Bugyotsuji

A friend of mine is visiting her sister in the States and has taken pictures of a sword that their father left them. He was in Japan at the end of WWII apparently, and brought this back. They have no knowledge of swords. I had asked her to see if she could take some shots of it. Please add any opinions or comments, positive or negative, but useful if possible, to this thread! Thanks... http://forums.netsuke.org/tool/post/net ... &trail=210

Thanks for that Paul. I enjoyed hearing about your lovely swords, and your write-up gave me needed food for thought!

Well, I am full of admiration. Well done on the purchase, the study, the photography, the recommendation and the write-up! :D

Sounds like you have your head screwed on the right way round, Brian. One of the reasons that I have hesitated to take close-ups of wares is that the stall-holder might feel justified in saying "Are you just going to stand there taking photos, or are you going to buy something?" I suppose you could say something like, "Shashin wo torasete moraemasu ka? Uchi no Kollekushon no tame ni...!"

LOL Stephen, you can't have your cake AND eat it! Let the romance do the rest. I expect Brian will get some close-ups on his trip in a couple of weeks.

Ouch, tell me about it. My salary is soon gone each month, so I have been pulling pounds from the UK, but it's scary how much the GBP has fallen against the Yen... this really affects me. Yesterday I didn't actually buy anything apart from a skein of indigo yarn for 100 yen. The old coin dealer was offering a Hime-koban gold coin for a mere 40,000, but I didn't even feel like reaching for my wallet/billfold. There were some nice Tsuba too, but again I thought, :| and that was it...

Ako Castle was dismantled in punishment for the 47 Ronin's revenge attack on Kira in Edo. Some nice sections of wall still remain with a couple of reconstructed watchtowers around the main gate. There is a shrine dedicated to Oishi Kuranosuke (Oishi Yoshio) within the walls, and the antiques fair is held around the back, alongside the shrine. Always quite popular, depending on the day there may be 40-50 stalls, and people come from allover, including Himeji and Kobe to the East. Quite a few stalls with Nihonto bits and pieces, though no guarantee as to quality! You must know your oats.

Unfortunately despite starting off with great fanfare, few people visit this antiques fair any more and I am afraid it will die a death very soon. Sign of the economic times? Saidaiji.

Well, there you go! I am happy with that. Gold tends to stay shiny, but silver tends to go black and brass red, black or green.

I have seen people habitually rubbing tsuba with their thumbs. This could be acidic, though, and might remove too much of the precious patina. I was advised by a tsuba collector to carry a terry-cloth *cotton towel and rub it gently, me love you long time. * Make sure it is 100% soft cotton and not a mixture of artificial textiles. If you cannot guarantee the purity/content of the cloth, don't bother at all, as the tsuba looks pretty good as it is. NB This is just one person's advice, to be ignored or altered by subsequent readers...

You are all thinking that the corner has gone silent, so this is just to say that I have been carrying my camera recently with me to a couple of local outdoor antiques fairs with some nice background scenery, and plan to post them here very soon. Following on from the Fukuyama Castle Gardens Antiques Fair posted earlier on this thread, you will be able to see the Saidaiji Fair held at the temple site of the Hadaka Matsuri, and a shot or two of the bigger one held in Ako Castle. Watch this space.

Mmmm... that's much better. I like both of them, but the one on the right is quite unusual.

Jacques, maybe the horses could manage little charges or spurts forwards, as in your picture, but surely not prolonged drawn-out classical cavalry charges. Perhaps the heavy Samurai pulled hand-carts (リアーカー "rear carts") with their armour/armor aboard when travelling, and they had a special boy to help them out?

I am probably more ignorant than you are, but since you ask to be pointed in the right direction, I think you should first of all point the Tsuba upwards, not downwards! :lol: (Well, if you look at the designs on them, they are traditionally displayed with the point of the nakago hitsu ana upwards, even though in actual use on a drawn sword they will spend much of their time with the blade and corresponding Tsuba apex pointed downwards.)

