reinhard

As Michael said: One possible explanation for this kind of design is "senmen" (or "semmen"), meaning "fan paper", "folding fan". Comparing the following example with your tsuba, I see one problem: The seppa-dai of your tsuba seems to be somewhat off balance. reinhard

Thanks very much, Henry, for sharing these memories. I wish more stories like these were going to be preserved somewhere, before they get lost forever. reinhard

This koshirae doesn't exactly represent the pinnacle of sword fittings and Robert, I think, is free to compile the parts the way he likes them. Nevertheless it should be kept in mind, that old koshirae were originally a mirror of the taste of their former owner. I fully agree with Henry here and even if the parts don't seem to match for a westerner: Sometimes they were chosen just for their individual merits and reflect their former owner's taste. - I'm aware of the fact, that many koshirae have been changed senselessly from late Edo days onwards; tastefully in Japan, often crudely outside. I remember seeing in Europe a complete Hamano-koshirae of the finest kind for a katana, signed and dated on some parts, but with a poor iron sukashi tsuba from Meiji-times flapping around nakago. Changing parts of koshirae has been done and will be done for good reasons, but it should be done with a sense for Japanese aesthetics, a basic knowledge of Japanese history and its myths and a basic respect for history itself, just in case you don't know what you're doing. As far as these two tsuba are concerned: Does the original one fit tightly to the blade? If yes, I would keep it. reinhard

Hi Robert, Taking pictures of hamon is quite tricky. One way consists in placing a spot or a single light bulb slightly above the top section of the sword and taking the picture from a low camera-angle slightly above the blade from opposite direction (i.e. from the bottom end of the blade), not unlike you are appreciating hamon when holding the sword in hands. This must be done in a dark room. The results will present you with at least a few inches of the hamon visible. You can see pics made by this techique on many Japanese web-sites and on Darcy Brockbank's, amongst others. reinhard

The signature reads: Iwamoto KONKAN + Kao (this is an artist's mark) It is one of the biggest names in the history of Japanese sword fittings. reinhard

Shan's history on this board is one of endless patience from mods side. He was in no way "assaulted", nor is he the innocent collector he is pretending to be. As it seems, he never learned a thing (on purpose?). All he ever cares is: owning and/or making a little profit. Whining endlessly, when being confronted with answers, he doesn't like and spreading his (or other people's) stuff all over the place, he never got the point of this board. You better check his board-history. I appreciate very much the principle of being held responsible for your own posts. It hopefully prevents at least some people from just sneaking around, finding new customers, spreading their "goodies" and changing their board-history as they please. A newbie posting in the wrong section is no problem, of course, and (s)he will not be "drawn to a tribunal", you should know that by now, but Shan's no newbie. He's familiar with the rules, but doesn't care. Guess why? reinhard

I don't want to make random guesses, when, where or by whom this blade was made, since most of the informations needed are not given. All I can see is a katana-size blade, probably traditionally made and of Japanese origin. Polish is bad, but that doesn't make it rubbish. Sugata is unclear most often on amateur's pics, because of distortion, resulting from wrong camera angle and wrong focal length. - All measurements of a blade are crucial (nagasa of blade/nakago, sori, moto-haba, saki-haba, moto-kasane, saki-kasane) and should be known/given. Without these measurements any attempt of understanding a blade is senseless. In this particular case, nakago (once again) is almost the only source of reliable information. It looks unshortened, for the only mekugi-ana is approximately where it should be and, as Mark pointed out, Hamon seems to stop around habaki-moto. Now this nakago is a textbook example for ground and repatinated nakago. Removing deeply cut mei/nengo, leaves a nakago markedly thinner than before. It's even worse, when kanji cross(ed) nakago's shinogi. Instead of letting shinogi apruptly end or continue suddenly on a much lower level, it was often gradually filed off. That is where the triangle-shaped marks come from. I made a little sketch for illustration. Next step was to add new patina. Chemically induced, it is called "sabitsuke nakago". The borderline between chemically treated (darker) surface and upper, clean part of the nakago is an almost straight and clearly visible line. Irregular patches within the darker area are also pointing towards "sabitsuke". reinhard

