Curran

I've been too busy with work and grad school to do more than barely lurk, but cannot stay away. Nidai Kanshiro: As Antti said, surprisingly good nidai Kanshiro at a fair price. Bargain price since current NBTHK doesn't seem able to paper Kanshiro at the moment. Some Japanese dealers furious with them, and you know it is bad if they are willing to talk trash w/ westerners. I just saw one in GinzaChoshuya with recent 'Higo' papers and tried not to laugh (feel sorry for the dealer). Maybe Ito-san should start issuing papers. The Owari: I don't know. Top ones exponentially go up in price, but the first time I saw this link before they corrected it- I don't believe it had the 1 million in front of it. I'm not joking. It says Momoyama on it, so I don't know any better than anyone else. I'd expect this in the 550,000 to 750,000 yen range. So the price on this one has been a mystery to me too.

Nobukuni. Probably one of the three Oei Nobukuni. The Philadelphia Club's Binder has good information about them. Harry Watson would sell them, if he still does. I don't know who else carried them, and my copy is in storage at the moment. Oei Nobukuni O-tanto tend to be nice. Hopefully this one will restore without any loose jigane. Here is one with a bit of a heavy markup price: http://www.seiyudo.com/ta-030315.htm Fred (nihonto.com) also had a nice one and then that Juyo one. I've only seen two Juyo Oei Nobukuni before.

urge to show this guy top level stuff in person and watch the reaction. (a) Look at this replica. (b) Now look at this Tokubetsu Juyo Ichimonji. Or is it better to progress with Hozon, then Toku Hozon, then Juyo, then Toku Juyo. Jumping 4 orders of magnitude from Junk to Best too much? We all start somewhere. For me, it was a simple Choshu tsuba in 1992.

Brilliant. "Bakelite Dentures". Absolutely inspired touch.

Mishima! That is the name I couldn't remember. I thought it started with an 'M'. I knew one of our more knowledgeable would pop in, so hesitated to post. Koryo celadon slip work, but otherwise very not Korean.

Japanese? I am strongly of the opinion it is not Korean. http://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/203532379

Sorry, that is local speak for "St. Petersburg". Once famous for its elderly population, it has since gentrified into a younger hipper place between Tampa and Sarasota. The Tampa Bay Rays and Tampa Bay Lightening both play in St. Petersburg- not in Tampa. From the Dali Museum to other more Mardi Gras type small carnivals, it has more Art and Party going on. I can easily imagine Pete Klein as mayor of St. Petersburg, but I'm not sure he should or would want to be sanctified.

Other than the Dali Museum south of Tampa [2nd best in the world, but a distant second to Spain], this side of Florida has been relatively devoid of Art. The Tampa Museum is one of the worst I've ever visited. The St. Pete Museum has an odd collection of a few prime pieces by O'Keefe and others. Sarasota has the Ringling Museum, which enjoyed more for its Great Gatsby era grounds than the crazy hit or miss collection where some great works struggle for wall space with some worst examples of well known artists. That we were getting an Asia wing and that it would have anything Japanese- yet alone the Stibbert Museum pieces on loan.... I would have thought it an April Fools Day Joke. But the wing just opened.

Stibbert Museum is loaning to the Ringling Museum of Sarasota for their new Asian wing. The Samurai Exhibit runs from Jan to April, so might be a nice sidetrip for anyone attending the Tampa Sword Show. It is about 35-40minutes from the show, about 1/2 way from were I live to the show. http://www.ringling.org/events/samurai-way-warrior

Luca, I do not know Switzerland's laws about Ivory. (1) In the USA we often get ours from busted up old piano keys [thrift stores, etc]. (2) Knife makers at shows will sometimes sell ivory scraps from the remains of handles made. (3) As a former diver here in Florida, you will sometimes be amazed what other divers have dredged up and store in their gear sheds. In addition to barrels of fossilized megladon teeth, mammoth teeth, bones, etc,- different types of fossilized ivory do come up. I am not close friends with any of the guys who live more underwater than above, but know they make a living selling their finds on eBay- if ebay permits the sale.

Though it has been a long time since I worked on rust removal and TLC of a tsuba, I have a bit of experience there. Some are just very difficult. It varies by age, school, pattern and "type" (a loose term, -I know) of rust. Looking at yours, I figured if for very difficult. I did not think bone would be sufficiently hard. The nature of the design and the pattern of the rust present quite a challenge, but you may learn a lot through doing.

Thank you Ford. I e-copied that and also hardcopied it to a reference I use. What is your opinion of the gold content of Ko-Mino menuki? I have a set that is very bright and 'soft'. Are the pre-Momoyama ones coin gold too? Coloration is different from Edo period menuki of red gold, pale gold, and yellow gold sets I have. I've attached a picture of one, with apologies that I don't have better pictures. Sunlight is making it look a bit more orange. This image appears about twice actual size on my screens. Actual size is very very small at probably just over 2cm in length.

