a customer he hated/ordered something he didn't want to make, or...). The auction was more fun to watch than the one for that beat up Myoju/Mitsuyoshi piece that was up not tooo long ago... Best, rkg (Richard George)

Bruno, It looks ishiguro-y, but often the later guys would be "inspired" by (or get an order for a piece that looked like) other groups, the maker might be an unrecorded minor smith, etc. Given how good some of these guys were, looks can be deceiving. First off, did you run down the other artisans who signed 正克 in Haynes to see if they did anything like this (H04076.0 - H04081.0)? Bob was usually pretty good about noting when they signed with a kao as well, so there being no note of one on these is kind of a red flag that this might be a waste of time, but... A quick check of Wakayama and the mei book xlated by Marcus yielded nobody signing masakatsu this way, which makes me think maybe the better explanation is that the guy is an minor maker (or the mei a rare alternate one from somebody else) that isn't recorded in the "usual suspect" books. Elliott Long worked with Haynes to put all the mei/makers that Bob found since he did the index and their addendums into a book - maybe you could either get a copy of this or beg somebody who has it to look in it and see if this 正克 is in it? Also, is there a book with a more thorough listing of all the ishiguro artisans out there? Good Luck, rkg (Richard George)

Michael, Yeah... that one (especially with crusty rust like that in what would be considered wear areas) is just kind of neglected. I think the Japanese really were into wabi shabby for quite a while (a lot of earlier goto work was apparently "pre worn" to have this look, etc), but I don't think your piece is that. - here's one that was just used a lot: This piece is probably right on the border of having too many losses, but its interesting to me because it was used quite a bit and appears to have always been cared for. Note also that sometimes on pieces there's this stuff called sukirushi that can start looking pretty bad/like corrosion, but it isn't. I think it was some kind of lacquer clear(??) coat that seemed to have been popular for a while (you see it on several different types of tsuba and actually other artifacts of a certain age or older) that didn't age well: Oh, and here's an onin covered with that gunk as well: Best, rkg (Richard George)

I looked really quickly in the mei book Sekso xlated - I 'think' the kao looks like the first's... I agree with Curran - it doesn't really make me go "ooh" either, but to each their own or if you're collecting mei... best, rkg (Richard George)

Glen, I generally try and support education about this stuff, so reposting is fine as long as you aren't trying do do something fraudulent (photo credit appreciated :-) ). I've actually posted images of most of of my collection on Rich Turner's Kodogu no sekai page on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kodôgu-no-Sekai-小道具の世界-266005023454853 You gotta put up with the occasional "streaming consciousness" and rant posting, but.... Unfortunately facebook seems to be working hard at making cross posting stuff harder, so its not as useful as it used to be. Not sure what to say about a publication - they're a lot of work, and after seeing really top end stuff, I'm not sure I've got enough pieces that are publication worthy to do much of one.... Besides, I'm always trying to do better imaging, and an electronic format is more amenable to adding better images, 360 image sets, etc as I get more interesting images of stuff, discover things later, etc. The "amoeba" piece on the lower right is actually pretty big, measuring 81.2mm (H) X 77.9mm(W) X 3.60mm (T, seppa), 5.40mm (T, mimi). The one of mine you reposted measures 111.1 mm (H) x 79.8 mm (W) x 4.2 mm (T, mimi), 3.6mm (web) On my most favorite piece, I actually posted some images of my most favorite tsuba ever on the fb page above: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=266005023454853&set=a.2863362817052381 Its a pretty atypical Nobuie, but in hand it blows me away - surprising, as I'm not normally a huge Noubie fan, but I digress... Best, rkg (Richard George)

In keeping with abstract tsuba... Best, rkg (Richard George)

I've only got one shippo piece: its different on the back - for a psychedelic experience: Best, rkg (Richard George)

