seattle1

Hello: Its significance is religious, it being a Buddhist device, in Sanskrit, called a bonji and in this case it appears to be "Senju Kwannon" which, according to Willis Hawley, means "kindness to everybody". Arnold F.

Hello: This thread and its referred to parallels is interesting because it seems to polarize views so emphatically. It seems clear that kiri-komi do not limit high level designations from the NBTHK. Most of them are not visually damaging to the aesthetic appreciation of the blade, but even when they are distracting, they can be highly papered nonetheless. What does surprise me somewhat is a tangential issue spun off under "mystique" such as in the following quotation form Steve M. "...putting a monetary figure on sentimental value and mystique is a Sisyphean task..." Where is the flattening from that big rock? To mention only a couple examples from recent times it seems to me that "mystique" is what the Yasukuni Jinja and the Minatogawa Jinja blades are all about. Other equally fine blades were made elsewhere during the Pacific War era, but they don't seem to have that mystique that demands a premium in the market for Jinja blades, being wrapped up as they are in the deepest Shinto focus so influential in that era. I think the same thing can be said of the blades made by Horii Hideaki (Toshihide) in the early 1930s incorporating steel from a damaged gun from Admiral Togo's flagship Mikasa during the Russo-Japanese War. It was only a small amount of the damaged gun steel that was mixed in, but that was the magic sauce that leads to a price premium above the already high quality of his workmanship. Many other examples of value influencing "mystique" characteristics could be found from earliest times on. If we don't collect swords for something beyond their cutting prowess, why do we collect them at all? Arnold F.

Hello: I could be wrong but I believe this tsuba is a iron "interpretation" of what was once an eagerly collected type of tsuba by Westerners, those being a woven brass tsuba looking something like a pad to set a ceramic of some sort on at a table or on a shelf, perhaps for ceremonial purposes. They were usually called Shingen tsuba but they have no relation at all to Takeda Shingen. A version of them is illustrated in Torigoye. Tsuba Kanshoki, Revised, p. 387, though he advises viewers not to collect such pieces. They do pop up in auctions and at shows from time to time, often with stiff prices asked. If I am correct as to what yours attempts to represent, and I might be very wrong, I have never seen an iron example. It does not look old and chisel marks are not necessarily indicative of age on any tsuba. Whatever it is, it is an interesting curiosity. Arnold F.

Hello: Good for the buyer. It is the sort of book that opens the eyes and needs several readings. It may over reach in places, but it does deal with issues that for some reason are ignored in the literature. Arnold F.

Hello: Does it appear to be "ubu"? Arnold F.

Hello: Thanks to Markus's help it makes more sense. Korekazu worked in the Bizen tradition and it is logical that it was made to look koto if some origami or sayagaki called it something early, assuming that the market price would be higher than for a signed Korekazu, if indeed it was a signed Korekazu at all. I suppose Korekazu could have done that himself, ego bruise that would be. This is another reason why every collector should read a copy of Nobuo Nakahara. Facts and Fundamentals of Japanese Swords: A Collector's Guide. (Kodansha, 2010). Arnold F.

Hello: It is very unusual to see a nakago o-suriage like that like that on a blade that is early 19th Cent. if either Naotane or Korekazu, both considerable smiths. If either it would in all likelihood have been signed and probably dated, and why would it be shortened as it is still quite long, and leave no notation or evidence of the original mei? My guess is that it was and is a nice blade that once tried to masquerade as a koto something or the other. The NBTHK has the usual notation of mu mei above their attribution, but there is another kanji just above those two that I do not know and it might be a clue. It is certainly worth a shinsa and there might be a NTHK shinsa before long in the US. Arnold F.

Hello: Guido, the blade I was thinking of called a "naga-katana" is a Dewa Daijo F/W Kunimichi, 1.9 shaku with a slightly longer ubu nakago and awarded a Tokubetsu Hozon in Heisei 26 (2014), using the kanji you show. I have a copy of the original torokusho registration certificate, dated Showa 26 (1951), and it has the "naga-katana" designation there as well. Perhaps there is some convention when a torokusho exits for the NBTHK to subsequently use the same terminology. I think there were a number of these blades made by Kunimichi as special order, perhaps for some Daimyo. One of them may be the one illustrated by Iida Kazuo in his Yari, Naginata Nyumon (1973), p. 58, there called a naginata I think. That same blade was subsequently owned by the President of the NBTHK and is in his catalog, published Heisei 17. He refers to it as a "naga-katana". Another example, all of them being 1.9 shaku, is illustrated in the Japan Sword monthly, Showa 59,12, p. 24, it being called a nagamaki. The three mentioned are all shinogi-zukuri and with little sori. The terminology is sure elastic. Arnold F.

