Bazza

I'm close to 100% sure that Ron's KAO is the early work of Shodai Yasuchika. I'm tied up at present but I'll look into this further in the next day or two and come back with images of my own, both a piece and a book reference (God, I'm in chaos...). Bestests, BaZZa.

Sake barrel scraper???? Bestests, BaZZa.

THE TSUBA - THE TSUBA - who knows what about the tsuba??? I nearly fell over when I saw it as I had an almost identical tsuba decades ago also with fukurin. I always wondered about it. I have read of larger pre-Edo tsuba being reduced in size and fitted with a fukurin that gave the design a cramped look. The katakiri dragon with kebori detail was very interesting. Inevitably it had to go to afford something else, but I've never forgotten it. BaZZa. EDIT: Shishi, not dragon...

Sekigane, that's what I meant (I learnt in Japanese language study to "follow the discourse..."). Since this has turned into a Namban thread thought I would put up my Namban tsuba again, more especially as it has a beaded rim very similar to mine, whereas mine is covered with gold. Apologies to those who have seen it before, but it might be new grist for many others. The tsuba is 75mm wide x 82mm high x 6mm thick. The front is noticeably convex to the extent of the sides being approx. 2mm lower than the seppa dai. Interestingly, the tsuba back is "flat" without any curvature. It is also not perfectly circular, being more of an oblate spheroid (slightly pear-shaped, no puns please!). John L also noted early 19th century. Mine garnered an NBTHK Green Paper in New York something like 40 years ago. If I remember correctly the attribution at that time was "late 17th century". My memory may be uncertain. Under the gilt plate on the tsuba front is a seppa dai of stylised clouds as per the back side. Bestests, BaZZa.

Horse armour???? Bestests, BaZZa.

Chinese seal characters??? This tsuba looks very much like my Namban tsuba I have posted here before, although only the pierced and beaded rim is similar, with mine having a completely different theme and it has gold nunome zogan over the entire surface. Bernard, never mind the "not highly regarded" comments - FWIW I think this is a very good and lovely tsuba. BTW, I presume your pics are colour, although they have the "look" of high quality B&W???? Best regards,BaZZa. Edit: and it looks like Tanaka style copper "fillers" (you know what I mean!) have fallen out...

LOL is right!!! Chris' comment had me in stitches as a general life saying summing up places I've been and bastards I've met. The following few posts had me loudly guffawing as well. And Stephen's comment "what were we OPing about?" nearly threw me over the edge. I love this Board - the wonderful experts of all persuasions, the (mostly) unstinting sharing of knowledge, the camaraderie, the humour - and the succinct expression of it (the cartoons in this thread have been priceless!). I read far, far more than I contribute because I come at the lower end of the knowledge and competence scale, but I soak up the knowledge proffered and absorb it like a sponge. Here in my Oz mountain retreat I don't get around so much or see such a lot of swords, but there are good people within a reasonable driving distance with nice swords - and they are lovely people and such good company that life in swords is by and large a great joy in this Nihonto backwater. I've even met some of them through NMB. Thank you all for an engaging and challenging thread - and all the others. Bestests, BaZZa.

Jacque has kindly posted the Fujishiro oshigata of the OP's query. I recently had the opportunity to give an opinion on just such a sword. At first I thought it had to be a gimei because I had never (or hardly ever) seen such a mei that looked as if it had been cut with a 6 inch nail and a 2 pound hammer on "the morning after"... Then a f reind brought to my attention the Fujishiro oshigata and it all fell into place. The OP's sword looks genuine to me. I've included my description below and attached the two photos of the nakago that clearly shows a similarity to the OP's sword. Bestests, BaZZa. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Japanese sword - EFU -no-TACHI style: Blade length 64.3cm, straight temper line with a “swell” near tip & at midpoint, original polish shows tightly forged grain, full-length wide groove both sides (slight stain spots, numerous small chips to edge); tang 16.5cm, good brown colour with “hawk feather” file marks, boldly inscribed MUTSU KAMI FUJIWARA (陸奥守藤原)and continued on other side KANENOBU (兼信). The signature purports to be the ca 1655 first generation Mino KANENOBU and though the temper is not his usual style the signature itself is in close agreement to a reference example; scabbard, handle, guard and fitments of the EFU-no-TACHI style ca 1850 - 2 hangers on a nashiji gold-lacquered scabbard with kirimon crests (cracking along seams), shitogi (“rice cake”) guard, & unbound rayskin handle with traditional “rice bale” tacks & “hair tweezer” menuki. -----------------------------------------------------------------

