zanilu

Steve, Moriyama San. I really appreciate your help.

Resident mantis expert has spoken...

Ken, Brian. Given the wave design I assumed that those were water wheels, rather than vagon wheels. I will look into the mantis and carriage history though. Nice call Brian. Luca

Dear All. I have recently recived this tsuba with an hako gaki that is too difficult to read for me. I could decipher simple Japanese scripts, as long as I can count the strokes but with I am out of my depth... I suspect the hako gaki to be by sato kanzan. Pictures of the tsuba are reported here: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/30038-yodogawa-no-zu/ Any help is welcome. Regards Luca P.S. For didactic purposed I would be grateful if you can also post the kanji with the translation.

Dear all I have recently recived this tsuba and interest in your opinion on it, and I would like to have your opinion about it. It was sold as Heianjo Zogan with a Yodo river (Yodogawa no zu - 淀川之図) motif. It has brass suemon zogan for sure but I am a little dubious about this attribution since I have never seen such design attributed to Heianjo Zogan. It is a big tsuba dimensions: 102.3 mm x 102.5 mm, thickness 4 mm. While the Yodo river motif is clear but I am in the dark about the meaning of the sukashi. It comes with an hako gaki and in the auction was mentioned Kanzan (寒山) so I thought about Kanzan Sato. From a quick search on google for sure it look like a Kanzan hako gaki. The hako gaki is too difficult to read for me. I could decipher simple Japanese scripts, as long as I can count the strokes but this is way too difficult for me. Any help or comment from you is welcome. I have created a post for help on the hako gaki in the translations section: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/30039-help-with-hako-gaki-by-kanzan-sato/ Regards Luca

E-mail Sent for #33 Batch 6

Sad news Pete!

Thank you Curran for the information. I assume you have a copy of it. Grey if you do not know about it I am really lost to where it can be found! Regards Luca

Dear all. I have recently stumbled on this book from the Sano Museum about Akasaka tsuba. At the end of it there is an extensive collection of signatures and what look like to be an analysis of them. Do you know if there is a there a translation available and where to find it? Best Regards Luca

Me too!

Luis why are you asking to delete all your recent posts?

Ford your posts are always oglf great value to me!

I can speak only for myself of course. I follow this board to educate myself by reading the posts of more experienced people. After a while I started to value the post of some people over those form others mainly by the knowledge and consistency of judgment they showand how they deal with criticism. Always polite but firm in their opinion when needed. Childish behavior has no place on this board and, in my view, belittle the person who does it. I find it also extremely irritating. If you are not grow enough to withstand criticism you should better not post. When I post something on the board I know perfectly well the I will expose myself to criticism and ridicule. But I personally value more corrections and information I can get than my own ego. I got some sharp comments to my posts but in the end I learned a lot. In the last few days I have seen a some childish behavior that irritated me and reduced the pleasure I always had following this board... I you made one of those post please meditate on it. I already wasted too much of your time... Regards Luca P.S. Brian if you think this post inappropriate please do not hesitate to delete it.

Omar, take a look here: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/28550-katsura-eiju-%E6%A1%82%E6%B0%B8%E5%AF%BF-menuki/ Luca

No other signatures out there?

Dear All I have in my collection a beautiful Fuchi/Kashira set signed Nagamine with kao papered by NBTHK. In the past days I have finally set my mind in doing a more throuout study of it. The only two Nagamine I was able to find on "The index of Japanese Sword Fittings and Associated Artists" by Robert E. Haynes are first and second generation Ayanokoji Nagamine (H 06475.0 and H 06476.0). Looking for mei I have found some on "Kinko Meikan" and "Shinsen Kinko Meikan". I have also found some examples of papered F/K on the net and on the Boston MFA website. Totally less than 10 examples of signatures. Angular Signatures: Rounded Signature: Comparing the mei I have found with that of my F/K I have found two types of signatures so far, one more "angular" and one type more "rounded" (similar to that on my F/K). I have found too few papered (or from other trusted sources) examples to be able to make a case about the two signature styles. I was wondering wether any of you has other examples at hand of papered (or from other trusted sources) pieces with signatures to compare whit those I have found so far. Regards Luca

Ok. The name of the seller is: lalasilverjp With hindsight the name was prophetic! Luca

Brian the original purpose of the acquisition was to mount, the menuki are fine for that purpose... And learning something is always worth it! Yes George it was on Yahoo Japan and I can post the name of the seller, but I do not know the polices of NMB about it. I can do it Brian? Regards Luca

Christian, Chris. As I have said the patina and appearance of the front side have not changed a bit in the cleaning process. So no damage done on that side. I am always careful and avoid cleaning any of the item in my collection. Just a little bit of choji oil on iron tsuba when needed and some Renaissance wax in the worst cases. The advice of Steven made perfect sense since to determine the nature of the menuki (real or reproduction) was needed before further analysis. Following the advice of Steven I have removed the stuff on back to see how the menuki was made. The tanzaku-mei is integral with the rest of the menuki. It is most probably a wax casting copy as said by Tom. As said by Ford the first thing was to prove that the menuki are a fake or not. Anyway thei will be mounted on a iaito, as originally intended. Regards Luca

After some time I was able to clean them up. Boiling water softened up the stuff on the back and I was able to removed it with a toothpick. After that I let them soak for a week in nitro thinner and the brushed them. Sorry for the quality of the pictures I had a little time to take them, however they show the main features of what was under the stuff on the back. To me it look like casting but menuki are not my piece of cake. What is your opinion? Regards Luca P.S. The front of the menuki was not affected at all by the cleaning process.

Thanks Steven you I will try those i the order you suggested. Regards Luca

Thank you all for your observations. I will try to clean them by brushing. If this does not work I will try a specific silver cleaner. Any advice about removing the gunk on the back? I will try to probe it to see how hard it is. Best regards. Luca

Dear all NMB members Menuki are not exactly my cup of tea (meaning that I do not know nothing about tosogu, and or menuki even less) but nonetheless I bid for these menuki on yahoo Japan out of a impulse. I was not really expecting to win the auction though they look nice to mount on a project of mine. They seems to be made of silver whose black patina in the recesses highlight nicely the recessed regions of the peonies. Looking at the mei it seems to read as Katsura Eiju (桂永寿) but I think they are gimei, given that I win the action with a relatively low bid. I would like to hear some comment from the collector more experienced in menuki than I am. I have learned a lot of terminology about tsuba translating the NBTHK papers I found on the web. It would be really interesting, from the educational point of view, to put together, with the community help, a description of these menuki like NBTHK would give on its paper. Thank you in advance of any help or comment Regards Luca

Another one from Yahoo Auctions https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/d346945326 Luca

I personally always replace the two nails with two pegs made out of toothpicks. In the unfortunate case of a strong shock they will brake at the junction between base and peg without any bit of them protruding from the two parts. I did several tests... The replacement takes about 10-15 minutes per box. Luca