Curran

Amit, Consider joining or visiting the NYC Metro Japanese Sword Club. On the right day, a member can teach you much about Mino Seki while looking at your blade. I don't know who is currently running the club. I am no longer in NYC. Usually the club meets once per month in a building at Times Square. Bring your Wak, but be sure to bring the papers and have it bagged if going on the subway. The police do consider it a live weapon. Ps. Cool girlfriend. I love my wife very much, but she has never so much as bought me a pair of menuki.

Chinese Zodiac Rat and all the associations of saver, happy home, cleverness, etc. Late Edo, well done nanako. I had a pair of puppy menuki executed and finished very similar to your rat menuki. I never identified the school, but they were pleasant little things. I sold them in Tampa one year. I'd expected to see more like them over time, but rarely do. As for "just liking what you like". You start out that way, get into schools and knowing all sorts of things about various makers, but eventually you go far enough down the road that you come back to "just liking what you like". While I own a few big name pieces, half of what I own are mumei pieces I just like for reasons of color, shape, size, or design. One is shaped like a go-stone and highly polished. Another is a very large ko-kinko flower tsuba with a lot of color to it. Pete Klein probably has one shaped like a 1000 year old tea-cup.

Not Oei Yasumitsu. Does not look Oei Bizen.

http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/17814-tampa-sword-show/ It is half way between me and the Tampa Sword Show. The Ringling is also an interesting museum, there on the Sarasota waterfront with its large rose gardens and grounds. It can make for a nice picnic. Easy to make a day of it.

Excellent price on the Satsuma. Someone point Tanobe-san at it. What are the dimensions on the Kanayama?

Guido: I was thinking of one in Tokyo and the other I believe is near Osaka. Probably I could add a third in Tokyo, though the son is a bit more open than the father. As usual, Darcy's points are spot on. Painfully so, and I wish I could say I'd never broken any of them. Lessons learned by me, and I have tried to be patient with others as they evolve too. ---> Darcy has been patient with a lot of us nimrods over the years. It is fun to watch him operate at the DTI, but he is quite busy while most of us are more on the tourist side of things. As per Guido's story with the bunkazai Norishige: yes, many of us know our level. It has been great when a few collectors and dealers have let me be part of something much beyond what I could afford or otherwise access. They know it, and I know it: yet they still share. Also, in two instances in Japan, it has only been through a friend [both members here on NMB] that I've been able to see and handle items otherwise just known of in books. When the guest of someone else and their relationship, extra extra careful to be polite and thankful to the host yet due respect and place to the primary relationship between the host and the person he invited.

Did I? Where? I know I am getting a little senile. I totally understand Pietro's opinion, as I came into this hobby and there were (and still are a few) guys who claimed they were the keys to the Gates of Heaven of Japan because of their connections. Two decades later, the truth is somewhere in the middle. One or two really could open doors, though many were blowhards. Pietro said, "I would be willing to bet that if you walked confidently into any shop in Tokyo with the determination to procure a high end sword, then you would be welcomed to view anything they had for sale." Ah... No. _Mostly true... but not true. True of places like Ginza Choshuya, but not true for others. I can think of at least two places that won't really open to you just on the basis of money. Reasons vary. I'll add/edit this more later, as am dead tired. I understand Pietro's opinion and largely agreed with it at one point. Now, I disagree with it.

Look at it as 3 characters. Tomo + (?) + a Kao [maker's mark] Off the top of my head, don't know what is the 2nd character. Steve or Markus [the Wunderkinderen] will probably nail it down before I even finish typing this.

At DTI: Juyos are a dime a dozen and yes, most will let you handle them no problem. A few are Xenophobic. It quickly falls away at the Toku Juyo level. Those, you look at under glass unless you are with someone known and they OK you. When you get into the vault level Toku Juyo and beyond, then you better have a proven track record of knowledge, appreciation, commitment, and conviction (to be a buyer).

Mmh, different opinion on that Brian. Even at the DTI- as a non-Japanese: you're Japanese better be very good or you have to be someone known to get to see and handle these. Don't get me wrong: some are quite open and even a little polite Japanese language goes a long way. Just.... much much better to be Darcy when trying to get access to this level of blade.

Taking a break from work visiting some of the major dealer sites. I don't know when he posted it, but came across Darcy's Rai Kuniyuki http://nihonto.ca/rai-kuniyuki-2/ Wow, that is a healthy old blade with enough nie to sand up a Bermuda or Florida beach.