The hair on Shingen's kabuto was Yak hair, not horse hair. http://www.yoroi.co.jp/english/english/s013.html http://thirtyforty.zenfolio.com/p739910 ... #h30f45763 "Takeda Shingen was one of the heroic warlords in the 16th century. The special feature of this float is the white hair flowing from the war helmet. It is hair from the Himalayan Yak that is very difficult to obtain." Best regards, BaZZa.

TSUKARE UTSURI - seen in tired and over-polished blades. Rick, look down on the mune and see how narrow the blade is at the machi compared to a little further back on the nakago. Simply put the two words in to google - here is a sample: http://www.buildingthepride.com/faculty ... ri_Ted.htm Bestests, BaZZa.

They're not a true pair?? One has kinsabi, the other doesn't??? BaZZa.

They're both female, one should be male???? BaZZa.

Some members may be interested in this article "The Secret Japanese Art of Kintsugi Brings Beauty to Breakage" http://www.worthpoint.com/blog-entry/se ... 76B08ABABE Regards, BaZZa.

I would have almost been in Brian's camp, which just savagely underscores how difficult it is for a raw gaijin to understand the heart of samurai in those faraway times as expressed firstly in the illustrated tsuba and secondly in the NBTHK explanation. Sheer poetry of expression... And the reason I replied - David, in your unpapered Katchushi tsuba pictured, are we not looking at the reverse??? Best regards, Barry Thomas (aka BaZZa.)

My apologies for the delayed response - life intervened... Thank you very much Matt and Markus for your quick reading of the presentation kanji. Having formally studied Japanese myself for a mere two years (and that a very long time ago) I appreciate how much effort goes into such mastery of the language. Incidentally Matt, I found that in rômaji the characters 練習 are rendered REN-SHÛ, not REN-SHU. Thank you too George for underscoring the meaning of ICHIDÔ. I was surprised to find the name of the person to whom the sword was presented is not inscribed. I once had a photo album of a Japanese Navy visit to US shipyards in the 1920s and despite much descriptive text the name of the album owner was not written anywhere, but the ship’s name was SHIN-I. There was a photo of Japanese Navy personnel with Milton Sills, a famous Hollywood actor of the time, and one might think that the album owner would have been in that photo and noted, but not so. As I had such difficulty researching the kanji I have been preparing some notes to summarise Matt and Markus’ contribution and I thought I would share them here for anyone’s interest. See below and my summary document attached. The first task in finding a kanji is to identify the radical to locate it in a dictionary. I missed SAKI in Nagasaki completely because the kanji on the nakago is as pictured below. It shows the GUCHI character under YAMA leading me to look for a kanji with a 6-stroke radical, whereas the correct radical was the 3-stroke YAMA, with the correct kanji for SAKI being Nelson 1426. The GUCHI character has been displaced to the left, thus leading inexperienced players astray... 崎 Other mistakes were made for similar reasons, the most simple being mistaking the two characters of ICHIDÔ as a single kanji. Grrrrrrrr... I have learnt a lot from this exercise thanks to Matt and Markus. Thanks and salutations again. Best regards, Barry Thomas. NMB discussion - kanji explanation sheet.doc

What is known about the "Polish koshirae artist" mentioned further down in the above swordforum thread??? A "daisho" tsuba turned up here in Australia some years ago (they were exactly the same size and theme, but the gentleman buyer thought he had a real daisho at about AUD$400, I believe. A nay-sayer told the buyer that they were Polish fakes and could be bought in Poland for $5 (?????)). Same artist, I wonder... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tsuba made by a Polish koshirae artist. Quite good too, this is a cascading waterfall done in steel. Acid aged to a deep brown finish, very authentic looking. I love the tsuba but the piece I was going to use it on had the theme changed. Asking what I paid, $140 shipped. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Best regards, BaZZa.

