Bugyotsuji

Stephen, does the brightness bother you? I really like it, and am planning to enjoy it for a few days, hehehe Might as well enjoy it while you have it!

Hmmm... well, there is something! Thanks for the link.

Dunno, Stephen. I could wait for it to go dark green like the other one... brass goes dull pretty quickly, doesn't it? Gold to smoky gold to bright green to dull red to dull green. Might take a century or two, though. :lol:

The Momoyama wheel Tsuba on p.2 of this thread has been 'refurbished'. Someone (a previous owner) had taken a file to it and zealously removed the rust, but this rough & ready removal process had also taken off most of the patina and much of the iron Ji and the Shinchu Zougan. The marks of the file could still be seen here and there. A collector friend asked me if I would mind lending it to him as the sight of it offended his sensibilities. A week later and here it is. First Impressions: 1. The remaining Zougan looks brighter. 2. The iron looks darker. 3. The Tsuba feels very soft and smooth to the touch. In the phone call of Sunday he said the rust needed to grow a bit more so could I wait a few more days? Today he called to say that it was ready. I don't think that the Shinchu is actually any brighter, but the loss of the bright shine of the exposed iron has increased the contrast between the dark rust patina Ji and the remaining Shinchu Zougan. It looks a lot better, IMHO. He smoothed off the surface file marks so that now it also feels a lot better between the fingers.

Awright already folks! Here she is with her extra bit replacement in Shinchu, hot off the workbench. (Usual apologies over photo quality.)

Interesting that in the States there's no duty if it's old, whereas in Europe there's a heavier duty for 'old' stuff! Malcolm, I am not sure if Sanada Himo is what they gave me. Look at the picture and see. In the meantime I will ask on my next trip!

For Malcolm. The wife doesn't like the Teppo-bako so it serves as a compromise. Body 130 cm long, or 133cm if overlapping lid measured overall. Total 38.5 cm high, and body 32 cm wide (34.5 if lid measured). As I remember there is some brush writing underneath attesting to being a gun box, with a Keio date putting it right on the end of Edo. The box is quite battered, but retains the iron rings for carrying from a long pole. PS Went round to the sword & gun shop today and showed them the Katana box, hoping for advice on how to tie it up. They pulled out a roll of flat grey-green obi ribbon and whipped up something exactly suitable. The Banto looked long and hard at the box inside and out and then pronounced, "Quite an old box." I said that it might be Edo. "Certainly Edo, yes, of course, but kanari noborimasu", he said, "judging by the worm damage etc." He seemed to be suggesting very early Edo or even older. "It's made of Kiri" (Paulownia wood) Then he rather wistfully added, "Of course it's not worth much. Too big. No-one has the room for this sort of thing nowadays. Maybe worth 10,000 JPY". I imagined it getting trashed from lack of a willing owner and quickly said that I will be giving it a home. Now, how to keep the wife happy? Get rid of the Teppo-bako, and replace with smaller (!) Katana-bako?

John, yours is really nice, and ideally that is what I have been wanting.

Hi Malcolm, yes, all the 5 dividers move and there are three sets of slide guides. The central solid double-viaduct one could go at one end. The others are interchangeable. It's surprisingly large, nearly as big as my Teppo-bako. Stephen suggested it could be used for Futon!!! :lol: 126cm long, 34cm high and 26cm from front to back.

Have you been drinking the spice? You have just read my mind! AAAaarrrggghhhh... no escape! Funnily enough, I shut it earlier and bound it through the holes with something (un)suitable, and it locked itself. Had a sweaty moment! You are not going to believe this, but another acquaintance is a traditional locksmith and made a replacement set of 'old' keys for my Edo Period ship's strongbox. You have just given me an idea... Okay, okay, so you don't have to stretch your belief, here are the keys he made. Nothing much to look at, but I was real pleased to see what was actually possible in this life!!!

And here she is a couple of hours later:

You have a way with words, Stephen. Here are the before shots:

Lots to report from the last two or three days, But allow me to post something simple. Up in the hills this afternoon, dropped by a little roadside market which has a junk corner in an annex outside. Occasionally the owner has something interesting hidden in the cobwebs, and today I noticed a fairly large Katana-bako which I had not seen before. It was covered in dust, all the metal fittings were heavily rusted, and it was full of woodworm holes, but it looked as though it could be cleaned up. A quick haggle and it was mine, much to my wife's horror, as I lugged it over and stuffed it into the car. What a fine way to spend a Sunday arvo. In the sunshine a bit of restoring soon got me warmed up. First I opened up the lid and tipped out the contents, which included piles of dust, some bills and old stamped letters from the Taisho Period, and a section of wall-to-wall Washi paper along the bottom which proved to be reusable. Pulled out the five bridges. Banged the whole thing with a rubber hammer to wake the woodwormies up from their hibernation and also to give me saw-dusty holes to aim at. Fired long bursts of insecticide into all the worm holes. Wire-brushed the rust off the lock, the metal hinges and reinforcements. Squirted rust preventer all over the metal fittings and rubbed down. Finally used a little olive oil on all the wood and metal surfaces to bring back some colour/color. Been wanting a Katana-bako for some time, but they don't often come up, and when they do the price is never quite what I had in mind. Will post pics if anyone wants to see a few before and after shots.

