jlawson

Also one other important item that I learned on this journey. For me I have always heard that a trademark etc of Ko-Kinko work was that they were "amateurish" and not what one would expect from later pieces. After going through this process though I am really at odds with that statement. If this was your job day in and day out, your tsuba would not look "amateurish". Mine certainly did because this is my first tsuba but honestly, for a skilled craftsman it does not make sense. These things that pass for Ko-Kinko because they look old and are somewhat crude perhaps they are clever fakes as well or tsuba made by amateurs. It is certainly a scary thought.

Brian, I was really careful on how I worded that and purposeful to not cause embarrassment for anyone who thought it was older.I have a great amount of respect for many of the people I showed it to and would never want to embarrass them. It would be easy to have this thread move to exposing those who think they are experts etc and extolling how they were fooled but that is not the important part nor the intent of this post. Had I not have been the one who produced this tsuba I would have been fooled myself and would have thought it was much older. That is why this lesson is so important to me because I have seen first hand how these things can be manufactured to look much older than they are.

I have seen quite a bit written recently on Ko-Kinko tsuba and judging the quality and age of these tsuba by the color of the material, the oxidation, and the amateur looking work done on them etc. This has really bothered me for some time as classifying things that are Ko-Kinko has elevated their prices and in many case their stature in the collection community. When looking at these pieces the ability for them to be made even today and patination applied is something that is pretty scary to me as a collector and unfortunately easier than one might think. I recently had the opportunity to spend a couple of weeks with Ford Hallam to learn more about patination and tsuba art in general. During the last week of our work together we produced the tsuba you will see below. This was done in a day and half and is a faithful replication of how they were doing the work as well. Everything is hand done including hammering the plate, raising the rim, and the nanako. This piece was done by me ( very much an amateur) and patination, seki-gane, and lead plug added by Ford. I actually was able to show this piece to some of the communities tsuba folks this weekend at Tampa and all but one said it was a very old muromachi tsuba. The point here is that if this can be done as a one off in a day and a half you better believe that an expert working on something like this for a month could be done to deceive and would be very difficult to tell. This whole experience has given me a very new perspective on the dating of items by the way they "look" and feel. This also brings to focus for me that in order for us to tell exactly how old things are we are going to likely have to employ some type of scientific non-destructive testing. I am sure that at some point the sword certification groups are going to have to employ these methods or risk letting things through that are made to deceive.

There are a great many Shinto Juyo pieces. There are also Juyo Shinshinto Pieces.

Sad news. Dr. Ford was the reason I got into swords in the first place as I met him when I bought my first ratty shinto sword and he invited me to come to his house to learn more about it. I remember spending many weekends at his home in Breckenridge over the years with Billie and friends seeing amazing works of art. Dr. Ford gave me so much knowledge freely and asked for nothing in return. A true gentleman and teacher. He will be missed.

Outstanding and very unusual. I like it a lot.

One other thing to understand is that the concept of a collection is subjective at best. Especially in Japan. Your comment about a top level collector must have a Goto piece as an example is applying norms about what you consider a collection to be. I would submit that for some - a collection, even a world class collection might be only a few pieces. I have seen a few of these. This also is core to the mentality of collectors in other fields like stamps, or comic books or whatever. I struggle with this myself as when younger in the field I bought everything and got an enormous amount of things. It is much more gratifying when you move from amassing a sizable collection to amassing a great collection. Size of the collection should matter less than the quality of the pieces contained. In regards to your other question about considering what is better or best, that is the real key to this issue isn't it. I am very glad that we all have different opinions on this as there are a great variety of pieces out there that appeal to different people, otherwise this hobby would become pretty boring. If your search is for the best pieces that is also a subjective stance depending on what you consider best. A great example of this is Tagane. I absolutely love fantastic tagane work and value pieces that are carved in Iron over some soft metal pieces because I can appreciate the level of work it took to carve them. However my bias to an iron dragon is completely subjective to your love of patinated shibuichi where you can see the subtle effects of the rim and the plate. There is no right answer and nor should there be. Everyone has an opinion and therefore a bias about what is "better or best". Study hard, read, appreciate the small things in fittings, and form your own conclusions.

I guess the question of is there a better way is possibly, however I think the better question is why would we need to? Understanding that these craftsmen were extremely talented and could work in multiple styles and techniques often create a pitfall for those who would classify a specific tsuba as exactly "this". There are certainly traits and characteristics afforded to specific schools and indications of specific smiths as well but it is a very dangerous and slippery slope to allocated tsuba to specific boxes with complete absolution . As many of you know as well here for every "rule" in what we know we see fringe pieces that break those rules and call into question our own neat little boxes and definitions. The current system of identifying tsuba based on common traits is about the best we can do today and has worked (in general) for years. Without having a stock number printed on the back of them and everyone having a dictionary of every stock number assigned to each group we have to use what we have. The good news is that ambiguity leads to a fair number of dissention of opinion between experts and causes us to re-examine data based on those challenges and often times allows us to forward the collective knowledge of the hobby by changing what we thought was the "truth".

