Curran

You are not kidding. Think that one met with a machine gun barrel and failed to live up to the mythology.

Got the print catalog too and see the Mancabelli lecture. Noted that several of the armor were formerly on display at the Fraiser Museum. Thought I recognized them. Looking forward to seeing them in person, if family life allows. There are several items where the photography is wanting a bit. ie. Either only 1 photo, or item is upside down, or only the back of the item is shown. Would recommend the on-line catalog over the print one.

Still trying to coordinate trip up to NYC with some other business & family responsibilities. Anyone going Sunday or Monday willing to take a look at that Naoe Shizu for me and tell me if there are any distinct problems/deal killers? Estimate on it seems low compared to what it would cost nowadays. That is what a decent TH one cost about 10 years ago.

...

I am guessing a bit, but believe the Arkansas collector is probably a very alive and kicking man with one of the finest collections in the USA. An incredible signed ubu healthy straight to Tokubetsu Juyo (yes, such things exist... H, TH, J, TJ all on first try from non Japanese owner) probably went there recently- thus is easy to believe he is letting some go. He has that sort of collection, and his not alone in the USA. Do not know the Texas gentleman and can only guess the Florida gentleman or Florida couple is from north of here. However, I do not see some of the blades I know he(they) have. Therefore, I could be wrong. As a retirement state, many of our collectors are in their golden years.

John-- Pssh. Most of your readings are better than mine. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then, so it is that I know a few of the other readings on some of the big names.

Answer: No. Not even within 20 leagues. You could pick almost any other sword out there and it would be a closer hit with yours. Edit: Oops. Put foot in mouth and now tasting my ankle. After the Shizu, Masazane, and quite a few others. Thanks Chris. Apology too to Deansova.

Love this artist's work. Often incredible stuff. 1st gen and 6th gen really bookended the school. The generations inbetween were more milktoast.

Trying to arrange to be in NYC that week. Knowing some of the estates several some of these items are coming from, there are two or three blades I hoped to see and are not in the auction.

#3: agree with John #4: Umetada Myoju (as in the really famous guy) --Odds are heavy that this is a gimei, but haven't checked Wakayama For comparison, see: http://www.seiyudo.com/tu-08081.htm Papered uninspired one with a forging flaw. Compare signature against it. Ps. Sorry for being MIA- had "all hands on deck" work week, and then 3 days of torrential rains and flooding. Got a lot of repairs to do. Can't wait until FL wet season is over.

Best viewed in person, but Bonhams has upped the photography to a very high level. Estimates are just estimates. There was a Juyo Shikkake katana last year that was estimated 30-40k. One of the most beautiful I'd ever seen. I was there all 3 days of the viewing and kept going back to it, back and back.... But didn't have $40k liquid, which I thought rich even for a nice one. Auction was on a weekend, so I decided to go. THey started the bidding on the Shikkake at 15k? Holy Crap. Really? Bidding can go fast, and I expected it to blur up to 30k. My paddle is under my jacket on the chair next to me. No.... in the next 15 to 20 seconds.... it went for $22.5K. I was so friggin stunned that my brain went cold for a minute and I couldn't believe I'd just missed such a stellar Juyo for what I would expect to pay $35k to $39k for in Japan. Really....stunned in my chair feeling like I'd just dropped the ball in game 7 of the World Series. Of course, then a Juyo Naotsuna went off for 3 times what I would have paid for it..... There were some other bargains in there too.... but that Shikkake will haunt me for a while. I've got a few busy weeks ahead, but am trying to get up to NYC for the previews. Even if none of the swords interest, it is the most armor I've seen in a while and I recognize a few from museum exhibits.

Forget not that now many of Yahoo!Japan sellers are professional dealers. Visit enough websites and you will recognize items over time. Also, seems perfectly fine for many of the dealers to shill their own auctions and pull them with only a few seconds left if not happy with the price. "Tortise", "Megatora" & "Fuji5005" (he has multiple Fuji IDs), and a few others have made it a rigged auction. And forget not the sellers who bid up in increments of 100 yen to price discover what your maximum bid is... So you bid once on something and someone else bids 57 times to push it up to your max and then suddenly stops. Yahoo!Japan auctions are a lot more dangerous now than they once were. The 3rd party fees make it mostly a losing game now.

