Dr Bob

Hi. I messaged you the page you wanted. I hope it helps. Bob Gilmore

Chris, the mouse and masu having a definite up and down orientation is why we are sure the cutting edge was down when this tsuba was originally made. Therefor it was for a tachi. Now after they cut the two hitsu ana and put it upside down on a katana, it must have looked pretty odd. Bob

Dale, this is very similar. Mothers was slightly different in detail, and was purchased in the late 1960's. Bob

Dale, I do believe the hitsu ana must have been later additions. My computer is unable to display the image you posted. Bob

Hello everyone. I was vacationing in northern Idaho and happened to be in the right place to drop into a local gun show. Found a nice Nihonto collector there and enjoyed visiting with him and looking at his wares. We had a bit of problem in that he didn't have a price tag on most of his stuff and after several rounds of "make me an offer" and "how much do you want for it" I determined that he really wasn't ready to sell a lot of the things I was interested in. I took photos of his tsuba, kogai and kogatana and may get back to him if I find some missing parts on a batch of swords I haven't gotten around to yet. I am not a tsuba guy, unless I need one to complete a mount; but he had one interesting tsuba in particular that I ended up purchasing. To both the seller and myself, this appears to be an old tachi tsuba. It is a relatively large and heavy iron tsuba with mimi, and a figure of a Nezumi and Masu. The mouse is peering over the edge of a box used to measure out the rice that samurai were paid with. A couple of texts on Japanese art motifs suggest rats and bales of rice together indicate the need to safeguard and not squander your resources. My deceased Japanese mother had a decoration of a bronze mouse on a winnowing basket with a few grain of rice. (I sure hope I kept that somewhere.) Anyway, her interpretation was that the Nezumi was a symbol of prosperity, in that if you had a mouse (or rat; Japanese don't distinguish between the two) and a tiny amount of rice, the mice were going to increase in number. I've always liked that explanation better. The tsuba is 221.6 grams in weight. I would say the shape is maru-mokko. It measures 86.6 mm vertically, and 84.4 mm horizontally. The thickness at the nakago ana is 5.5 mm and the rim is 7.7 mm thick. I haven't worked all the red rust off yet, but some time working on the nezumi with a toothpick is bringing out details. There are brass highlights on the mimi. I have no idea what the bright metal used at the top of the Masu might be. Nakago ana measures 7.7 mm vertically and 5.5 mm at widest. All comments about this tsuba are welcome. Hopefully the first one won't be "Chinese fake." Bob Gilmore

Okay, I guess I should have just checked Dr. Google first. Apparently Western Cedar and new Oak wood have a pH of about 3.5, and the acid fumes can affect nearby metals. Glad I didn't proceed with the project. In particular it mentions turning copper green. That could really screw up some mounts. Bob

You know, if I suggest that option, my wife might counter-offer by letting me have another gun safe. Bob

Hello everyone. My wife doesn't want me to add another gun safe to the house to store the additional swords I had to bring home from the office when I retired. I was thinking of buying an old cedar chest and adding stackable racks inside so I can store swords inside in layers. Then it occurred to me that I have no idea if the fumes from the cedar would be detrimental to Nihonto or their fittings. Anyone have any experience with this? The swords are currently in a hard sided golf club case and I would really like to get them out of there. Thanks, Bob Gilmore

Hello Steve. I hope you don’t mind me saying that you are over-thinking this. It is actually pretty straight forward if you step back and look at the situation. Your swordsmith Yoshikane was one of a large number of swordsmiths producing swords for military officers during the war. Officers were required to have swords, but the swords had to be paid for by the officers themselves; they were not issued by the government. For your average, low wage junior officer it was a large expense to purchase this required but generally useless object. There were numerous forges in Japan producing these swords, most of them in Seki. The swords were produced in varying degrees of quality, as were their mounts. Depending on what you could afford you could get a very basic one to meet your uniform requirements, or a better constructed one for more money. Either one would have passed government inspection. To produce large numbers of swords, the steel used and the production methods used would be “modern.” These are the Showa-to. Now, if you wanted a more traditional blade, and you had the money to pay for it, you could have a trained swordsmith use Tamahagane steel, which is the traditional steel used to make ancient Japanese swords. This steel was of course expensive to produce, both in time and resources, and therefor difficult to obtain during a war time situation. The tamahagane that was provided by the government was only given to suitably qualified swordsmiths to use; not your low end assembly line metal pounder. So if you requested a traditionally made sword, a suitably skilled swordsmith would use the good material, and take the time needed to make what we these days would call a Gendai-to. When that particular smith was not being paid to invest a lot of time on a more quality piece, then he would be banging out the mass produced stuff like everyone else because that was his job, and he probably had a quota to meet for production volume. The description you included with your photos says the swordsmith had a sword judged as 5th seat. This 5th seat does not mean he came in 5th in the competition. It means the competition split the entrants into 5 categories of workmanship. Fifth seat rating means good enough to have your name put on the list as a professional level swordsmith. It was not a participation trophy in that there were participants that did not make the cut. That is all it really means. It is highly unlikely the sword in your possession is the sword submitted for the competition, and your seller made no such claim that it was. As far as whether the sword is one of the smith’s Showa-to or one of his Gendai-to, that would require evaluation of the sword itself. If the sword does not have a Showa stamp or a Seki stamp, then it is not automatically lumped into the Showa-to category, so that is a good thing. You need to physically put that sword into the hands of someone with experience to have him or her look at it. You can only do so much with photographs. Enjoy your sword, and do not fret about it too much. Show it to someone with experience for their evaluation. If you keep showing photos to masses of people with differing levels of experience on an internet forum you are going to get a wide variety of opinions and you don’t get to pick which one is correct. Bob Gilmore