FYI this works quite well however the tech needed to laser scan the original tang in 3D to make it 100% accurate is expensive. Additionally the "part" depending on the quality of the printer has minute lines in it for all but the most expensive prototyping machines and is not 100% accurate because of these "code lines". But the technology is pretty cool. Ive printed quite a bit from a makerbot but requires knowledge of a 3d mapping program etc. However it is not far off where we will be able to do this.

Nice Tsuba.

How about I re-phrase and say (I think) it is Kinai... I have some that are similar. It also shows some choshu traits as well.

It is Kinai although unsigned. Design is done quite a bit and the color of the steel is a tell for me as well. Nice Tsuba Stephen.

Could be a stylized Mon? I imagine it is stronger than you think and less fragile than it appears. Practical - probably not but it is unusual and I like it...

That is correct EMS still works. I can verify. However I have had things in limbo for some time with EMS in the past and their tracking doesn't work very well and sometimes not at all. It is a bit of a risk shipping with them but seems to be the only choice right now.

Pete, can you imagine someone doing this with the checked bag concept? I don't want to even think about the liability of having several other peoples swords wind up missing because the baggage handlers got "nosy".... One mistake and their "business" is over as the Airline would likely only give them $500 per package for a lost bag. Another option though: I have taken a private charter out of Japan, once to Shanghai and another time to Hawaii. In that scenario I could load up a bunch of peoples swords and then ship them via Fedex when I landed etc. However that "trip" costs about 28k. You would have to bring back ALOT of swords to offset that cost. :-)

Alan, as I said before there are varying levels of quality in Juyo swords. Your comment and example of buying Juyo Ichimonji blades in Japan for less than 50k, is a bit irrelevant. There are ones on US sites for less than 50k as well. You cannot assign a value to a blade purely based on the paper it has gotten. Even if we take the "juyo Ichimonji example" you gave, there are some that are worth 40k and some that are worth 200k. It all depends on the work, condition, and rarity. In reference to your going back to my statement about the 15k juyo, that is absolutely the lower end of the spectrum in this hobby for juyo blades regardless of where they are being sold. There is a reason blades like this are priced as such, and the reason is that the market does not justify a higher price. You can bet that anyone especially a very successful dealer in Japan would not sell a sword that is worth 100k for 15k just to get the sale etc... Ask other folks that buy the higher class swords and they will tell you the same. BTW I kind of hate that we have gotten off on a bit of a tangent regarding a notice by Tsuruta San as my comments are broader in nature to the overall market and all dealers, certainly not focused on his shop or merchandise.

My 3 others arrived today via EMS. interesting new sticker on label on them though about them containing dangerous weapons. Seriously.

I got one from Japan To USA via Fedex this week so appear to have been very lucky. I have 3 others that are in transit although not sure what service they are being shipped with at present.

For a wonderful juyo sword you are likely going to be spending 2-3 times that amount. For a masterwork you could spend 10 times that number or more. Take a look around at other websites etc and you will see. It is certainly a gut check moment when you consider spending more on a sword than you did your first home.

Steven M, unfortunately your thoughts about the 15k sword are what I am talking about in regards to one of the barriers of entry in this hobby. Also just an FYI for you a 15k Juyo is probably one that you don't want to own. There are varying levels of quality even in Juyo swords and that is the bottom of the barrel so to speak.

Paulb, you are 100% correct, sorry for the mis-statement there.

Barry, I received a Juyo blade that I got while in Japan at the DTI yesterday via Fedex. Hope that is not an anomaly as I am expecting 3 more.....

Grey I think you may have missed my point. I also agree with you that money will seek out and acquire quality in all fields, in fact I said something very similar in my post. The issue I see is that the universe of qualified and ready buyers is shrinking due to them getting older and the number of new students not outpacing the ones who are exiting. Look around at the sword shows, we are not as many getting younger students, and we are all getting older. I am 41 and am in the younger crowd in the room. Looking at us where we used to support many shows nationwide we struggle a bit supporting 3. Since I know you are involved, how many folks are in the JSSUS now compared to 15 years ago? Could not agree more with you Jean that these are works of art not pebbles but to the example of the paintings as well: most everyone has an oil painting in their home, but a minute fraction of that number has a Japanese sword. Same can be said for any niche hobby.

There must be a market for such things in order for prices to remain high as well though. Hate to say this but scholarship for Japanese Swords is in serious trouble based on years past. We are not bringing sword students into the hobby and people are exiting the hobby faster than being replenished. In addition your comment about veterans also holds true here as well. The old days of being able to get into the sword game for little money and finding a treasure are going away. This is a very expensive hobby that takes years of study to get to a level where one should be knowledgeable enough to buy. Although it may be argued many young folks don't have the patience for this type of study for a hobby. In addition, this hobby at its purest form is a very expensive proposition that exclude so many young people from become true students. Which causes them to buy without knowledge, get stung on a purchase, then swiftly exit front he hobby because they were "taken advantage of". Do not get me wrong I still think there will be a market for the best of the best of items (as there is in all hobbies) but the universe of people buying them will become smaller and smaller creating a buyers market. Just my .02

Since they did away with their Japanese art department a few years ago this surprises me a bit. In fact many of the people that are at Bonhams now came from that department. It seems their prices are reflective of when they exited the business a few years ago. I imagine there will be some disappointed parties on the other end of this sale in regards to what sells for what price etc.