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PietroParis

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Everything posted by PietroParis

  1. Thanks a lot, this puts my mind at ease! Then I must assume that the appraisal too is only inspired by Toyozo... I understand that he had a major role in the revival of shino ware, so it's unlikely that he would have been fooled. When you have time, would you mind explaining to a beginner what details in the cup point away from the Momoyama period? Thanks again for your help, Pietro
  2. Thanks for dropping by! If you follow the link in the first line of my original post you’ll find many more pictures, including the foot.
  3. Have you checked out this one in the sales section of the forum?
  4. This small shino cup was briefly on sale today: More pictures are available following the link above. Somebody snapped it up while I was busy trying to decipher the calligraphy on the box and on the appraisal paper. The latter does look like Arakawa Toyozo's writing, judging by some of his boxes that were sold on the same site. A question to the local experts: was the dating realistic? I guess I missed a bargain in that case... Cheers, Pietro
  5. In that case it was a waste of the seller's time, as the tsuba sold for a mere 17$ on eBay (the price I had mentioned a few posts above included shipping). Scratching with the broken edge of the button helped remove a bit more red rust, but not all of it. Anyway, I'll give it a rest now. It was a valuable experience to me, and I thank you all for comments and guidance. Cheers, Pietro
  6. Thank you all for your comments! I'll try breaking the button, although I would say that even the rounded edge has already removed quite a lot of rust. As for brushing the whitish area, unfortunately it has no effect. I suspect that the patina is really affected, and I am wondering if I've done something wrong or if it was an inevitable outcome. Cheers, Pietro
  7. I gave it another try, with repeated cycles of dabbing with camellia oil, letting rest for a few hours, scratching with a bone button and wiping with a cloth. However, I am not too pleased with the result: The "before" and "after" pictures show that quite a lot of red rust came off, but the patina appears to be damaged in one area (see the whitish spots on the left of the nakago ana). Did I scratch too hard? A more-charitable interpretation could be that the red rust had already eaten through the patina: indeed, the whitish spots showed up quite early in the process, and other areas that I scratched just as hard were not damaged. Anyway, it's just as well that I tried this procedure on a low-quality tsuba that I had bought for 26 EUR on eBay. I don't think I'll dare to try it on my "good" tsuba, I guess I'll stick to oiling and wiping... BTW, is there anything I can do now to reduce the damage to the patina, apart from waiting a few decades? Cheers, Pietro
  8. In fact, I've seen examples of this "sliding deadline" even in online sales from French auction houses, and I am told that Catawiki works the same way. It makes sense to me, I'm not a fan of eBay-style snipe bidding. It is also closer to the way regular brick-and-mortar auctions work.
  9. Could it be Mitsutama 光玉 ? In that case, it is a signature that appears to be associated to rather dodgy 20th-century carvings, see e.g. here, here and here. The pictures in your other post do not suggest particularly high quality to me (but I get why the sword-making subject might appeal this forum's members). Cheers, Pietro
  10. For those too lazy to copy the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng04KxAT0ek
  11. Thanks for all the suggestions! For Koop-Inada, I also found this: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/22476-Japanese-names-and-how-to-read-them-koop-inada/ Cheers, Pietro
  12. Hi All, "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime" Suppose that I want to learn the minimal amount of written Japanese that is necessary to decipher signatures, NBTHK certificates, and so on. Is there a magic book that I should buy to get started? Thanks in advance for any input, Pietro
  13. I don't know much about this kind of prints, but a google search does yield artists, such as e.g. Kono Bairei, whose coloring was similarly sparse. Greg, do you know who the author of the print is?
  14. Do the small holes on the two sides on the nakago ana suggest that it was once mounted on a lock? Cheers, Pietro P.S. following up on Stephen's suggestion above: what happens if you just flip the central plate? Do you still get a meaningful (but different) decoration?
  15. Thank you all for your comments. My bone button (combined with wd40) doesn’t seem to be effective in scratching away the rust, maybe I should try to break it to get a sharper edge.
  16. PietroParis

    Tanto

    From a total noob: are we looking at thin scratches?
  17. OK, thanks for the tip! I am not a gun person but I can use wd40 as suggested by Alex above. Cheers, Pietro
  18. For the record, these are my pictures of the rusty tsuba, after some days of light wiping with a soft cotton cloth (which did not have any noticeable effect): The front looks already acceptable to me, but there is some very red rust on the back. I have found some old ivory-looking buttons that passed the "hot needle" test, as soon as I get my hands on proper choji (or camelia?) oil I will get to work... Cheers, Pietro
  19. Thanks for the advice. I do have wd40, is it considered an acceptable replacement to choji oil?
  20. Thanks for your assessment! I guess that for 28$ (including shipping) I should not expect too much... Any idea of what style they were trying to imitate? Cheers, Pietro
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