Hello: Wow, this interesting thread has more strands than an octopus has tentacles! Guido, do you perhaps know when the NBTHK discontinued the designation "nagamaki" for blades, and restricted its use to koshirae I presume? They also seem to now have a rather unusual designation "naga-katana" which seems to be for a blade shaped very much like a katana but with a long nakago, perhaps as long as a nagamaki would have, and clearly intended to be mounted as a polearm. Arnold F.

Hello: Excellent demonstration!; thanks again Peter. I thought it was particularly helpful to see the demonstration of the co-operative interplay between the renowned smith and his students, all of them turned into a machine in a sense, and the processing of all the ingredients going into the final product, right down to Fujishiro san's togi. I am sure all those linkages are broken today, and for the worse. Arnold F.

Hello: While Jean is doubtless correct in describing the yari and naginata as the weapon of the foot soldier, a lot of that weight rests on the yari; however the initial question was directed to the naginata and we should not forget its very substantial role as a weapon from very early times at least through Nanbokucho, and for the warrior monks in and around Nara for many years thereafter. For the latter, who controlled for the temples of Yamato the vast holdings of the various Buddhist sects, the naginata was their primary weapon until they were thoroughly suppressed by Oda Nobunaga in 1571. In an earlier period many bushi used the naginata during the failed Mongol invasions as depicted in paintings. Roald M Knutsen. Japanese Polearms (1963), p. 36, states that prior to Nanbokucho times "the naginata vied with the sword as the most popularly used weapon and many famous heroes armed themselves with it." and he does go on to mention that during Muromachi times it lost favor in comparison to the yari. The obviously excludes the Shohei and Yamabushi of Yamato. The Yamato Kanabo were known for both their excellent yari and their naginata. The foregoing however does not address the under representation of cutting test examples of naginata. Perhaps by the time for wide spread testing of the Edo era the naginata had become an obsolete weapon in terms of tactics and many were doubtless shortened into suriage wakizashi, as were many nagamaki, make into farm implements or scaped. The only hint of testing I found is an illustration in Fukunaga Suiken. Kubikiri Asaemon Token Oshigata, I, (1970), p. 58, where a rig looking like a longish two piece tsuka with sliding iron securing rings is found fitted to a naginata in preparation for testing. Arnold F.

Hello: Yes really a good question! There are illustrations of yari used to pierce bodies, usually a skull as I recall, but naginata are different in the way they are used in comparison to a sword and I imagine different success criteria and testing methods would have to be fashioned for them. Arnold F.

Hello: I think most of us would hesitate to go too far along the suggested line, as some of the comments above imply. Further, while I know what "all things being equal" would mean in hypothesis structuring or a thought experiment, I don't know what it means within the question. A sayagaki is not the same as an origami as the later has an oshigata and the former invites some other blade with the same dimensions being conformed to the saya and being pit in it. Which Hon'ami, Koson or the one currently practicing, namely Koshu? Hakusui Inami, Koson and Kanzan are deceased, but another issuer of authentications, though I have only seen sayagaki, was Homma Kunzan who is now also deceased. I would be surprised if anyone would want to comment on Tanzan (Tanobe sensei), or Koshu as they are very much with us. Arnold F.

Hello: Congratulations once again Peter for unearthing such interesting stuff! Arnold F.

Hi Grev: It is always interesting to learn what people we know collect. Speaking of RB, as he was known, he was an active and good collector, and his reach went into East Asian ceramics as well. No. 59 is a terrific piece and should you be interested it realized 2,780 Pounds. Arnold F.