Before jumping on the "might be utsuri=Bizen=KoTo"-train and debating details of the nakago, you better start with the shape of the blade. Is it shortened or not? And why not? What do curvature and tapering tell? Shape of kissaki and quality of boshi are crucial. Can I see them? What are the blade's measurements? If you don't know them, you better ask. - At a later stage, still ignoring hada and hamon, for you can't see them properly on pictures anyway, you go to nakago's details. There is only one mekugi-ana and it is approximately where it should be. What does this mean? Supposed this blade is unshortened, and this is what it looks like, why is there no signature? There seem to be triangle-shaped parts filed off on each side of the nakago within and below the habaki-moto area and extension of shinogi-line into nakago is interrrupted. What's the meaning of this? There's a straight line separating habaki-moto area from a darker area below. What does this mean and does this look like anything I've seen before? - Having answered these questions to yourself, you haven't seen anything yet, for some crucial and tricky questons are still to come. reinhard

What do you think? reinhard

Samurai surely knew, but didn't care. Mr.Berlusconi, on the other hand, didn't know and cares a lot by now. This ambiguity makes us an enigma to the female sex. reinhard

Off topic and just for (Ken's) fun: This (very huge) mantis was sitting on a handrail outside the shrine's museum of Tsurugaoka Hachiman Gu in Kamakura last year. Unimpressed by curious visitiors, it displayed a cool air; reminding me of a warrior, focussing on his opponent. I understood, all of a sudden, why samurai felt attracted to this fascinating insect. reinhard

Martin, what I'm saying is: At the beginning of every sukashi process is chiselling. Even if these marks are effaced during later processes like filing/polishing and so forth, some traces are usually still visible somewhere. reinhard

Shan, this newly presented tsuba looks like one of the better works of fourth master TADAMUNE (a similar example can be seen on p.273 of Sasano sensei's book, BTW). I'm not quite sure though, what this is supposed to illustrate. Their design and workmanship are completely different. The new example seems to be well balanced in shape and design and traditionally made (although difficult to tell from a tiny picture alone). Just one more thing for the newbies out there: Judging an iron sukashi tsuba is trickier than it seems. Aesthetics, proportions and design are important as well as technical aspects: surface, including tsuchime, tekkotsu, color and condition of patina and some other aspects have to be considered carefully and should be seen in hands. Some fine tsuba have been deteriorated by careless handling and/or storage, but solid art can stand bad treatment to some extent. A shade of their former beauty, they remain still classy, but the tsuba in question has no quality whatsoever. Neither from a design point of view nor from workmanship's. What should be kept in mind is: Genuine iron tsuba were made by CHISELLING sukashi out of a carefully forged plate. At least some traces of the process and of the basic material should be still visible somewhere. During later Edo period sukashi tsuba were filed, polished and patinated afterwards in sophisticated ways, but if they look like uninspired, chemically treated fretwork, they are almost certainly modern copies. The attachement may help illustrating what I'm talking about. It is a close-up of the early Akasaka tsuba from the Compton collection. Everything about this tsuba is just perfect. Workmanship, steel texture, patina and colour, chisel-marks, color of the seki-gane and so forth. It may give you a reference point. It might be better to let this thread fade, for so many objections have been repeated several times by now, but this is up to the mods, of course. Shan reloaded, as we know him. reinhard

This may be a little help for understanding and comparison. This tsuba's design origins from the "kuruma ni tohroh"-legend. It is based on a Chinese story of a mantis preparing to attack a cartwheel. It may have been chosen to illustrate the brave attitude of the insect or it may suggest, that it is prudent to avoid meaningless conflicts. - What a great metaphor for what is going on here right now! - Apart from technical questions, this is also a matter of design. I would like to show you, what third master TADATORA made of this challenge and why Shan's tsuba looks like a parody. reinhard

