On The 1936 Kajihei Shingi Oshigata

[Randy McCall]

Some time back I mentioned I had picked up a copy of the 1936 Kajihei Shingi Oshigata at an estate auction, and was trying to track down its background.  Markus Sesko kindly took time to look it over and was able to supply some details.  Any errors below are mine in transcription, and not Markus'.
 

In earlier years Sugihara Shôzô had written the "Kajihei Kotetsu Meishu" (no publishing date available to me), focusing on Kajihei's imitations of Kotetsu blades.  The Osaka Token Kai of the time believed more information on his fakes (not well known at the time) was needed, and so produced the Kajihei Shingi to expand on the Meishu. I should mention that while some bibliographic databases attribute the work generally to the Osaka Token Kai, others list the author as Kashima Isao... I have no information on this gentleman.

The Kajihei Shingi contains a CV for Kajihei, as well as a short historical view of the events of his time.  This is followed by many oshigata -- the book is about 200 pages (100 leaves), 150 or so averaging three to five oshigata on each page, with notes -- on both his fakes and authentic signatures for comparison.

All in all a very specialized and intriguing curio.  I have been unable to locate another copy through any Western sources or databases.

I believe both of the above-mentioned volumes have been supplanted by the 1984 Kajihei Oshigata, written by Suematsu Ikeda

For those who might be interested, I've located a digital copy of the Kajihei Shingi on the National Diet Library site.  Unfortunately the images are black and white and very grainy, but at least it's free 

 

http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1144559?itemId=info%3Andljp%2Fpid%2F1144559&__lang=en




 

 

[Brian]

Thanks Randy, will check it out. Sounds like you found a good book there.