James, That Hazama you linked to is very nice and very valuable. This shape seems to be popular there. Yours is ko-kinko, but a very nice example that I think a bit elegant in how the ridge makes a bowl of the waves. The wax/clay - Don't clean it. You'll regret it for a long time, if not handled right. It will stare out at you as a cleaned spot, unless done very minimally. I sent you a PM about it, as I enjoy wave theme items. Over the last two years, I have definitely learned the trials and pitfalls of trying to clean the waves. Careful....

I wondered who snagged that one. Geez Pete, leave some good stuff for the rest of us.

If we're counting, I agree with Pete. Wouldn't touch it. Pete worded it better than I could. Envy the purchase. Focusing elsewhere in my study and collecting, but desire a top level ko-mino tsuba some day. It is perhaps a bit more realistic than my far future acquisition of an elegant Tokubetsu Juyo grade Sadamune tanto. Pete- while we have your attention... any comment on those half dozen Juyo Kodogu up on Yahoo!Japan right now? It is beyond my non-Google translation ability to translate how the bidding on them works. Not that I'd even try, as aforementioned Nihonto bills loom Oct. 1st and Dec. 1st.

I was seriously considering buying this. Trying to behave, as have lots of expenses coming up. Glad it went to a great home.

Some compression on the kinko face. Iron will be difficult to clean unless person is very experienced. Makes me tired just contemplating the work involved. Not a design I remember seeing in an iron f/k. Most interesting. As Junichi said, I'm just commenting on the work before touching a book to consider the signature.

Had a few things in the June shinsa. Haven't heard anything. Results are out yet?

Good post by Frenzel-san. Difficult topic.

See: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5387&p=42178&hilit=akasaka#p42178 Pete's Yashima one- entry says 3rd gen mainline master specifically to Tadatora Under the umbrella of 'ko-akasaka'. Tokubetsu Hozon. They say Mid Edo, though Tadatora is believed to have spanned 'late' early edo into 'early' mid edo. As per Jim's website, conservative call seems to be 'early Mid Edo'.

Ichijosai Hirotoshi with his particular 'bag' kao. --Some old texts read his signature Hironaga. Hirotoshi was considered to be the founder of the Uchikoshi (sp?) subschool of the large Mito school. Had 7 or 8 students? I have no books at present so am just going from memory of his signature: Grev's both look gimei to me. The Peabody 'Hirotoshi' is also suspect. For whatever fashionable reason, this smith was the target for many _added_ signatures. edit: found a file of his authentic signature See image

(1) “consider it late Edo Kamiyoshi” I did not. Best guess was shinsa would go that way, but I left it open ended, as it is an odd tsuba. (2) Poor images – yes. Best I think David can do without flipping it up on a camera microscope at work. Given where he works, I wouldn't ask him to do that. (3) “you have no practical experience” – 'bench worker' parent w/ the home shop, PA steel mill summers & Industrial Arts highschool is Too Blue Collar, yes? Years of industrial working marble, granite, etc is also not going to carry much weight. It is all one or two off and call me a hack, but the best I’ve got to work with in observation. I hobble it together with a lifetime of having a parent who was a painter, and few decades of that myself, so yes I do approach it mostly with a painter's set of perspective and that blue collar background in crudely working tons of harder material. Best I can do at present. As to the Y shape and a small textured panel punch; you hold the tsuba to get a better sense of it, look under magnification, and then tell me. Until you actually look....I'll hold up my hick overalls while you're at it. I hesitated to say "Those punch marks are as controlled as skilled nanako", but had to go off visual memory from 6 months ago and do remember being very surprised. Looks a lot cruder in the macro. Best nanako? No. Surprising- yes. Different from what I've seen. Not sure what to conclude. If you don't wanna look, fine- then beggar off with saying you've wasted too much time on this. You and I both have. The only thing I take offense with is the distinguishing between your work and that of XXXXX. That is a bit low. I can 110% honestly say it was intention to be open ended to a clearly modern work with some of the quirks you’ve had and/or developed. I felt like throwing XXXXX's name up on stage. Didn't know you'd take that as debasement. Whether it is certain tool you use or some set of ratios and perspective you consciously or unconsciously put on. It shows up in your early tsuba from the 1990s, so I lean towards 'unconscious'. It screamed ‘Ford’. Without looking up the thread, I believe I ‘reserved opinion’ initially sense it was such a no brainer. Did it hurt to give XXXXX a little spotlight? He doesn’t self promote. One of XXXXX's tsuba looks like you worked on it or influenced it greatly. Did you not? Bridging from the idea that a tsuba maybe had more that 1 person have worked on from beginning to end, is that not a possibility with David's tsuba? With David's tsuba hurting your eyes, you disparage XXXXX's work and David's tsuba in the same post. Why in the world would you drag XXXXX into this? To put down my knowledge base? I'm already a Fool defending the more difficult side of what I see as a weak middle ground between an odd but interesting tsuba and a shinsa panel that probably quickly dismissed it. You have such skill and then inter-personally throw it into the mud at times like this.

