Toryu2020

Bobby! Let both gentlemen know that we are looking very much forward to having them here. As always if you've got the news we've got the beer! -t

All - We appreciate your patience, just heard from the Japan side today and the certificates are done and on their way stateside. Once I have them they will be sorted and mailed out to individual owners. I know it seems a long time but six months is not unusual and at this point we are right on schedule. Please bear with us a little longer and everyone's papers should be in hand before you know it. -t

Justin - if this is a lacquer signature on leather as John has said it may not help - use corn starch or baby powder, cover liberally. Gently "dump" the excess and there should remain in the mei enough powder to highlight strokes and points perhaps not immediately visible. If this is shumei and it is embossed into the leather you might get a good result but if very light may not make anything clearer. One thing, in looking at the characters does this appear to you as four vertical lines of text? or do they appear to run horizontally?

Justin - have you tried putting talc in the signature to make it more visible?

Look for Hokkaido TO-KEN KAI NO KONSEKI (ima mukashi) 北海道刀剣界の今昔 This is the book issued by the NBTHK in 1974 - Mostly dense Japanese text about the state of collecting in Hokkaido - very few illustrations. The few swords and kodogu are from the exhibition of members collections and none that I can see are Hokkaido artists... -t

Could this be 江府住？？

Peter, Do a search for bunchin 文鎮 - paperweights, and there is no accounting for taste!

Ken - Is this a WTB ad or are they just looking for information?

Richard - On Jim's page that you link to this tsuba appears to be described as HOAN, did we miss something in your paot? -t

About the dormouse; there was a big debate about this in our club last year and I was then pointed to an even bigger brouhaha in the world of netsuke over the same thing. Otherwise I would be ignorant of the whole story. @Ford - please appreciate that I rarely take myself seriously I thank you for not taking offense at my silliness... and everybody please call me tom or Toryu, "Thomas" is an English Muffin! -t

Ford - I am surprised you didn't know that the bushy tailed half fox, half squirrel like creature we see depicted with grapes is actually a dormouse. The association is not one with martial arts but rather comes from Chinese iconography. The little dormouse gets drunk on fermented grapes and falls happily asleep on the vine. A symbol for drinkers and a contented life... -t

Marius Not sure I'd agree this was all the work of one maker but I do agree they are all beautiful. Number one has to be the best with no rabbit. I say rabbit because the background is clearly ocean waves. Very famous that rabbit of Izumo, and that's who I think this is. Lovely tsuba, not the usual stuff, thank you for sharing, -t

Gunto - Have to say I love this theme too. I am guessing these are the sellers photos - do you have a shot of the ura. There are some valid points made above, closer examination will prove of interest. Once you've got it in hand do post some more detail photos. and thank you for sharing, -t

I thank you both - I would never have got Mori out of that! It seems his handwriting improved over the years, here's hoping his sword making did as well... -t

I have a question I hope is worthy of the NMB - Friend of a friend has this old sword on his wall and the signature is; 關住なんとか兼治作 Seki Jû Nantoka Kanenori saku What I am after is the "Nantoka" - his Seki kanji is pretty idisyncratic and I have had no luck deciphering this third kanji which I presume to be a family name. I am told that Slough has a Kanenori using these kanji but I cannot for the life of me find my copy. Does anyone recognize this character and is anyone willing to post the oshigata from Slough which may or may not be this same smith? Thanks in advance for any help, hints or otherwise and no I have no other photos to share at the moment but have been asking for same... -t

How about Masatsune Gyonen nanajukyu-sai 正恒 行年 七十九歳 Masatsune aged 79 years (made this) No idea how to translate Christians' though...

Each year on Children's Day the Yasukuni Jinja does a display of sword and armour and related arts. One time when I was fortunate to go, there was a Togi-shi, a horimono-shi and a tsuba-ko doing live demos among the exhibits. The tsubako was hard at work doing nanako on a shakudo tsuba. After some conversation with him he swapped out his plate and let us have a go. Guiding the tip of the chisel with the tip of your left pinkie you struck a single straight hard blow to make a single perfect circle of nanako. The trick was moving the chisel down just so much and then punching another without really lifting the tip. Therefore you could not see your punches until you were 7 or 8 punches down the line, a great deal of it was "feel". The material was forgiving so you could correct a weak punch or a misaligned one but this more often than not started a cascade of correction that needed to be made. Not being a DIY guy myself I would never have had the patience to master it much less keep at it for five years! Like so many things Japanese; deceptively simple. Of interest is the fact that he believed that nanako was done not by the master but by the women and children of a machi-bori household. It is tedious work that requires a precise hand that delivers the exact same punch for each and every dot, in lines that are dead straight. He posited that an artist thinking of the finished product would get too caught up in the work, trying to make it better than perfect, and this would show in the final product. A child or woman trained to do the work had nothing tied up in the success or failure of the piece and therefore could punch away for hours producing row upon row of "artless" perfect nanako. While I like this idea very much I have always wondered about pieces like the one shown above where the nanako clearly "moves" around the overlayed pieces. Were their workers who produced nothing but nanako plate for the master to later work on? Was the secret to the Goto success generations of girls trained to sit around and punch nanako all day? -t

蟻通し神社　Aritôshi-jinja by Yasuchika from page 22/23 of the Tsuba Gadai Jiten by Numata Kenji...

Hototogisu...

Just to set the record straight; Jim Gilbert: Shinsa team member, director of the NTHK, president of the New York Token Kai and vice president of the American branch of the NBTHK. He began studying Japanese art history in college and later developed an interest in swords and fittings. He joined the NTHK and began visiting Japan to study in the 1990's. A direct student of Hagihara Mamoru. He began volunteering at NTHK shinsa in the US in 1997 and formally joined the shinsa team as a researcher in 2002. He became a full member of the fittings shinsa team in 2004. His area of specialization is pre-Edo period tsuba and kodogu. He has published on the subject in the US and Europe.

I believe this is Aritoshi-jinja and not Hanasaku Jii-san... -t

Sorry Bry but this appears to be an unsigned kogatana that someone scribbled on with a pen. Was this the blade in your kozuka? -t

Kanzan and Jittoku Looks like Showa to me, and is the signature not Masamune? -t

Adam - Beautiful photography there. If I were explaining antai to someone I would point out the dark area just above the bright white hamon as it appears in this picture - the antai is defined by the faint white reflection that we know as utsuri. Would that we had an equally well depicted Unsho blade to compare with... -t

If shipping from Japan use EMS - Fed-Ex goes thru Alaska and that is where they are super sensitive to "animal products" -t