Having read earlier threads on the (non?) possibility of cast iron tsuba I almost hesitate to present this example to the readers as at first glance it is somewhat inconsequential. However, there are a number of reasons why I thought it might be of interest: - The metal has a rough surface that appears to be a combination of rust and sand-cast impressions - The figures in the landscape at the bottom of the front view are “blobby” and not well defined. - The tsuba has a ‘clunky’ feel to it. The above features alone are not sufficient to bring it to the attention of members, but the following I think make it of more than passing interest despite its very poor condition: - There is gold ‘onlay’ that appears to be metal and not lacquer, and with no sign of nunome grooves it is most likely mercury gilding (?). - There is what appears to be a remnant black lacquer coating. - Last but not least is a very well-fitted shibuichi fukurin, which alone drew my attention. The tsuba is 70mm x 65mm x 5mm. Whilst being very fond of tsuba they are not at all my forté, but my interest was aroused by wondering if this is indeed a cast iron tsuba, why did someone fit a very nice fukurin to it??? Any opinions??? The sword is a WW2 Australian soldier’s souvenir and has been lent to me for appraisal. It is still in the same family and honoured for its wartime association. Apart from some dark staining the blade is in remarkably good condition. It has a faint, almost ‘scratchy’ katana mei that at present seems to read OSHU JU ? HIRO. The nagasa is 63.9 cm and the sugata with little sori suggests to me a Kanbun period sword. It has an old silver foil habaki that is still nicely tight in the saya. The tsuka has nice matching shakudo fuchigashira and the menuki are iron shishi (separate thread later). The saya is of plain wood covered with leather. Compared to many of the badly damaged swords one sees this was indeed a pleasant surprise ‘out of the woodwork’ and has made for a very pleasant few hours contemplation. Best regards, BaZZa. aka Barry Thomas (Melbourne, Australia)

TRANSLATION HELP PLEASE - A CHALLENGING GENDAITO PRESENTATION INSCRIPTION Friends, At least, challenging for me... and I certainly hope of interest to the Board members. I have run myself ragged back and forth through Nelson’s trying to find characters. Often it’s a challenge to find the right radical, never mind the kanji. Then one has to find what the inscription means. There is one character (the last in the presentation inscription on the omote) that is so elementally simple being composed of ICHI at the top with 6 strokes below it that I simply cannot find. I’m reminded that Nelson’s “lists about 5,000 carefully selected characters...” (from the flyleaf of my 2nd printing 1975 edition) so we may expect that not all characters may be found, particularly the more obscure, archaic or little used. So I’ve all but given up and turn to the expertise of the Board. Presented in the images below is a gendaito with a tachi mei HIZEN KUNI JU YASUHIRO SAKU 肥前國住保廣作 (Hawley YAS 679). The sword is in an eclectic private collection and not presently for sale. A good friend has asked me for a translation, the smith being the easy part. He was permitted to take the images below and described the sword as - standard wartime length of around 67cm but just slightly larger proportions giving a feeling of a better than usual, quality, very well proportioned blade. - better quality Naval mounts – look to be special order/custom made. - slightly extended boshi, maybe ¼” or a little less, longer than usual. - gunome midare with ashi. - can’t remember the hada well but I think it was ko-itame but almost muji. The presentation inscription begins with a single character above the mekugiana - ZÔ (Nelson 4525, presentation, gift). Below the mekugiana is a single row of (I think) 7 characters. “I think” because the kanji press tightly one on another. The first character is our old familiar naga, or in this context I guess CHÔ - chief or headman. Then follows two rows of characters side-by-side, possibly the names of people responsible for the presentation, ending in a single character below the double row - the elusive ‘elementally simple’ character mentioned above. The last character of the left-hand row is EN, IN, -in (Nelson 928), “member, number, the one in charge”. I’ve likewise identified other individual characters but have not the slightest idea what they mean in context. The smith is well-known and a description of his personal history can be found here http://vbay.ru/iteminfo/100284837526290.htm. I saw one myself a few years ago in an auction that I might have bought were it not for a big chip. I felt it to be a better quality gendaito in a kaigunto koshirae, however there was no presentation inscription. Best regards, Barry Thomas (aka BaZZa)

