Robert S

Happily or unfortunately, I was very puritanical in University, so never had that experience. Being weird in art school was de rigeur, and the weirdest you could be was to be a teatotalling non drug user. I was thinking more of the sort of daily chronic drunk that seems to be common with a certain class of creative, and maybe especially in Japan. So you're right, it all depends on type.

However, I rather suspect that when you are truly a master with all the techniques embedded in muscle memory, you could still carve pretty well drunk - maybe even better if you want a slight looseness and increased creativity. I've known not a few artists for which this was true.

Interesting: that's a brocade weave, but it looks like it then has been embroidered over the weave to achieve the raised effect and other colours. Hard to tell without closer inspection whether or not is is a jacquard or machine brocade, or a traditionally hand-woven brocade, but I'm leaning toward at least a Jacquard loom, which would make it no earlier than mid 1800's. Traditional brocade weaving is incredibly labour intensive - it can take months to set up the loom alone... and the loom is a massive thing. With the advent of the jacquard loom brocade became much more accessible. It's also hard to tell whether the embroidered element was planned from the beginning, or was an additional feature after the fact. That would depend on whether the embroidered features also exist in the underlying brocade. The embroidery itself is not top quality, but not bad - not up to the quality of top end kimonos for instance.. This is one of the things that is making me lean toward jacquard brocade and a late Edo or Meiji date - if it was traditional handwoven brocade I would expect the embroidery to be top quality. It's also woven with a relatively heavy thread, not the extremely fine thread of top end brocade. Overall, this is a significant piece of craft, but appears aimed at a midrange market - lower hatamoto or modestly successful businessman, not daimyo, if Edo period.

Yes. With a good CNC milling machine and scanner, you can get ridiculously accurate copies if you do some hand work after to correct microscopic surface details.

Thanks all for the correction on the plum flower / sorrel question. I took the information in the catalogue I had as meaning that there was a traditional representation of plum which differentiated it from cherry, but clearly that's not the case (and the catalogue from the recent Hayes Collection sale by Czerny's had it wrong).

Sounds familiar. A new 50% on Canadian goods, although a more limited range of goods... maybe. We're definitely not in Mr. Trump's good books either these days.

In general, you shouldn't expect much value, unless one of them turns out to be by a famous master, which is highly unlikely. #1 is an oddity - might even be a printed picture mounted on a hanging scroll - I can't tell. #2 - 4 all look on first glance to be relatively modern, although #4 might be a bit older... but again, hard to tell from these photos. #5 is likely to be an appreciation scroll given to a specific person... but a translation would tell for sure.

Ah yes, evidence of the relatively secret Tokugawa drone program. Mostly believed to have been used to spy on daimyo while not in attendance in Edo.

That's a lot of fretsawing and filing .

You're thinking of galvanic corrosion. It can certainly happen if there's enough moisture around to act as an electrolyte, and yes, it would corrode the steel, rather than the copper alloy. However, I'd be surprised if it only corroded that one point of contact.

That's a decent tsuba (sword guard), so someone thought enough of it to pair it with that. The blade itself looks like it may have been subject to some lower quality polishing at some point, which has altered the blade shape a bit... or the swordsmith had a particular and slightly unusual aesthetic in mind. Not a big flaw by any means - and could potentially be corrected with some work around the kissaki, if there's enough hamon left, which I think there is, and if the judgement of more expert people is that the shape has come off a bit. That is, if someone wanted to spend the not inconsiderable $ to get a professional polish. Looks a nice enough blade - as to school and era, I'll leave that to the experts .

T

I believe it's possible that that pattern may actually be plum flower - you can see the stamens in the middle. At least that Is the description that was given in a recent catalogue, and it makes sense.

Definitely not . I was doing some research on early iron casting the other day, though, and was stunned to find that there is archaeological evidence for iron casting in Japan going back almost a millennium. I didn't think they were using technology capable of generating that much heat until more recently.