OK, well, or even ashigaru to "ashi-omo"!* :lol: What he said was that they were encouraged to go straight for the eyes. Straight through into the brain, I presume. They would rush forward with their heads/helmet visors facing down and thrust upwards with their spears. (Someone also mentioned at a different time that the spear tips were stuck into the ground first and dirtied to encourage festering of the wound, but this could well have been a world-wide practice.) *Thinking about this the other day. We get a lot of requests to join Daimyo Gyoretsu parades, but we tend to refuse because walking long distances in full armour/armor kills the back, feet and legs. Imagine wearing a 30 kg suitcase on your back for two hours or more as you wave and blow kisses to the crowd. Not to mention the pistol and long gun you are carrying. The private Samurai would be heavy infantry and must have had support in the form of a groom and horse to carry and help with the equipment; the Ashigaru were light and nimble and could be ordered to run around the battlefield a bit, I imagine.

Hesitating to write this, but something I heard on Saturday changed my thinking on the spear tip hardness/softness issue. We were all standing around at the foot of the castle walls waiting to be called for the matchlock display, and admiring each other's armor/armour, as one does in such situations. A chap called Kurimoto from Shikoku was saying that after the advent of guns on the battlefield, the largest number of wounds and injuries was from musket bullets, followed by spear thrusts. Katana cuts and arrow wounds followed but were in the minority, he was saying. He then asked where we thought was the weakest point in Japanese armor/armour, ie where the troops went for with their spears?

This is a Nihonto forum, but it is very rare that I post about Nihonto because I have a) not much knowledge yet and b) no real collection like some of you. I also do not buy and sell Nihonto, unlike some of the members, so I have to confine myself to trying to work out the bigger picture with what I have, relying hopefully on the members for precious drops of wisdom. I know a lot more about this Tanto and my Katana now than I did when I bought them. Perhaps they have been training blades for me. I am glad you like this one, Carlo.

I don't know who said it first, but Churchill used the expression. "After your victory, buckle (tie) your helmet on firmer." I DO know however, who said it last.... ... ... ME! "After your victory, buckle (tie) your helmet on firmer."

Why, thank you sir! :lol: As requested, some (very) amateur shots at last of: The original Koshirae with new Tsunagi blade. The new shirasaya and blade with refurbished Habaki. The white silk bag.

The Tanto came back today. My sensei says that from the style of the blade and Nakago, and judging what smith would be allowed to be in contact with a Daimyo, he reckons that as a 藩工 it must be 固山 宗次 Katayama Munetsugu, who went from Bizen to Uwajima in Iyo. He is listed with Juyo Wakizashi and Katana. The Tanto was displayed at the Autumn NBTHK Ken Shibu Bunkai Meitou-Ten at the end of September, a first for me. Surrounded by wonderful Koto, Shinto, Shinshinto, Gendaito and some Koshiki-ju. It has always been in Koshirae, which made it difficult for him to display the Koshirae once the blade was extracted. He said he could arrange for a Shirasaya and a Tsunagi, so I ordered both. They are beautifully done. As a bonus he made the gold habaki as new again, completely erasing the unsightly dent/ripple in the middle where it must have at some time caught on the edge of the koi-kuchi. And the shirasaya comes in a splendid new bag. All for the price of a meal in London for two! The quality of the work made me catch my breath.

Well, we opened the Momo Taro Autumn Festival today http://www.sanyo.oni.co.jp/sanyonews/20 ... 14029.html It was the first time in the 'new' black lacquer Iyo-zane armor/armour and quite a few people came to say nice things about it. (Pity about the person inside, though...) I had managed to extend strings, etc, so that everything fitted and looked fairly OK. The spikes on the Kote were pretty popular as no-one had seen anything like it. At first I was quite tense with the Sode constantly sliding forward, and worried that something would break or split, but after an hour or so, it all started to feel quite comfortable around me. Confidence is born! The Tanto came back from the September exhibition with a new tsunagi for the koshirae, a new shirasaya for the blade and a smart white cover bag. Our NBTHK sensei also happens to be a shirogane-shi habaki maker; he had fixed the damage to the gold surface which had rippled where some previous idiot owner must have shut the Tanto carelessly. He also did some independent research about which Katana-kaji would have helped with the blade and made an interesting discovery which I will explain on the other thread.

Amazing stuff! And the women had blue lipstick!!!

Guido, just occasionally you say exactly the right thing!!!

Now I am not sure of anything any more.... :? Note to self: Keep my mouth Akitombo, go with Nobody's reading above, please.

At a glance it looks like but I am not sure about the second Kanji.