Not raised so far is that the nature of the sword leads to the best type of polish, according to past discussions. However, having been there and done that for 50 years I lean to a polish that brings out the best in a blade, but having said that I'm still confused. OK, let me hit it. What is the primary determinant of "What makes a Japanese sword a Nihonto?". Surely it is the hamon, for a sword with a glorious hamon (suguba or midareba) is a delight to see. A sword with a glorious hada and NO HAMON is - what?? A lump of fancy steel! So it seems to me the issue comes down to this - if the hamon is important to what makes a Nihonto a Nihonto then sashikomi is the 'way'. However, if we like hada then kesho is the 'way'. Is there no in between??? I don't pretend to have any certain knowledge here and I defer to the vast experience of Chris Bowen, George Trotter, Kunitaro san, Morita san and other luminaries, but for this small-time collector and for those swords I have had polished, overall I prefer sashikomi as it espresses the glory of the hamon, the quintessential feature of Nihonto. I have a sword that was polished in "pure" sashikomi - it is brilliant to the easily seen tiniest strand of nie whisker that might otherwise have been difficult to see in kesho. The trouble is, and a continuing "niggle", is that the hada is less distinct, almost invisible in fact, compared to the before "old" polish. The hamon, whilst wishy-washy and hard to see before polish, is now crystal clear (no pun intended). So I'm not really sure if I should be disappointed or rejoicing, because the new polish has left a sword that is clearly a vast improvement on what went before condition-wise, and I'm certainly very happy with it, BUT - I lament for the diminished hada. One can go on and on, as we have done here and continue to do, but I have enjoyed this discussion immensely. Thank you all. Regards, BaZZa.

Alex, See viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16229 38.2mm length. Regards, Barry Thomas aka BaZZa.

Thank you Chris, Malcolm, Alex and Ken for your informed insights. Best regards Barry Thomas.

I remember John well and am saddened to see that he finally lost his battle. He did me a grand favour many years ago that I have never forgotten and we had a good correspondence for a time. One of the Good Guys amongst many who continue to inspire me daily. Rest in Peace John. Respectfully, Barry Thomas.

Chris, Thank you - there is the collector's blind spot!! I didn't know that. I've asked on behalf of a friend who has some swords but is new to the world of forums and suchlike. He is going to Japan in a couple days and I couldn't answer his questions so put them here. What about the export issue with (a) shinsakuto (de-registration I expect), and (b) non-sharpenable al or zn iato?? Best regards, Barry Thomas.

Dear Brethren, 1. Can anybody recommend a shop in Kyoto and also Tokyo to buy steel-bladed iaito?? 2. Is there any known issue with a tourist exporting a steel-bladed iaito (or alloy-bladed for that matter) from Japan on exiting the country. The person would be returning to Australia. Best regards, BaZZa.

G'day All. I don't think I can add much at all to this thread except in the matter of the small UE character on the back of the maedate. I haven't checked, but I'm sure this must also be a mon and I have attached photos of a wakizashi seen a few years ago with such a character appearing as if it is a mon. I guess it could also simply be a decorative element. On the Italian sword forum (now defunct??), last time I looked its opening page showed an armour in an exhibition that had the same character on the DOU, so I guess it is a mon in that context. Best regards, BaZZa.