I agree with Ford. Thickness of the tsuba, its plain surface, sharp angles along the sukashi-ridges, lack of any kind of tekkotsu, brightly shining parts of seki-gane while others look artificially patinated, strange structures within the cross-sections of the bars/nakago-ana and other features make it look suspicious. This tsuba was probably cast, but I'm no metallurgist. - It contains many features of the huge amount of modern sukashi-tsuba flooding the market recently. They look nice at first glance, but won't stand expertise. Maybe I'll be proven wrong. reinhard

If the blade was shortened, different yasurime on nakago's upper area and a nakago-jiri differing from the norm could be accepted, but the mei looks really bad. TERUKANE's mei are very stylish and confident. They vary only slightly and never to the extent as seen here. This blade's chances of being shoshin are minimal. reinhard

Martin, the latest pictures should answer at least some of your questions. reinhard

What about Ainu work? reinhard

I support Moriyama-san's statement. Supposed this sword is of Japanese origin (which I'm not sure of), it is no older than Kambun ShinTo. The lower mekugi-ana seems to be a shinobi-ana (made for reinforcement of the nakago within the tsuka). Therefore the nakago doesn't seem to be greatly shortened, but it should be in case of an old tachi. Furthermore the mei is placed on the haki-ura (opposite side of regular tachi mei). Shallow curvature, strong tapering and small kissaki are pointing towards Kambun era; narrow shinogi-ji could be an indicator for an even later date of manufacture (i.e.ShinShinTo). Another mysterious thing about it is the mei: It doesn't make sense like this, but there are no traces of any additional (worn) kanji, which could explain the remaining two. All in all: very mysterious, but probably neither late Kamakura nor KoTo. reinhard

I agree with Ford. This is Akasaka-style from a 20th century point of view. Features of early Akasaka masters (asymmetrical hitsu-ana and others) have been taken over the top. Neither design nor steel quality look good and seppa-dai is way out of proportion. reinhard

First of all: Congratulations and many thanks to Moriyama-san, for providing us with the link to the story. You saved me from telling the story by myself. The reason for posting these menuki was precisely NOT to talk of subtle details, craftsmanship, mei, techniques and the like, for once. Coming across tosogu, many westerners tend to see in them just nice landscapes, funny people, pittoresque animals, plants and insects and many other things they can't interprete, but in many cases they don't care any further. They are enjoying craftsmanship and are willing to study details: Could this dragon's tail be Goto X's or this nanako be Ishiguro Y's ? Necessary questions of course, but what I wanted to show: Above a certain degree of knowledge, tosogu are more fun, if you know Japan's history, myths and legends. What appear, at first glance, to be just any man sitting next to a fire and another one sitting next to a bonsai tree, turn out to be a statement, not only by the Kinko, but also by the (future) owner. - Another reason for posting was: This legend represents the very heart and soul of samurai culture to me. reinhard

This pair of menuki are depicting one of the most touching legends of old Japan. Obviously they are Goto school, but what I would like to know from you: What story do they depict? reinhard

Tricky. - The mei is probably composed of the first three kanji on top, giving the name of the school, and followed by the maker's name (last two kanji at the bottom). The name is easy. It reads: SHOSEI or Masanari. The first kanji on top could be read CHO or naga ("long lasting"). Followed by SAN(?) ("mountain") or SHI(?) ("I, me"). Third kanji is DO ("temple, shrine, hall"). Irritating thing about this mei are the black spots and wavy lines along the left side of the first two kanji. It is not quite clear, wether they are part of the characters or not. In order to stay in proportion with the last three kanji, they should be, but they don't make sense to me. - I don't know, if this makes sense to you, but the best I can come up with, is: CHO(?)SAN(?)DO SHOSEI (Masanari) This is just a pretty wild guess for a starter. Somebody may come up with a more reasonable idea. reinhard

Thanks for the advice, Jean. I'm still carrying the holy handgrenade of Antioch. reinhard

Well, this was part of the junk as well. - The person, who wrote this mei, was either severly disabled, over a hundred years old, or.... just an ignorant faker. TOMOMITSU or not: You better forget about this mei and focus on the blade. reinhard