Having sent this tsuba for refurbishment I had a call to say it is ready. The missing Hitsu-ana strip has been replaced. (The other tsuba is a large Heian-jo wheel tsuba which had been badly damaged by someone with a rough file in an attempt to remove rust and dirt. Much of the Shinchu zougan was removed; the steel was showing brightly and scores/scratches ran across both faces of the tsuba. This one is not ready yet. See jpegs 842 & 843 in the middle of this page. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2499&start=15 When it is, I should be going to collect them both, probably early next week.)

Carmen says: "Box is of suitable (exceptional) quality." It looks like a regular Tsuba box to me...

By a stretch of the imagination it could be a stamp or seal based on a Kanji but elaborated. The character for king was 王 and if he held a precious stone in his hand the character showed king + stone = 玉　meaning a precious stone, or jade, and if you add more of those dots you could end up with a king holding four precious stones, and it would have some meaning to yourself and might be a recognizable mark for an artist, for example! Just playing with ideas here... ***** On the subject of this week's Edo Period corner (not the translation section here) I was offered something quite special yesterday. It is a set of Ko-te and Sune-ate, but of exquisite quality, the sort of work you would only ever see in a museum. It was way over my budget, but a fraction of what they would have cost in better times. It started me wondering what is happening now with this high yen and people losing their jobs. Is the old pool of customers flush with cash drying up, at the same time as foreigners are losing interest over the exchange rates? Could it be that the dealers are being forced to let go of better material in order to try and scrape back some of their outlay, in the need for ready cash?

Except that Ludolf has kept the patina intact!

Do-te has the original meaning of defensive man-made (river/fortification) bank, as I am sure you are all aware. An apt word to describe what we are looking at.

If you read Nobody's link you can find out that it has to be younger than WWII, and commemorates fighting between the Nationalist Chinese based on Taiwan, and the Communist Chinese based on the mainland. It looks like a souvenir of the fortress there, probably produced over a number of years in the 1950's, 60', 70's, 80's and so on. The object is probably made in Taiwan, so Taiwanese, although the mainland Chinese people would object to calling it this. The writing itself is not really Taiwanese, but more correctly traditional 'Chinese'.

Can't quite follow the problem with the Mekugi-ana. I've looked at the photos in your link to the Naginata. Does the ana have lead(?) soldered around it on one side only??? Possibly someone tried to reduce the size of the hole with readily available lead which, predictably, has been too malleable. If the blade does not drop properly into the haft, there may be rust at the bottom of the receiving hole inside the haft. There is also the possibility that your pole and your blade were never an item, which would explain why the size of the hole(s) do not match the Mekugi-ana. If you wish to make them fit, you or someone who knows his oats will almost certainly have to make a larger hole on one side and a suitable Mekugi for an aesthetic and practical solution.

In your kizu file, Stephen, I notice that c. on that list is given as Karasuguchi.

From previous comments of mine you will know that I know very lttle about Tsuba, but I do hope to learn, bit by bit. Thanks for offering us all this learning experience. :lol: This tsuba looks quite rugged, and a little cluttered, or 'busy'. The thickness of the hammered mimi suggests practicality. The decoration moves it later in history. Are we looking at late Muromachi, or early to mid Edo? The square Hitsu-ana is unusual, as is the fact that it is filled. It looks vaguely like a book! Finally, a personal comment. I like what I see so far. I stand ready to be corrected at any moment. PS What does the reverse look like? What does the edge of the mimi look like? How do the walls of the cuts present themselves?

Thanks for the link John. Personally I won't be creating from scratch, although I may adapt. Antique fairs tend to have stalls with boxes full of odds and bits. Philip, I remember being in East Africa as a teenager how it was an insult to call people by animal names like that! I'll have to keep 'gamhoussah' (Arabic?) in reserve for a rainy day!!! PS To answer your question on the Koshirae more fully. People seem to be agreed that it is Higo work throughout. The bashin is on the wrong side, however. It should be on the outside. The extant slot is for a Kozuka, which should be on the inside when worn. The bashin is indeed Higo, but was never originally for this Saya. The Kozuka slot is very narrow, however, making it hard to find a suitable replacement. The present bashin is reckoned to be a good stop-gap solution! My remaining project would be to find a suitable small Kozuka and a nice little tsuba, at a reasonable price, naturellement... :lol:

Yes, thanks Philip, I am very pleased with the result. For the time being the Tsuba looks OK and I will keep a long-range weather eye out for something better in due course. As I mentioned earlier, my friend reckons it could well have been water buffalo, which is very perishable and often gets eaten by ... something. (I wonder what it is exactly that eats the buffalo horn?)

I have changed the piccies above, and here are the last 4 before I hit the sack. Held my hand super steady this time! :lol: (Not had time to get tired of it yet, Stephen! LOL)