Dale, In this case I'd posit that it was more like the work was subcontracted out while the tsuba was being made for its first owner rather than it being added appreciably later. Usually pieces attributed to the same groups that did the inlay are made of this kind of doughy iron that rusts at the drop of a hat, which this doesn't appear to be. While "subtraction" from existing pieces (resizing, shape change, removing decoration, hitsu ana added, etc) is actually pretty common, I personally believe that far fewer pieces have had metalwork added at a later date (other than the odd repair and of course the ubiquitous sekigane/hitsu ana plugs, and less often a fukurin to spiff things up ) than is typically thought. The process is actually pretty brutal/takes a surprising amount of work to do "right" (you have to depatinate the tsuba, resurface it to get it to the appropriate condition for the addition, do the work w/o damaging other features, etc). Between the effort/cost associated with that and losing all that wabi-shabby age/wear that was often prized.... On the other hand, other stuff like lacquering/black waxing (at some point) was pretty common, so YMMV. Best, rkg (Richard George)

On the kiyotoshi piece Bruno put up.. First off, it seems like a number of the tanaka guys had quite a variety of ways that they signed, and some of the variations aren't shown in the books, so you sometimes have to look across several mei to see all the kanji. That said, I'd buy that it was done by some Touryuusai school guy, but the work doesn't seem over-the-top enough to be by Kiyotoshi (though I'm sure he didn't do his "usual" level of work all the time/maybe let a student piece slide, etc), so ymmv on that. But back to the mei - To my eye, the kao acutally looks Real Close, but the kiyo and toshi characters seem slightly different (some strokes missing, etc) from the published examples (at least from the examples in the mei book Markus xlated, I didn't pull out Wakayama and compare to those). Blessing it or calling it gimei is above my pay grade though... Good Luck, rkg (Richard George)

Dale, On the first tsuba, I've seen several tsuba with similar inlay papered to heianjou. The hitsu are kind of odd though. Haynes has posited that there were inlay specialists that would put inlay on whatever was brought to them and I've seen a lot of pieces that would be binned as katchushi (like the piece pictured), tosho, etc - except for the inlay - add that and they get moved to the heianjou zougan bin. On the second piece, that type of dragon seems to be more typically depicted with waves/storms, so maybe that is what's going on here? Best, rkg (Richard George)

I think the MFA piece was done by this guy (lifted from the mei book Markus xlated, presented for educational purposes only): I have a piece signed umetada with the ume as the first character, but I kind of think its done by a different umetada guy, maybe the same as the pieces Dale posted?: I hope that helps... Best, rkg (Richard George) Edit: and looking of fleabay, there's a Japanese seller that appears to have another piece by the ichi'ou guy available as well: https://www.ebay.com/itm/265202417456?hash=item3dbf4bbf30:g:wYUAAOSw49Rgtj0m

If you look at the bid history, it appears that the winner was some gaijin (usually the buyers with lotsa transactions are agents), but apparently a Japanese bidder (due to the relatively small number of xactions) was the underbidder... Fun, fun, fun Best, rkg (Richard George) EDIT: here's the abbreviated bid history:

Piers, Oops, my bad - I usually do a cursory check of these er, eterna-threads, but didn't on this one before posting :-/ Yeah, the etched piece is definitely an example where they were added deliberately :-) rkg

here's a couple more: and the back side of the second one, just for grins. Best, rkg (Richard George)

Tom, Thanks for taking a crack at it! Best, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, I've been researching a ko-kinko tsuba I recently acquired and... I'm stuck on what some some of the items are on it - first off, here's the piece: On the front, I know about the obvious ones (kutsuwa with tazuma attached), but what are the two little rings? And on the back, I guess the 4 cresent shaped objects are shiho-de (tie downs), but what are the two L-shaped objects? also, any guess on what the other strap might be would be appreciated. Thanks, rkg (Richard George) As an aside, the construction of this piece is fascinating - it looks like slots were cut for all the decorations which were then stuck in, gold and silver iroe was applied, and then the surface was finished off with black lacquer.