Looks to me like Kampei too. Nidai Kanshiro's younger brother, and he did often sign on the back of tsuba. A fair bit of gimei's of Kampei's signature exist for various reasons. He was a good signature to add to mumei pieces if you wanted to up the value of a Higo piece. Yet, like I said, one of his particular quirks was he often signed on the backside and has been known to date a few of his pieces since he lived a long life into the early 1700s. So it could be legit. I wouldn't venture an opinion, since I cannot see it well enough. Interesting though, as it looks much more Hayashi. But it isn't as if the Higo boys didn't borrow designs from each other all the time.

Hayashi design of Fishnet. More of a Hayashi->Kamiyoshi seppa dai shape. [Kamiyoshi assumed the Hayashi school] I cannot read the supposed signature. It looks more kodai Higo to me, but tell us what the signature says?

Well, remember that we could be wrong. Sado Island has a very interesting history. I don't know how the tsuba evolved, but they have a very distinct feel to them. Masculine, often a bit 'heavy' or thick of appearance. Usually a refined iron with dark patina. Simpler yet strong designs. Easy to imagine the needs of the island's maritime and mining influence on those who made them. I haven't handled many. Yet the NBTHK is very consistent in labeling certain tsuba as 'Sado'. My personal opinion is strongly that it is Sado.

I too thought Sado, at first glance.

Thank you for updating on this over the years. It has been a touchstone and rolemodel for how I would ultimately like to have displayed my much smaller collection. I wish life was such that I could attend these displays in person. Thank you for the photographs.

Grev, I've caught a few kanji errors in Haynes before. Given the over 12,000 smiths he recorded- a few oops pop up on minor artists. As to this being an unrecorded artist: it might be, though skill level of the carving is very high. Might be an alternate name, or read differently, or ? Uwe- your guess is as good or better than mine. This one totally stumped me. As Steve guided us, hard to know how this one is pronounced vs how it was recorded. I have this one on the side-desk to try and tackle more this weekend. It will eventually go up for sale, but I'm more hooked by the challenge of figuring it out first. What is the point of having all of these books if I don't exhaust them first?

Well said Markus. Many of you knew him better than I did, and I wish I had gotten to know him earlier in my adventures upon this field.

Thank you gentlemen. This was certainly beyond my ability. There is no way I would have gotten 'Nari'. I did not know the way for writing Saito, but then I've always been surprised that some of the more common names like 'Watanabe' have quite a number of strokes to them. I'll cross my books as much as possible and see if I can find any match. As John said, it does seem rather unusual name for a Bushu work. With all the Art Nouveau - Durgin Iris feel to it, it seems classically Bushu or Bushu Ito. The signature: rather atypical than the usual Bushu Ito 'Masa____' line.

Moriyama-san, あけましておめでとうございます - Happy New Year Today was 12 hours of rain, so no more photographs. I put the tsuba under magnification and drew the signature. I know the first character looks strange [wide spread in spacing], but that is very very near to how it is on the tsuba. I greatly appreciate the help, as this one has me befuddled.

We traded jokes in Italian & German humor at the Tampa show. I got to know him through a shared sense of humor, and missed the banter when he did not attend Tampa. We would also talk about fittings, and I knew him by reputation to be a great kantei expert of nihonto. I am very sad to know he has left, but one of his last jokes was appropriate for saying goodbye and a good way to remember him. Thank you for letting us know.

Yes, our old Canon Sureshot has its good and bad days. Stephen, I actually was just working on updating the smart phone since ours is a few years old. --- I was trying to figure out the two characters and totally stumped by the first one. Looking at the second character under magnification, it just a sort of a double cross-bar H with some hook at top and bottom. ----Then I just happened to look up at the Chinese painting above our fireplace that we've had for 20 years. "Lotus and Kingifisher" 1930 by artist Xie Yuemei.... Same double cross-bar H as in her signature 'Yuemei'. The Kiyo character is correct, but how to read 月清 in any way that makes sense or is a recorded artist hasn't come up yet. I will draw and scan in the first character, as it is an odd one and drawing it in Jisho.org provided no direct hits.

Steve M, As always, thanks for your help. I will try with photos again later, though the dark-n-cloudy day does not bode well. I'd considered 月, but the character is odd in that it doesn't seem to have the top stroke and looks more like an H with two crossbars. That turns up nothing on Jisho.org, nor does drawing the character above it.

None that I know about. Been waiting a decade for someone to pick up that role, and considered bringing one of the Japanese to the states for a while. It is so difficult now to move tsuba above the 200,000 yen in and out of Japan *legally*. Sending a dozen just for fitted boxes can be a royal pain in the neck. The general opinion is carry them yourself next time you go and drop them off with one of the gents there. I've never actually managed to do that.

I've owned and had this tsuba on display a very long time. I must shameface admit I do not remember the signature. Second to last is simple, but seems incomplete. It isn't Akikiyo, or Harukiyo. Not sure how to read it. Help is greatly appreciated.