Ford- keep magnifying. 10x. Until you see the chidori type 'Y' punch marks. It surprised me too. Wondered if if had been achieved in some other way, and kept looking for overlap of a panel type punch, but it showed much more like a brocade with only slight little expansions / contractions in density of pattern. Panel punch in itself would form a secondary pattern. So keep magnifying and then consider explaining, onegaishimasu. Alternatively, just dismiss it. As Thierry noted, you've long been one to cast on the NBTHK. The "A highly qualified panel by any reckoning, I think", sounded standard Hallam tongue in cheek. Having worked 3 of the Yoshikawa NTHK shinsa and handled most of the shinsa result paperwork for them, there have previously been several fittings judges. In the past there has usually been another one or two at the shinsa not with a Bio up. I was curious who the other judges had been this time around. I doubt the NTHK has cut down to just the two. I'm sorry that David has become a flashpoint here, but I agree with him. Per the Droll Troll wisdom, it would be easy to step aside and let David go this one alone. I won't, even knowing this tsuba is a difficult one to defend with such an unusual design and such and odd mix of uncertainty in the workmanship and then OCD in other aspects of it. You imply the NTHK gave it the full weight of its experience and observation. Though I haven't corresponded with David about it, I do concur that the USA based shinsa face a long list of constraints from jetlag to limits on references. The often cited added value of the NTHK is the extra information they are willing to provide. In this instance, I think David did not get it. As former handler of the shinsa paperwork, I would guess he got a mostly blank worksheet. Classically, the rejects for swords have been pink. The ones for kodogu have varied depending what color paper they had on hand for non-pass. (Edit: I see that David posted just now his too received the infamous 'pinkie' /old joke of the finger connotation meant too.) Personal experience and how we react to it being the learning or not learning process. You seem to feel we're off in La-La Land not learning a damn thing. I don't think we are really to one side or another, as the tsuba is an odd one. Might be a mix of student & teacher work. Do you totally abstain from touching the work of your students? I prefer the other one David bought in Tampa, but both were interesting for very different reasons. David has timelined his experience in public and the NMB members in observance can form their opinions. Be we prattling fools, I'll take it over silence.

Jah, jah- The Occam's Razor is that this is towards me. Though I wondered if you were taking your humor to a new level with the Pius Pacelli latin. It would be most elegant if I thought there was some self deprecation in it. I am clearly a Fool, and quite aware it would have been in my best interests to be silent. Especially if afraid of being found out to be a fool. We're not debating a national treasure tea cup here, or a Yonemitsu for that matter. Share your opinion, please.

Thank you, as I should have seen that. I had dinner with Iwamoto-san years ago, and enjoyed meeting with him. I'd enjoy talking with him again someday. The last 3 times I dealt with the Yoshikawa NTHK, there were 4 individuals supporting the fittings kantei. Ie. Three Japanese and American english fluent gent. Who were the other two Japanese the fittings panel this time around?