Jean

Just FYI, shakudo Soten are not necessarily papered by NBTHK. I have seen a shakudo daisho soten tsuba, sold by Bob Benson and bought by a friend, sent to Japan for papering. It was pink slipped by NBTHK but papered by NTHK....

Kane Mitsu saku Seki stamp

Corrected🙂

First and last drop of price, you will never find a juyo Rai school daito at this price with a papered Koshirae: 20 000€

In fact, concerning sue Bizen Kazu Uchi Mono, they are forged in Bizen style, pure masame is not sue Bizen style. From time to time, they are for sale on Aoi Art website, check the description, generally the hada is a mix of mokume and itame. Masame hada is very difficult to forge. Very good masame (no flaws) hada is very expensive and sought after. Due to the fact that all layers are folded in the same direction they are very difficult to solder, thus some collectors consider that longitudinal opening in this case are inherent to masame and not considered as kizu. The longer the blade the harder good masame is difficult to obtain.

These are not Daisho but here are 3 kogatana, I collect. They are very rare. They were made by Mino smiths specialized in kogatana forging around 1680

Roger, you are going to be very disappointed. Kozuka/kogatana appeared at the very end of Nambokucho and became more common in Muromachi with the rise of daisho. You won’t find them easily. There is a Japanese book on kogatana which should fill you with happiness😀

Splendid Chris👍

Talking about Kitchen knives... Unbelievable, I bought a utility knife forged by Taro Asano two years ago. Once in France, it went through French EMS customs. It was catagorised as a dangerous item, needing a Forwarding agent to take it from customs. I told them I had already received more than ten katanas which all went through their Customs Service and were directly delivered at home. They told me it was impossible, I must have mistaken (I had in my hands their last invoice😂). Of course, no forwarding agent was willing to proceed with customs for a 12cm kitchen knife. I was very polite with them and tell them to send it back to the sender. They did it!!!. I had to send an e-mail to Taro san to send it back upon receiving it but instead of labelling it Kitchen Knife, I told him to name it on the Proforma invoice : Vegetable peeler. It went through French EMS Customs without any fuss....

Fantastic hada....

Yes, SadaHisa saku

« Did any Mino/Seki lineage smiths forge Sanbon-Sugi in other provinces? » certainly Piers, there is no reason why they should not exist. The Diaspora of Mino smiths in Momoyama/early Edo was such that some must have brought sanbonsugi along in their luggages

Yes Babu, when you send a package it is weighted at the post office, mainly for the stamp duties. If it is sent abroad you have a specific form to fill in and the weight is written on it. But in fact who cares, a lot of packages are stolen each year... the way packages are handled by postmen makes me vomit... late example: my wife was expecting a package yesterday and using the tracking system this morning it was written that it has been handed over to our concierge who accepted to take it on our behalf. Perfect, the only problem is that we have no more Concierge. Our is badly ill and out of work, he did not see any postman yesterday. So where is this package...

Tametsugu. He is said to have been the son of Go Yoshihiro and a student of Norishige. He moved to Mino before beginning of Muromachi. He worked in the Soshu style. Why Tametsugu and not Norishige? Because the work is very good but a bit weak to be Norishige so one degree under Norishige is Tametsugu. The O kissaki enables to pinpoint the date of the blade to a period between 1350 to 1365. Juyo Zufu translation of my former Juyo Tametsugu

Genuine one but RIP, it is a skeletton

JP, I wish it could be « SAKE Choji »...🤣😂

Congrats, very fine sword, Gary👍

A sword of each Goban Kaji 😀

As far as I can remember, I posted at least 20/30 pictures of this exhibition two years ago on the Board i found the link

My yoshiro

I read Munemitsu

The second one: « Your other tsuba here is a classic and genuine "Sakura" Yamakichibei. The classical understanding of Yamakichibei is that he is the sandai, though he is known as "Sakura Yamakichibei" because he always adds a cherry blossom stamp in the lower right corner of the omote seppa-dai. Again, he is recognized as the sandai according to the classical understanding (though if the viewpoint that there were an O-Shodai [Yamasaka Kichibei], a Meijin-Shodai, and a Nidai is correct, then Sakura Yamakichibei should be better referred to as the yondai). However, I do not recognize Sakura Yamakichibei as the sandai (or the yondai), not only because I recognize two other smiths as the yondai and godai, as you will see, but also because Sakura Yamakichibei is working too late to be a part of the actual Yamakichibei atelier. The various sources put him in the latter part of the 17th century, which I think is accurate, based on the style of his work and in particular, his frequent use of goishi and fine amida-yasuri, which his contemporaries in Owari, Toda and Fukui, often employed as well. If this dating for Sakura is accurate, there would be too wide a gap from the end of the working period of the Nidai (whose work Sakura often emulates) and/or the Godai (Low-crossbar-mei Yamakichibei) to the start of Sakura Yamakichibei's working career. There would have to be a gap of something like 30-50 years here, which means that Sakura couldn't have been part of the original Yamakichibei atelier as a student of the Nidai or the Godai, unless he was apprenticed at an extremely young age right at the very end of the original atelier's existence (which is, of course, very unlikely). I think Sakura was probably a talented metal worker in Owari who was inspired by his province's heritage of superb tsubako -- Yamakichibei in particular -- and either received permission to use the name or simply adopted it as a professional name/brand to trade off of. His work is often of high quality, but it does not match the levels of the early, genuine Yamakichibei smiths. »

Here are in two posts an analysis made by Steve on my two Yamakichibei tsuba: the first one, an old one that I really like: « Did you by any chance download and read the article Brian just added to the Downloads section? I talk quite a bit in the article about the smith who made your tsuba (I believe him to be the fifth of five early Yamakichibei smiths -- Low-crossbar-mei Yamakichibei). I have him working in late-Momoyama to early-Edo; however, I also believe he established a "Yamakichibei factory" employing several "students" doing dasaku/daimei work. So, in my view, your tsuba here could have been made by the master himself or by one of these "students." It certainly carries the mei of the master, but then, daisaku work would be signed by him, even though he didn't make it, and daimei work wouldn't have been signed or made by him, but may exhibit a signature meant to emulate that of the master. In the article, the second alternative theory is mine, and I lay out my ideas pretty specifically. But it is only a theory; I could be wrong. However, I am pretty confident in it, as in my view, the evidence best leads to the conclusions I reach, and there are significant problems for other theories and beliefs about Yamakichibei works. » « on the four-lobed mokko guard, the paper seems to attribute the work only to "Yamakichi." I'm not quite sure why, though, since the "Bei" character is clearly present, though it is quite abraded (as is typical). Further, the "Yamakichi" smiths are really those 19-century workers who signed only "Yamakichi" (no "Bei"), and always made tsuba like those we see in the recent thread, and in the thread I linked to (Sergei's initial post): five small holes around the nakago-ana and the same look to the sugata and surface of the plate. As I say, these are 19th-century works, and have nothing to do with the real Yamakichibei smiths. So, seeing the kanteisho to your piece refer only to "Yamakichi" is odd for this reason, too. Once you've had the chance to read through the article, you will see, I think, why yours is clearly a work made by Low-crossbar-mei Yamakichibei, as I call him (due to the very narrow gap between the horizontal strokes in the "Kichi" character). Again, I might qualify this attribution only by noting that your tsuba could be a daisaku work made by a student/worker of the Yamakichibei "factory" that Low-Crossbar-mei Yamakichibei (the "godai," if you prefer) established early in the 17th century. »

A big thank to Steve who was kind enough to provide some information on my Kichibei tsuba.👍 if he gives me the authorization, I ‘ll share his information 😃