PietroParis

1800 yen is about $17, doesn’t sound likely

I expect they will ask you for a full-length picture of the naked blade to assess the shape.

Agreed. The scrolling can be paused, but it must be done each time you load the page. It would be better if the browser could remember this setting. OTOH, I am in favor of the confirmation for “mark as read”. It did happen to me in the past to click it by mistake.

I see an abalone (the kashira) AND two scallops.

There was also this one:

Seen in Tokyo National Museum:

Yet another (unpapered) Tatsutoshi, currently on eBay for a price way above my budget. Besides, it is the one I like the least among those shown so far.

For comparison:

Why not? The three characters in the rightmost column and the first in the second column are the same as in any NBTHK certificate, the paper is yellowish and there is even the round watermark. Does all of it look fake to you?

The striations in the first picture don't look at all like Schreger lines of elephant ivory: but I don't know what else they might point to. A useful reference for identifying ivory and ivory-like materials (from which I lifted the picture above) can be downloaded from this link. As to the price, I don't know what to say. I suspect that an experienced nestuke collector would simply not buy it...

My own Bizen tokkuri, also discussed in this thread: .

Hi Grev! I can search the list directly on the webpage, it’s sufficient to copypaste the kanji in the “find” function of my browser (firefox). This way, as soon as I recognize one kanji in the signature I can quickly browse through all of the names that include it, usually it doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes to find one o more candidates. Then I google around for examples of the carver’s signature to compare. Anyway, I downloaded your excel sheet. It is well organized and I’m sure that lots of people will find it useful.

I suppose it wants to read Kogetsu 光月. Alas, it looks like a 20-century tourist piece to me, so the reading of the signature is not particularly relevant. It is certainly not the early carver who is listed in Davey's book as using that combination of characters... P.S. this list of carvers is always very useful when I try to decipher a signature.

The teabowl I discussed last week in the translation section was shipped from Japan on Monday and arrived in Paris on Wednesday. Shipping was $26.50 with FedEx.

P.S. the box contained also this leaflet. I am not asking for a full translation, but is there anything that I should absolutely know? (like, it turns into a nasty gremlin – or maybe a tanuki – if used after midnight

My bowl was shipped from Japan on Monday with FedEx and arrived in Paris yesterday (Wednedsay) in the morning. Not bad at all, at least the high shipping charges were well justified... Googling "正峰 萩焼" I could find many more examples from the same potter, including an earlier sale of the same bowl on yahoo Japan. It was sold for 4030 JPY (including taxes, but not shipping?) so at least I did not overpay. Incidentally, this purchase serves as a cautionary tale about lighting in sellers' pictures. These two are from the yahoo and eBay sales, respectively: Whereas I just took this one in natural daylight: I still like the bowl and I look forward to drinking tea from it, but it is so much darker and "browner" in hand than in the pictures that at first I thought I had been shipped the wrong one! Cheers, Pietro

I've got an offer from the seller for a whopping 5% discount on the price of the Super Mario Tsuba, what should I do?

Thanks a lot Steve (and Jean and Piers), I guess this closes the matter. I hope some day I'll learn enough Japanese calligraphy to be able to see 峰造 in the second and third kanji of the leftmost column...

Hi Piers, thanks for your help! Indeed, in the website that I found with the google search the potter's name is written 小高 正峰 (Kodaka Seihou). With the spelling "Seihou", I found another example: I am still a bit confused because in all of the boxes the leftmost column appears to be made of three kanji, not just two. Also, do you think that the first kanji of the rightmost column can really be 萩 ? Anyway, I am reassured to see that all three examples I found online cost around $100, whereas I paid mine $12.50 (alas, plus $26.50 shipping). I hope that there will be no hidden defects or extortionary custom charges... BTW, more photos of my bowl can be found here.

Thank you Jean! Starting from the kanji that you suggest, 正, the variant of the name "Seiho" that looks more compatible (or less incompatible) with the writing of my box is 正歩. Lo and behold, a google image search for "正歩 萩焼" took me to a website where I could find other bowls and boxes that look like mine. For example, this one: And this one: It looks like we are on the right track...

Apologies for tapping once again this forum's boundless knowledge for a non-sword question. I bought another chawan on eBay and I would like to figure out what is written on the box. Am I right in finding the calligraphy a bit sloppy? The one on the other box above looked more "flowing". The maker of the bowl is one Kodaka Seiho, who was born in 1923 and lives (or lived?) in Hagi. I would then expect that the kanji on the box read something like "Hagi-yaki chawan", and then some variation of the potter's name. Now, for "Hagi-yaki" I found this: 萩焼. The second kanji on the rightmost column of my box could be 焼, but the first looks nothing like 萩 to me. Maybe it is a different style of pottery? Concerning "chawan", Moriyama-san read the kanji on my other box above as 茶盌. Another possible combination appears to be 茶碗. This time, the first kanji in the middle column of my box might well be 茶 (tea), and indeed it looks similar to the one on the other box. However, to my untrained eye the second kanji resembles neither 盌 nor 碗. Is there a third possible kanji for "bowl"? Finally, I have no idea of the kanji in the leftmost column, which I guess should read either "Kodaka" or "Seiho". Thanks in advance for your trouble! Cheers, Pietro EDIT: upon further consideration, I'm now suspecting that the middle column does read 茶盌.

Would the skewed look of the cross in this recent purchase of mine count as "Wabi-Sabi"? Cheers, Pietro

"Antique Japanese", for a mere $162,93: Additional (tragic) pictures here.

Yes, in my first post you can find the link to the Catawiki auction with all of the seller’s pictures. Cheers, Pietro

Many thanks Jean for taking the pain of explaining your point with details and pictures. I assume you are right in stating that the rough surface of my tsuba is due to extensive corrosion rather than being part of its intended appearance. Should I then consider the mention of 槌目 tsuchime in the NBTHK paper as erroneous, or were they somehow able to infer the original look of the iron? Also, you can see in this picture that the inner areas of the openwork (e.g., inside the hitsu-ana) look much smoother and less corroded than the outside surface (I can take other pics if that's not apparent). Is it because, over the centuries, those areas were more protected from casual touching? Thanks again for all the help! Cheers, Pietro