Hello everyone-- I did a brief review of this book in another thread 9 days ago. Reposting it here: I received the “Sho-shin Index of Swordsmiths & Price Guide”yesterday. This is the first volume of Robert Cole’s long awaited book series on Japanese sword appraisal. This is a handy reference handbook for Nihonto collectors. It is not a picture book with pretty pictures of Japanese swords and beginner’s information on Nihonto. If you do not own at least the intermediate level references Toko Jiten by Fujishiro and the Toko Taikan by Tokuno, then this reference is not going to point you to any comparative oshigata or signatures of swordsmiths. The primary component of the book is 76 pages of single line listings of swordsmiths by name and kanji, along with 9 columns of useful information. This information includes the smith’s generation (if needed), working era, province, and page numbers if listed in the Toko Taikan, the Toko Jiten, and Hawley’s. Also listed is a rating of the smith using Fujishiro’s Chu-saku through Saijo-saku ranking system. Of use for comparative pricing is the column listing Tokuno’s “Man-yen” rating for the swordsmiths listed. There is a helpful section in the book listing swordsmiths by title; there are 49 smiths listed that had the Izumi-no-kami title and only 4 that had Totomi-no-kami for example. The titles are written both in Romaji and kanji. There are two listings of Nengo; one alphabetically (Romaji) and the other chronologically with kanji. One interesting listing I don’t recall having seen before is an alphabetical listing in Romaji for a spoken word, such as “Nori,” and the kanji that are associated with it. Apparently there are 9 kanji that can be used for Nori. Who knew? There is a Nihonto glossary and some other handy things in this book, but the author’s primary focus was on listing the swordsmiths’ data. If you want quick access to the information available in this book, you will find it very useful. If you are just beginning to learn about Japanese swords, then this book is definitely not for you. Bob Gilmore

Steve, Thanks for providing a link to the Obon Society. I have a Yosegaki Hinomaru flag that came to me with a group of swords when I did an estate buy. I've kept it because I didn't know what to do with it. I will be sending it off tomorrow with the hopes that the Obon Society can locate the family. Bob Gilmore Flag sent out Priority Mail this morning.

I received the “Sho-shin Index of Swordsmiths & Price Guide”yesterday. This is the first volume of Robert Cole’s long awaited book series on Japanese sword appraisal. This is a handy reference handbook for Nihonto collectors. It is not a picture book with pretty pictures of Japanese swords and beginner’s information on Nihonto. If you do not own at least the intermediate level references Toko Jiten by Fujishiro and the Toko Taikan by Tokuno, then this reference is not going to point you to any comparative oshigata or signatures of swordsmiths. The primary component of the book is 76 pages of single line listings of swordsmiths by name and kanji, along with 9 columns of useful information. This information includes the smith’s generation (if needed), working era, province, and page numbers if listed in the Toko Taikan, the Toko Jiten, and Hawley’s. Also listed is a rating of the smith using Fujishiro’s Chu-saku through Saijo-saku ranking system. Of use for comparative pricing is the column listing Tokuno’s “Man-yen” rating for the swordsmiths listed. There is a helpful section in the book listing swordsmiths by title; there are 49 smiths listed that had the Izumi-no-kami title and only 4 that had Totomi-no-kami for example. The titles are written both in Romaji and kanji. There are two listings of Nengo; one alphabetically (Romaji) and the other chronologically with kanji. One interesting listing I don’t recall having seen before is an alphabetical listing in Romaji for a spoken word, such as “Nori,” and the kanji that are associated with it. Apparently there are 9 kanji that can be used for Nori. Who knew? There is a Nihonto glossary and some other handy things in this book, but the author’s primary focus was on listing the swordsmiths’ data. If you want quick access to the information available in this book, you will find it very useful. If you are just beginning to learn about Japanese swords, then this book is definitely not for you.

Hello members! I just registered myself with the NMB, and thought I would post an abbreviated introduction here. If anyone wants the whole thing, you are welcome to check out my profile page. I am a recently retired veterinarian. I lived in Tachikawa, Japan from 1965 to 1970 while my father was posted to Tachikawa Air Force Base for the second time. I was fluent in conversational Japanese, but have been getting rusty since my mother passed away 3 years ago. My father purchased two Japanese swords before we returned stateside in 1970. Those were passed on to me when I graduated from Veterinary School in 1982, and I have been collecting Nihonto ever since. I live in Boise, Idaho. Swords are not that common here due to the small population of the state. I have not had the luxury of limiting myself to any particular school of swordsmiths; I am happy to look at anything that happens to surface. Since I retired I have re-engaged with the JSS/US and the NCJSC groups, and am again actively looking for Nihonto. I have purchased 3 more Nihonto since the beginning of the year and my wife is saying that now that I have no actual income I should develop something called a “budget.” I am looking forward to membership in the NMB, there seems to be quite a bit of information available here. Bob Gilmore