Bugyotsuji

This Kunishige smith was one of about 40, it is thought, not all of whom are recorded. I guess that includes the female smith, Onna Kunishige, mentioned on another thread here. I have a Long-hafted (12 feet), short-tipped (7 cm), Sei-sankanku (equilateral triangular cross-section) spear, nakago signed "Yamashiro no Kami Kunishige" which some time ago I tried to research but "not Mizuta, probably Musashi" is as far as I got.

Sadly the Jinja has no permanent on-site resident any more, and several things have been stolen. There is a lady at another shrine who is now now responsible for both, but the responsibility is too much for one person.

Taken with the regular camera before the opening speech. (30 years ago there were no chips in the blade, apparently...)

Apologies, the iPhone photos think they know better... Heel! Heel! Grrr.... Hardly worth it now if the pc is going to mess around, but here is an oshigata of a previous project some years ago of a beautiful Henmi Toyo HonoTo, just before he switched professions.

There are actually two more swords at the Jinja, Daisho by Sukekuni. (The katana was displayed beneath the Kunishige yesterday.)

Went to the kick-off of this project today. Quite a bit of interest from the general public, and the money they were hoping for has already been pledged. Got some before shots of the Hono To, plus another brother (shorter) blade which is also wagging its tail. Will post shortly.

Went back for another look today as they are changing the swords this very evening for the start of the second half. Very few people there so I was able to concentrate a little more this time. The spelling boo boos are not a problem if you are not a grammar Nazi and you have a forgiving heart. They result from various causes, including probably predictive texting, and an ability to slip through spell checkers. Off the top of my head, one panel said that Togo Heihachiro's Yasufusa steel is blight. One of the Nagamitsu blades had a flamboyant human. 宗吉 in English was Munetoshi in the first line of para 2, and Munyoshi in the 5th line. One suriage tachi mei was folded around and described as having been placed in a special flame.

Steve, absolutely agreed. The problem for me though regarding this particular exhibition is that officially I am the one who did the translation! Did someone have to copy/type out the captions manually and in a rush at some point in the process, I find myself wondering?

PS The shop at Osafune Sword Museum ordered 50 copies of the illustrated catalog, which have now nearly sold out, so they have ordered in another 60, according to word on the ground. PPS Re-reading the English captions at the exhibition I found several examples of odd English. How did those creep in, I wondered?

Went to see this yesterday for the first time. "Upstairs you should start at the right and move round", they told me. "In historical order." Everyone upstairs was intuitively flowing the other way round, breaking my concentration. Stuff this, I thought. Is it just me or do others feel more regarding a sword that is known to have taken part in some famous event in history? Perhaps it is my lack of serious study that goes for the easy cop-out? For example, there was the actual Yoshifusa that Admiral Togo Heihachiro wore on the top deck of the Mikasa during his epic battle against the Russian fleet in the Tsushima Strait in 1905. And here was an Ichimonji, given by Oda Nobunaga to Okudaira Nobumasa in thanks for defending Nagashino Castle against the hugely superior forces of Takeda Katsuyori in 1575. How about this Naritaka Tachi bestowed with gratitude by Minamoto no Yoritomo upon Sawara Yoshitsura for leading his supporting cavalry charge down the 'impossible' cliffs at Ichi-no-Tani in 1184? Since the second part of the exhibition will be introduced next Friday I am planning to go again on a regular weekday before that, and look more deeply into those blades. Yesterday (Saturday) there were just too many people, headed the 'wrong' way round, although they said it had been quiet in the morning.

In the West. Collections are left to museums in people's wills and lie untouched because there may be no person qualified to decide what to do with them. Years and years of records pile up, higgledy piggledy, and new staff move in and out, and it's no wonder that there is no-one all-round enough with the power or the will to sort it all out. There are drawers of tsuba at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge that no-one has sorted, and at the Ashmolean in Oxford there is the amazing Church collection of Ojime that a friend and I looked at last year for the first time in anyone's living memory.

Rick, it will go to the Bizen Osafune Sword Museum, or possibly to the Prefectural Museum in Okayama City. (I know that the Osafune storeroom is required to be kept at a constant temperature and humidity. Swords that they bring out for lectures, conferences etc., appear to be in pristine condition.) Whether the 1,000,000 JPY is solely for the polishing or goes partly to the shrine as compensation, I do not know, but for the sake of future generations the shrine in such a deal agrees to let the sword be preserved and maintained elsewhere.

Ken, many thanks. They were explicit that they cannot take donations from abroad. (Perhaps it is related to why PayPal in Japan for example cannot accept foreign currency payments?) The basic level of support was 3,000 JPY for your name in the book. For a 5,000+ JPY donation people will at some point get the oshigata, apparently.

Ah, yes, but how do you get those long 'o's?

Thanks Greg. (Just found out that this project will be going online with before and after shots.) John, Hono + to, give no indication that they are all long vowels. Hohnoh toh...? Hounou tou?

PS When I posted the new topic, 奉納刀　Ho- had a capital letter, but the site has reduced it to lower case...!

A new project is now afoot to restore one long sword which was dedicated to a shrine 370 years ago. The blade in question is by Hachirozaemon Kunishige, dated Kan-ei 18, kept in a split saya in very rusty condition at the Takaoka Jinja in Maniwa-Shi, Okayama. Only two swords of this Hachirozaemon smith are known and this is one. The plan is to ask for public support to fund the polishing and eventual display in a museum. Half of the money has been raised from members of the local sword study groups, and the rest, another 500,000 JPY will go to net cloud filing, donated by people throughout Japan. (Not possible to accept money from overseas apparently.) Those who give money will be recorded in a book at the shrine, and above a certain amount people will get an Oshigata. The blade is 137.8 cm long, at a time when the average was around 70 cm. It will be displayed and discussed in rusty condition at a meeting next month, alongside other possible Kunishige candidates, (next popular name in Bizen after Sukesada) and will be polished between June and September, eventually being displayed at Osafune Sword Museum in November of this year. As it would inevitably go rusty again in the keeping of the shrine, the Kan-Nushi has agreed that it will be permanently donated to either of two museums. Such a project was carried out 40 years ago, and another 32 years ago, but this is the first time in more recent history. There are some very high quality swords kept in poor condition in shrines around the country, and someone has to make the effort to start preserving them, is the idea. If possible I will see whether before and after photos can be taken.

Re: Care to guess. Not that I can read it, but does it not look like よ　を　+ kao ?

Neil Davey is still going strong, in charge of Netsuke at Bonhams.

27 million JPY starting price?

It's safer not to understand it.

It is an ad for J Yahoo auction, giving all the reasons why you would be wise to sign up for it. Wouldn't you love to buy something like this cheaply? Sometimes you will get surprisingly good deals, and the payment system is safe and watertight, the author says.

Unfortunately there are some unscrupulous dealers who have spare registration certificates which can prove useful on the odd occasion.

Bazza, this one is about 1830 ~ 1840, but you are asking about the other one he mentioned. (Finally got there, apologies!)

Jean, agreed, it is in pristine condition, good point, but so is the whole gun. I have seen stocks (almost) as clean as this, with little doubt as to the age. There are many corroded and battered guns, but quite a few of the end-of-Edo guns look almost new.