Peter & Pete: http://page17.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/v432097050 Not 100% the same. Scroll through the photos. Some evidence along the menuki edge that they are heavy gold foil over a base. Otherwise I would have thought them (almost)-solid gold. Maximilian: That is the kozuka off their site that I liked. I was not familiar with the artist, and looked him up. The Haynes entry is extensive enough to mention an example with a Kao, as yours has- but Haynes did not record it. Some people showing some nice stuff. I'd not seen James' Tanaka set before, and I remember those interesting poem menuki that George posted. I always wondered what the original koshirae for them was like.

Not quite katana length, but a nice Juyo Morikage up for sale with many of the traits we discussed here and the longer kaeri I was expecting. http://page13.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/r134914118 This was a good kantei offering by Frederick. Thank you.

Maximillian: I don't think anyone here is going to be particularly comfortable or forthcoming with trying to attribute a generation. The NBTHK didn't. Probably in the expanded Wakayama encyclopedia or in a few other texts you might be able to guess a generation. I like those menuki very much and can say the family that sold them to you is a very nice one. I enjoyed talking with them at the last DTI, and intended to buy a tsuba from them until one of our NMB members took me to another place which had something I'd exactly been seeking and not yet found at the DTI.

Gold menuki: Muromachi to Modern All level of blades, though of course expect some correlation between quality of the blade and the quality of the gold menuki. In my very small collection I have 3 sets, but seem not to have taken very good photos of them.

As Brian said, Omori Teruhide is a very famous name. His wave themed designs were very popular. Because of this, there were many imitations of his work with unauthentic signature (90 to 95% are copies. That is just a guess-estimate by me.) Some of the copies are *extremely* good work where many people want to believe the signature is authentic, but NBTHK or NTHK will not verify it as consistent with other authentic signatures. Other copies: varying degrees of quality. Again as Brian said- authentic Omori Teruhide tend to be very expensive: http://www.nihonto.com/5.10.12.html

Que Pink Panther music. In 2014, from a Japanese-American estate I helped sell a (ko) kyo sukashi tsuba of this Hanabishi (sp?) theme. It turned out to have TH papers that were somehow separated from it. Eventually they were rejoined, and I've heard the piece since resold. It was nice to get to study. Very elegant piece and in line with this one from Mariusz supports the idea of Kyo-sukashi and early Owari pieces on the nascence of the Ko-Akasaka works.

Ford: The silver medallions and fukurin of the tachi tsuba are not plated. I'd considered Hakudo, but highly suspect tin. Dirk: very good post. In considering a response to Ford- I was going to post a Tokujo kozuka, but I didn't think it was quite shibuichi as we know it. As for kuro-shibuichi, yes that color description describes the nidai Hirata pieces I was thinking about. I'm not sure I have good enough photos of them, nor do I understand what is "nigurome" that Ford referenced. Time to go look it up. I don't want to sidetrack from the shibuichi discussion, but am curious about the odd alloys of early Higo (Hirata and Nishigaki (Kanshiro)). Edit: seeing that Tokujo kogai to which you linked, I'd like Fords comments on the shibuichi before I post the Tokujo kozuka what a similar metal was used for parts of the design. I'd thought it some sort of mostly silver alloy with a trace of something like nickle(?) to keep it tarnish free. I ruled against thinking it closer to shibuichi.

That was fast. Leave up at least one photo, so those of us who were offline for a few hours of sleep know what we missed?

Thinking Ford is right. I'd not thought on it before, but I cannot remember any pure shibuichi work pre 1700s. Maybe an odd Hirata piece has something close to sort of dark or muddy shibuichi [i have a nidai tsuba and a f/k that Ford could probably best ID the mystery alloy] The only thing I could think of close to having shibuichi is this early tachi tsuba. The fukurin and medallians are out of a copper+silver, but I think something else such as tin is in the mix. It isn't shibuichi: too sort of perma-white.

Guido- We posted about the same time. I didn't see your post until mine went up. Riding whip <=> riding crop. Would that my German was 1/10th as fluent as your English.... I would congratulate myself. Why do we use 'crop' instead of 'whip'? I can only guess: A whip implies something longer and more flexible?

riding crop

A list member discussed this with me privately. Having thought on it more and hit the books, I still cannot 100% agree. Kissaki and kaeri throw me a bit. I looked at works of the students of Kanemitsu, as it reminded me of an Enbun Kanemitsu I once studied- though a bit wilder. I looked towards his students. I couldn't find a strong match with any examples of Kanemitsu students. Jean and Barry are probably right in the Omiya Bizen call, but expect more kaeri from Morikage.

Brian's two posts captured the bulk of my opinion. It does get tiring answering the same question for the 500th time, so you decide to let someone else do it- and it becomes a habit. Also, no matter how hard you try to be Switzerland, eventually you develop your own Politics. Brian has done extremely well at transcending the Politics and shown repeated wisdom for someone the same age as me. I would have used the Death Ray of Deletion a bit more capriciously. I should never be a Moderator.