Ko Kinko Beauty

sabi · October 5, 2014

Hello all!

I recently picked up my first ko kinko plate from our own resident vending machine, Marius. It arrived yesterday from it's journey overseas, the sun finally came out today and I was able to get some pictures of it. I would like to publicly thank Marius for being a wonderful person to deal with. All of my questions were quickly and thoroughly answered, the tsuba couldn't have arrived any quicker and was expertly packaged. He is a true asset to this forum and I would not hesitate for a second to buy from him again. Thank you, my friend!

The sales thread was rightly removed and I wanted this piece to have a permanent spot in our library. I have to admit, before seeing this one I had never considered expanding my focus of study to soft metal. The tsuba you see here just spoke to me, plain and simple. It's hard to explain and I'm sure we've all had those moments. It seems that old soft metal is somewhat under-appreciated and I hope that this thread might inspire some to explore the simplistic beauty that these tsuba have to offer.

This strong and elegant shinchu example measures 7.8 cm concentric, is .3 cm at the mimi and thickens slightly toward the center of the plate. The amida yasuri is very finely and artistically carved and it very pleasing. I have seen this motif executed in a rather rigid fashion but this take is well composed and lively. The thinning of the plate towards the mimi adds to this. A fair amount of gilding remains in both the radiating lines and the carved inner circle, this must have been an impressive sight when it was first made. However, the 500 years (give or take) that has passed since have given us a truly remarkable palette of colors to admire; a wabi sabi mosaic of warm tones and contrasting dark areas.

The pictures are the best I can do being limited to a cell phone. This piece is best viewed in direct light so that is how I chose to display it. What you see is exactly how it looks in hand. Enjoy!

BMarkhasin · October 5, 2014

Great purchase! I am glad Mariusz's kokinko tsuba are finding homes where they are appreciated.

Best,

Boris.

Antti · October 6, 2014

I am loving this.

Just like you, I have never really found Ko-Kinko to be 'my thing' but this right here is an exception. I love the color, and I probably like this more right now that I would have liked it the day it was crafted. However I have not felt that Ko-Kinko are in general, unappreciated here at all.

sabi · October 6, 2014

Thanks Boris and Antti!

Perhaps I should have been more specific. By underappreciated I didn't mean here, I just meant that for the most part, ko kino seem to be overlooked in favor of iron pieces. This is also reflected in the price that they exchange hands, it seems.

I'm with you! I much prefer how it looks now, you can't beat that kind of patina!

christianmalterre · October 6, 2014

great to see that somebody overthere had an eye for real quality!

Congratulations!

Christian

laowho · October 7, 2014

How do they get that striking through it? It's so fine and even...

Marius · October 7, 2014

Doug,

not sure what you mean with "striking through", but if you want to see how a tsubako works, you might want to watch this excellent video:

http://vimeo.com/63458375

Brian · October 7, 2014

I think he is refering to the amida yasuri. Yes..far harder than it looks as Ford once pointed out I think.

Brian

laowho · October 7, 2014

Thanks Marius,

Yes, Ford's video was one of the first things I saw when joining here. It reminded me of the first time I saw "Baraka."

Yes Brian,

Thanks. I Googled this and now I have a new term to impress my wife with. I've seen amida yasuri before, but never where a different metal seems to be radiating out from within the tsuba, and never so fine, as though there were a soft metal substrate which has been scratched through to.

sabi · October 8, 2014

great to see that somebody overthere had an eye for real quality!

Congratulations!

Christian

This means a lot coming from you, thank you very much, my brother!

Doug, i had never seen the amida yasuri done so finely either and it was certainly one of the factors that led me to pulling the trigger.

Brian, it doesn't even look easy to do! Can't imagine the skill needed to pull this off. Fantastic work indeed.

Glad this is sparking a little bit of discusson!

Marius · October 8, 2014

I've seen amida yasuri before, but never where a different metal seems to be radiating out from within the tsuba, and never so fine, as though there were a soft metal substrate which has been scratched through to.

@Doug

while I agree that the Amida yasuri were done very nicely on this tsuba, what you call "different metal" is just the remnants of the gilding :-)

@Antti

I am glad that you like this tsuba Just like with iron tsuba, also among ko-kinko works there will extremely fine examples as well as bland ones. Evan's tsuba is very fine, but there are many others which deserve appreciation.

@Evan

Very good pics :-) And you have only used a smartphone? Wow Which smartphone, please? Seems to have a really fine lens :-)

sabi · October 8, 2014

@Evan

Very good pics :-) And you have only used a smartphone? Wow Which smartphone, please? Seems to have a really fine lens :-)

Thanks! Just a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, nothing special. I think it's rated at 8 megapixels. It takes nice photos as long as the lighting is good, once things start to get dim the quality suffers immensely.