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a little eye candy

Darcy

By Darcy
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Darcy Mentor

Darcy

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It can be overlooked the first time around but the lacquer is done in patterns of peony flowers.

 

Elements are by Omori Mitsutoki, dai tsuba, kozuka, both fuchi are signed. Curious why he didn't sign the tanto tsuba though.

 

They are Juyo.

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Jean

Jean

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Everybody knows it has been done before, HJ, but try to do it with a blade made of honoki... :freak:

 

Sometimes Darcy, I hate you. I was going to shut the light, it is nearly 2 am in France and now I will stay sleepless :cry:

 

Ok, let's go back to Farm Heroes :glee:

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Darcy Mentor

Darcy

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Side note, there are only 54 sets of daisho koshirae that have made it to Juyo Toso. 10 of them further passed Tokuju.

 

A lot have basically just been disassembled over the years. There are another group of Daisho Tosogu which have gone in, then Daisho Tsuba and so on. As you get down to various levels of disassembly.

 

So kind of a shame that with 14,000 Juyos, the symbol of the samurai, the daisho, only passes 55.

 

Anyway it's a really rare thing. Just keep it in mind that this is definitely not something that you see every day. And please, as always, no drooling on the photos.

 

This is the only daisho set which was explicitly laid out with a tanto koshirae to compliment the daito. The tanto tsunagi is 27cm and looks like it could be something like a Rai Kunimitsu that was in there. The katana tsunagi looks in keeping with a graceful (and cut down) Kamakura blade. So this could have been made for a Rai daisho. Sometimes they write down the blade on the tsunagi but sadly not in this case.

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Darcy Mentor

Darcy

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The tanto tsunagi is 27cm and looks like it could be something like a Rai Kunimitsu that was in there.
That's yet another first for me: tsunagi-kantei!

 

Yeah I'm thinking of posting them. If people can do kantei with the swords in the scabbards then it should stand to reason that we can get something even more useful from the tsunagi. We have shape, nakago jiri, sori, kissaki. Sometimes number of holes is reproduced and can point to age. We should be able to guess at age too by checking the width of the nakago mune vs. the mune and see if we have any tapering.

 

We have to start with this one with the thinking that tanto - katana daisho is not so common in the Edo period. Someone set this one up specifically for a tanto. The tsunagi I think is cut on the dai and the blade is slender with deep curve and looks like late Kamakura.

 

At 27cm the tanto is on the big side for something like Sa, Masamune, Norishige, Rai Kunitoshi, etc. It could fit some Awataguchi tanto or some later Rai tanto. You don't make a set like this for crap so we can keep the speculation to probably high level things. I went to Rai because I could imagine two Rai blades, a mumei katana in the dai and a signed tanto in the sho. In this case maybe a Rai Kunimitsu and a Rai Kunitoshi.

 

I thought also it might be something like a pair of Kagemitsu in there.

 

It could be Muromachi period but the shape of the dai didn't seem to imply that. When there is time I'll see about laying them out and measuring and see if we can guess.

 

There is nothing saying that the blades had to be matched as well. Just a suspicion if someone went all out like this it was to treat a special tanto-daito combo.

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Brian

Brian

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Wow!

Not often I open a thread and my breath is literally taken away. That is pretty mindblowing. Even down to the pattern of the lacquer matching the theme.

Like Guido....I am fascinated by the same attachment points. And if he hasn't seen it before...it is rare. But yet it works, and seems to complement the rest of the fittings.

That is beauty of the highest order.

Would be good to upload a few pics directly Darcy, so that in a year or 2 if they are gone from your site, they can be drooled over here.

 

Brian

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Eric H Mentor

Eric H

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The title of this thread is misleading, actually it is a daisho koshirae with tosogu by Omori Mitsutoki of the highest quality, perfectly photographed, such fittings are very rarely seen on this board. The lacquer design on the sayas are the ideal supplement to the tosogu.

I think this is isokusa nuri, a very excruciatingly exacting work. The condition of this daisho koshirae is amazingly well preserved.

Thanks for sharing.

Eric

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Soshin Grand Master

Soshin

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Hi Darcy,

 

First off I am a hardcore old iron dude but I still very much like what you've posted as quality always speaks a universal language to me! :o I had a partial katana koshirae (missing menuki) with a wooden tsunagi that had information about the sword it was made from as well as a few of bit of other information. I sold it last year at the Baltimore Japanese sword show at a fair price when I found a matching handachi style tsuba and a set of o-seppa. Sorry I couldn't find any old photos of it. Brian T. was going to do the restoration work so I will follow up with the owner about the restoration progress because I expressed a interested in seeing the restored katana koshirae. Needless to say I am very much looking forward to the upcoming Philly show next week. :D

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