rkg

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

Curran, When I need some more I usually start watching yahoo!Japan for them. Best, rkg (Richard George)

Another male/female pair Best, rkg (Richard George)

"Perfect" ones (almost no (or no) inlay loss, all the major inlays intact, no appreciable corrosion damage, etc), tend to go for a lot (unless the seller really doesn't know what they have/mis-describe/photograph a piece 🙂 ). This is kind of a "Yahoo Japan special" - its a nice piece with reasonable work, the large inlays are mostly there, somebody sprang for expensive papers, whizzy box, etc, but it has er, issues that make it less desirable to the Japanese collector*. A surprising amount of the fine inlays are missing, and there's a hole at the top that seems to be either a piece of missing inlay and/or corrosion damage (note that the seller doesn't show it very well - an oblique image from the top like he shot of the sides would show it so you could see what was going on, so perhaps he thought this was a less attractive feature as well, but I digress). IMHO these detriments put it in kind of a grey zone - while its clearly much better than the usual online offerings, (rusty, missing large amounts of inlay, mediocre work, shined up, etc), when you start getting up into this price range it kind of makes sense to just spend a little more (what, 2K-3K) and get a real prize (no corrosion, little or no missing inlay, damage, etc). On the other hand, its "worth" this because somebody bot it at this price, so YMMV. * I've posted before about discussions with Haynes about Dr. Toyigoye's thoughts on these pieces - in a nutshell, the Japanese like to see them with at most 10% or so of their inlays missing, no missing (or damaged) large inlays, and little or no corrosion damage (for whatever reason these pieces seem to be really susceptible to this). It doesn't mean they're "bad" if they don't have this, but.... Best, rkg (Richard George)

So, are the first couple of volumes now available for purchase as e-books? thanks, rkg (Richard George)

here's a few of my more interesting ones - When digging up some images I found I actually have to reshoot a couple I did with a 5D MKII before I was color managing fully - that "canon red" is horrific to my eyes now... enjoy, rkg (Richard George)

Piers, I actually can't tell if the ridges are worked from the back or not - the iron part is fitted into a gold "cup". I posted a while back about this piece here: Best, rkg (Richard George)

I've had several of those in the past, but I think this is the only piece I currently have with udenuki ana Best rkg (Richard George)

I have a couple of pieces with kirikomi on them. The first is this: As can be seen, the cut appears to be from a sword(part of it is still in the blade), and the bottom doesn't come to a sharp V. And the second is this naginata(?) tsuba I recently acquired - there are a couple of what appear to be kirikomi on it: Best, rkg (Richard George)

Thanks for all the replies! I'll follow up on these observations. Best, rkg (Richard George)

Hi again, Here's another dumb theme question. Does the combination of akikusa (fall flowers) and suzumushi (bell cricket) have a legend, story or some other meaning that they're both found in the fall? Again, I'm trying to write up something, and... Obligatory eye candy images of the theme: Thanks in advance, rkg (Richard George)

Yakozen, Thanks for the reply! I'll look into that. Another collector also suggested it might have to do with the story of Binbou (貧乏) or Bimbo if you use Joly's odd romaji: https://books.google.com/books?id=OSxPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq=bimbo+joly+Japanese&source=bl&ots=DVAA0Xo_yS&sig=ACfU3U0ZCyMwwPTzeaNNIepKN7wtS8wnjw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiVi8ai8dnrAhUJvZ4KHZ8rD3kQ6AEwC3oECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=bimbo joly Japanese&f=false Best, rkg (Richard George)

Sebastien, Agreed on the quality (IMHO a bit better than usual), though I recently saw a jakushi piece with similar quality inlays. In addition, the Jakushi guys did indeed do Kawari gata pieces (I've seen several, and actually have one: ) In addition, somebody responded to one of my earlier inquiries about the piece withan image a signed one that was both kawari shaped and actually had similar sukushi/hitsu , though the theme appeared to be different. I don't have the owner's permission to share the image directly, but its posted on the kiodogu no sekai fb page... You may well be right - it could well be somebody else doing their interpretation of Jakushi/nagasaki/hizen/etc work - especially in late pieces like this where there were pleny of craftsmen versed in a number of different techniques who did whatever the client asked for.... not signed = we'll never really know. Best, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, I am trying to write a description for one of my tsuba, and am having trouble determining what the meaning of the decorations are. I think the piece is Jakushi work (though we'll never know for sure because its not signed - had to have been somebody in the Nagasaki area though). One side shows a rain dragon (thanks Gordon/others), and the other shows workers who are apparently planting rice. They seem to show the cloud the rain dragon is from wrapping around the piece, suggesting this is some kind of unified theme. So... is there a legend or standard name for this or is it just a "rain dragon/rice planting themed tsuba"? Apologies if you've already seen this - I've posted it in another forum or three as well. Thanks in advance, rkg

Sorry to be late to the party. Here's a couple of lightning/storm themed tsuba I own. first up is a Tenpou piece And here's an old saotome piece: Best, rkg (Richard George)

FWIW, those are lantern flowers I believe. I have a piece with that theme (the fun part is that the nunome is created completely with lacquer, including the crosshatching): Best, rkg (Richard George)

Adrian, I understood what you said. the tsuba a bit more than just black lacquered - the nunome is completely built up with lacquer (crosshatching,e tc) - not as ornate as you are talking about, but... Best, rkg