Dale, If only it were that simple. The met's annual budget (before this) was on the order of $300 million (that was in 2017, bet its more now (see below)), and realistically the amount you can reliably pull from an endowment is pretty small and still guarantee that you'll be able to provide the same amount of money in perpetuity. There's a ton of retirement calculators out there you can play with yourself to simulate their problem - and they are supposed to be managing this to last basically forever. If you burn through a big chunk of your endowment, you're gonna have a big hole in your budget for your current programs when things get better for a long time to come. So what do you do... the other interesting thing is that they always have the tin cup out, even when times are good - over a third of their income was from gifts, grants, etc - billionaires like to be on the board and maybe they can be touched for more, but it seems like -somebody- is being pretty generous already... And... if they have a large pile of lesser stuff that they are basically just paying to store/will never be on display because their "good stuff" is better, is it so bad that it gets sold off to somebody who will love/care for the pieces? Probably won't make the people that donated the lesser pieces happy, but... I guess they cold save money be firing everybody and waiting until they can open again (throwing a couple of thousand people on the street -would- save a lot), but... https://www.metmuseum.org/-/media/files/about-the-met/annual-reports/2016-2017/annual-report-2016-17-report-of-the-chief-financial-officer.pdf The darker point of view is that this is a business like any other and their primary goal is to stay in business - kind of hard to do with no money coming in the door. The other dark observation would be the potential for self dealing - Boards deciding "we have to sell some items" and then being the first in line to buy them for their own collections... And again, they've been deaccessioning stuff for a loong time - the change is that the revenues from the sales can be used to meet operations costs - and from a certain point of view money is fungible so maybe that doesn't matter sooo much. rkg (Richard George)

yow wow - that musashi plane piece went for a lot: https://www.sendico.com/ayahoo/item/b541163588 I guess we can hope that this actually was an old piece... You know, what might be handy is to create a list of links to these iai sword tsuba makers... Best, rkg (Richard George)

Dale, Sorry not to reply earlier - too busy... Just for grins I overlapped my image with the one from the jauce auction. Its not the best job, but you can see the pattern is different, just not by a lot. (Dicclaimer: I don't own the copyright to the image from Jauce - it is presented here for educational purposes only). It interesting that the corners were staked kind of in the same way (angled at corners) and that there is what looks like a squared off copper sekigane in the bottom only. I guess they both could be from the same "factory", but I don't think (at least mine) is modan or something, This seems to be a pattern that is often attributed to ko-hagi (which Torigoye claims is actually just another variant of kyo sukashi tsuba rather than being some kind of early choushuu work), though I think this is later than that (so you'd call it what, Edo period kyo sukashi work?) Best, rkg (Richard George)

Peter, that's pretty wild - I wonder what whoever had it made was going for there. Obligatory images of similar "basket style" shingen in my collection: Be Best, rkg (Richard George)

I got one of these pieces as part of a "package deal" (I only wanted one tsuba in the group offered) not all that long ago: Best, rkg (Richard George)

Mike, What a great idea! here's my set of acquisitions (that I have in hand) from 2020... https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=3576043075784348&id=266005023454853 Best, rkg (Richard George)

Here's a little "low crossbar" yamkichibei piece I got not tooo long ago: Best, rkg (Richard George)

Curran, Now you've got me curious/I guess I'll have to start watching for them again. They used to come in waves (collections/stores being liquidated?). The first ones would go for stupid prices, as would the last ones for some reason I never have understood, but you could usually get at least an OK deal on the ones in the middle (the second mouse gets the cheese? 🙂 ) I wonder why the supply of new decent ones has dried up - no interest (or no money in it) so nobody is having them made up anymore as stock unless its a special order, there are now fewer box makers, or...? If you're only looking for a few, the shipping actually isn't so bad even now (gotta love DHL - faster than EMS, the packages aren't as banged up, etc) - the tsuba boxes don't weigh much and I'd usually aggregate them with some other order and going up to the next kilogram in weight isn't so expensive. On the other hand, never mind if you're looking to order dozens of them, since all the options between DHL/fedex and the "slow boat" are gone... rkg (Richard George) EDIT:Just to increase the signal to noise ratio of this posting, have you pinged Grey Doffin to see what he might currently have?: https://www.japaneseswordbooksandtsuba.com/store/tsuba-%26-kodogu/t318-tsuba-boxes