Curran

HI Ron, PM sent.

It's alright Mr. Dangerfield. [aside: I wish he had lived long enough to legally light up with Snoop Dog in Rockefeller Center. Hard to believe the SNL staffers would complain about his smoking habit.]

Rather common. Somewhere I have a photo of all the tsuba that one of the Tiffany family nailed all willy nilly around his big hearth. Since this is a soft-metal tsuba, the holes can be made whole rather easy by many a bench smith. The end result could be quite pleasant. These holes don't bother me that much, but some of the WWII era cuts in iron tsuba for mounting on gunto koshirae- some of those kill me. Ex. Clip cut on an otherwise great 1500s Kanayama tsuba.

I think he knew the jig was up. I woke up this morning to find he had cancelled and refunded the money. He put in the Note that "Buyer asked to Cancel". That is not right. In our correspondence via -ebay-, I did not. I will try and buy the item in Japan. After that auction ends, I will return to defenestration of him. Eye for an Eye, Tooth for a Tooth- I will pursue him for a while and invite others to report him with me. I will make it easy by providing any necessary links. His listings are all pretty much lifted photos from Japan, and it is easy to image search track many of them down.

That is what I had read in public published answers. 'Reporting' is useless these days, unless it is something where eBay is financially the direct victim. If anyone has better ideas than Canceling and Reporting him, I welcome the insights either in public here or in PM. The auction ends in some time next week, and I think the shite_wit believes he can string me along until then. Unless I become aware of other appropriate tactics, I will give it 48 hours and then just Cancel.

Well, I've largely managed to avoid these guys for years- but I ended up purchasing from one. Later, I realized the item is at auction elsewhere and a fair chance it sells there. In the vain hope that it was listed by the same person, I asked him to pull the other auction. After several evasive responses to questions such: (1) do you have the item? (2) when can you ship it? It has become very clear that he doesn't own the item. He keeps asking me if I want to Cancel the Transaction? I assume this is to avoid fees, and avoid negative feedback when he later says he doesn't have the item. Any eBay veterans have advice?

Great list of analysis by Fred. Listen to him and Mark in Orlando for Akasaka. I sometimes regret that I only own one. I am trying to rectify that by having bought another last night. Love #4 on the list. I sometimes forget about the cant of the nakago ana and the kogai ana.

NBTHK would probably say Akasaka. To me. the carving of the ume reminds me of Hayashi work. See attached detail photo and compare/contrast. So it comes down to a coin toss between the two won by study of the iron. But the NBTHK would probably go to Akasaka.

The attribution is on the other side of the papers, but I can see from the ink through the paper that it does say Kodai Hoan. Given that there were many many generations, I personally interpret kodai Hoan to mean anything after the 3rd gen. That Kodai thing varies from school to school, and one way of interpreting it is to say "we don't know, but not the early guys". One of the generations was a bit of a troublemaker and got the family demoted from making tsuba. They had a long history as ironworkers, I think for boats and such? Probably the only bit of help I can give is that the fill in of the sukashi with gold was probably done later. With this design of tsuba, it seems to have been a popular thing. I have seen them filled in with gold, silver, yamagane, shakudo. This is one of the cleaner examples that I remember. That many fillings, and one or two tend to get knocked out. Whatever f/k you chose, I would recommend iron. Whether or not any gold on the f/k is up to you. Ones like Fords being iron with gold shitodome is probably the direction I would personally go, though it might be a bit too symetric for the Japanese asmyetric mindset. Curran

As Tom said, Nicely Done. 21st Century style display that many people can find what interests them, engage them in relations to celebrities or people they might know about. And you had me at Gassan Ichiro. I have been a few times now surprised by 21st century works from the Gassan students. Thank you for posting this. It is a great read after work today.

Raymond, Thank you for letting us know. This is another important person lost. He was one of the first names I came to know when entering this field. Curran

One of the books I don't have.

Given some of the wear pattern and appearance, I had considered some sort of powdered gold in urushi application. The problem is that could have been done at any time. Just to educate myself a little bit, I have worked with urushi before- more along the line of fountain pen work. That is far from enough to have an educated opinion about antique urushi work, and certainly not anything to base opinions about older lacquerwork. When it comes to the old lacquer, - ?ask an expert in Nara? I've been interested in some Ko-Nara tsuba work, as Mr. Sesko wrote/translated was classified as the workmanship of temple ornament and implement makers. It definitely has a different feel to it and pretty much seems to have disappeared by the late 1600s, eclipsed by what we know as Nara work. When I see something usual with a degree of bling to it, yet looking old.... I think to look towards the people that worked in the Nara area. [Please forgive the open thoughts just thrown up here stream of consciousness style, -it is busy at work and I am typing this in between various whack-a-mole type small jobs.].

I didn't see this post until now. The blunt truth is I don't know. My first instinct is that it is probably older than it looks and I'd have to send you to one of the guys like Boris M. that have a lot more experience than me with the much earlier stuff. Then again, I could be totally wrong. Still, first instinct is older. If Korean, then it falls into the older than the things I know category. If Chinese, gotta ask someone else.

I prefer "can opener", for when I misplace our Swing-A-Way. ~Bonus points for anyone who knows what a Swing-A-Way is and why you will only need one in your lifetime.