Hello Grev: I wasn't suggesting for a moment that you bought it as an investment; the practical illustration merely represented another example of how, if it had been bought back then as an investment, one had better have high psychic income expectations and realizations as the economic are much more tenuous. The "he" in paragraph 3 was "he", not you. By the way should anyone doubt it there is nothing whatsoever wrong with buying these things we talk about just for the enjoyment of ownership. I suspect that for the happiest collector, that is the goal. Arnold F.

Hello: Grev I believe the question you are asking is what would be the purchasing power of 575 Pounds in 1995 compared to what you would have to pay to get that same item, other things equal, in 2016 Pounds, and based on purchasing power calculations the answer would be about 997 Pounds. Clearly you bought the piece for less, but it isn't "the piece" as it is sans blade. The market price for anything depends on the market and context of buying and selling at any moment. If you bought the entire today under the conditions of 1995, which you didn't, you might have to have paid more than 575, perhaps the 997 Pounds, or it might have gone for less. Economics stands on the shaky foundation of lots of assumptions and lots of effects excluded from consideration. If you imagine the person who paid 575 in 1995 had sold it to you for 240, he would have lost two ways: 1. reduced purchasing power, and, 2. he would have additionally foregone the earning potential of 575 Pounds over the intervening years. Some offset for him would have been the psychic income of ownership. The foregoing illustrates once again the unwise belief in buying art as an "investment". Individual examples will be contrary of course, but in general it is unwise relative to strictly financial assets of the same risk. Arnold F.

Hello: I can only see clearly what I think I see on the vertical images Tsuruta san has posted, and I might be very wrong (!), but it looks as if something has been removed on each side. There is sort of a convention among collectors of swords it seems to remove mei after failing a shinsa, and "try again". It sort of as if it wasn't there with respect to future assessment of the blade. Of course if there was anything there at all it might have been something other than a mei and date. I don't have strong feelings one way or the other of such a thing as we all have heard of cases when a mei is removed for the sword to return from some future shinsa with a mu mei attribution to the same smith! If a removal is done I think it would be easier to accept if you knew about it before hand but couldn't tell afterwards. It must be very hard to remove a long and complex inscription, particularly on newer blades and I would guess that a niji mei on an old koto warrior would be the best candidate. With regard to the reference sword, this is all just guessing on my part, but it should remind all of us how much value is in the nakago and its careful study. Arnold F.

Grev: 575 Pounds. Arnold F.

Hello: This is an old thread but for illustrative purposes a Shikkake popped up on Aoi Arts this morning that displays in the oshigata image a nice illustration of the classic sort of hotsure subduction effects in the hamon that Shikkake sometimes shows. It is item AS16205 and for a Juyo the starting price seems modest. It is also interesting to note that the Juyo paper is not in hand yet as it just received that designation: submission and up for sale at once. The nakago also shows an interesting feature - see if you see it too - which if I am seeing it correctly might make for the basis of another discussion. Arnold F.

Hello Grant: That is sometimes seen in a nakago inscription, associated with a gift or recognition of special event or accomplishment. I haven't seen it on a koshirae but in any event there is no negative implication as far as I know. Arnold F.

Hello: "Kotobuki" meaning congratulations. Arnold F.

Hello: Might the angle be meant to complement the motion of the waves? They seem to provide that effect. Arnold F.

Hello: A nice Ko Bizen, signed Yoshikane, Mid Heian, Juyo Token with Tanobe sensei sayagaki and koshirae popped up on Aoi's site this morning. These very early and unaffected swords are quite wonderful and the write-up is educational. The very natural hamon is beautiful and a thing not seen so much later on when school criteria were laid down more narrowly. Spending 7,000,000 JPY on a mail order site could have its moments, but the whole thing is quite rare and well worth taking a look at IMHO. Arnold F.

Hello: It is hard to say much about the hamon from the pix as the images are bright and segmented. The key to Shikkake yakiba usually seen, aside from the presence of nie, is what the dealer described as "stacked" hamon, usually referred to as hotsure I believe. That looks like a subduction of the hamon in places where one level goes below or above an adjacent segment as one's eye moves up and down the hamon. I think with the blade in hand it would show it to some extent. Beyond that I would say the Yamato characteristic of a relatively wide shinogi-ji is present, however it seems "tired" in places, hardly unexpected on an earlier sword. It would be nice to see more images of the kissaki, as kissaki and nakago on a sword are the two spots richest in kantei information. Arnold F.