Good non-sword deals you have picked up?

[Brian]

Just thought I would have some fun and ask what good deals you have picked up in the past that are not swords..but related? Some days a bargain appears that we can't say no to.

In my recent case (bragging very slightly) I noticed I was missing the book "Swords of the Samurai" by Victor Harris from my library. Not an essential book, but I try and get all the English ones that are out there. A web search found me a few copies..all over $90 and up used.

Last week a copy appeared in my used book search from Amazon.ca, and I thought it must be a mistake. The price was $7

So I thought may as well have a go..registered and ordered it. Well...I expected an email saying they made a mistake and the seller wanted $70 or $170, but today my book arrived, in mint condition. Paid $7 plus shipping. I guess I scored for a change.

So what good deals on fittings, books, art etc have you come across to restore your faith in this whole buying thing?

 

Brian

[huntershooter]

I seem to be one of the original "buy high, sell low" guys. Good news is, I seem to have accepted it.

I did find a lovely maki-e jikiro, in perfect condition, for $60.00.

That may be as good a deal I get this time around.

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Likely my best bargain in sword-related items was Fuller and Gregory's "Military Swords of Japan 1868-1945"

around 12 years ago, plus a couple small books about Tsuba and fittings that I've no more, from an old bookseller in a small town flea market.

As the first was in english and the others in Japanese I paid the entire lot 10.000 old lire, around 5 euro.

I asked for more, but that was all he had about Japanese weaponry... :D

[sencho]

Token Oshigata Taikan.... got it for ï¿¥5000 (About $50)... only 300 ever printed... the most beautiful sword book I have ever seen... I have #74...

 

Cover is genuine leather with original case and gold leaf inlay. This book contains more than 500 swordsmiths with super-clean oshigata, boshi, hamon, smith history, and his characteristics. Most of blades are from Kokuho, JuyoBunkazai and Juyo Token level. Printed only once in 1975.

 

see pictures here viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2121&hilit=token+oshigata+taikan

 

Mad thing was that it was in a second hand book store in Tokyo which was 2 doors away from a great sword shop.... literally 45ft.... if only they had known!!

 

Also just managed to get vol 1, 2, 3 and 5 of the Nihonto Zen Shu for $50 for the lot from Amazon (already have #4 courtesy of Henry Wilson)... now just 6, 7, 8 and 9 to go!!

 

Lastly found Fuller and Gregory Military Swords of Japan.... on Amazon last week for $25...

 

Cheers!!

[Bungo]

bought a pilar print, Harunobu from a Japanese painting seller on e-bay for less than 100 US Peso ( shipping, EMS included ).

Seller described it as print on paper , NOT painting , mounted as scroll.

Well, it is supposed to be a print...............

 

milt

[Walter]

Occasionally I check the garage sales and thrifty stores - sometimes you may find a real "treasures†among the garbage.

Some 3 weeks ago have found in local Salvation Army store very nice katana-kake - old one with minor repairs.

Nobody had idea what the hell it is, so it was priced accordingly ... $5.00

[Bugyotsuji]

Hmmm... some of those stories are hard to beat! There is such a thing as Lady Luck, then!

 

I was wanting a spear and couldn't find anything within my budget. One day I found an odd half-length Fukuro-yari spear, very rusted, at an antiques market stall. The seller wanted 6,000 JPY so I offered 5,000. He asked if I would definitely buy it at that and I said yes. My collector friend had already looked at it and was quite dismissive. No Yaki, he commented. Well, I sent it off for polishing and it came back gleaming, wrapped in kitchen Saran wrap. The local sword shop looked at it and said it was now worth 50-60,000 JPY. Originally a long spear, it would have been cut in half in the Bakumatsu Period for use indoors when ambushes and break-ins were common... oh, and nice Yaki, they said. Needless to say, my friend was pretty miffed for a long time afterwards.

[Bugyotsuji]

I quite like the idea of this thread, Brian, and I am sure I have found some great bargains in the past, but my brain goes blank when I sit in front of the keyboard.

 

This is not my best, but one that seemed good at the time. A couple of years ago, a stall holder had a ragged bunch of badly-worm-eaten Ukiyo-e woodblock prints rolled up beside him. Flipping through them I discovered they were a set of the Chushingura story. The bottom right corner was more or less missing from all of them for a start. Well, they were in such poor condition that I chose one that could possibly be fixed up, and paid 1,000 yen for it. He wrapped it up in a sheet of newspaper for me. The priest who was letting me use his carpark took one look at it and said: "This is a first run print by Toyokuni Kunisada III, worth around 10,000 yen in Kyoto." Then he got angry and threw the nespaper on the ground. "Who sold this to you?" he asked in a voice of thunder. "Which dealer would be so casual as to wrap this up in newsprint?"

 

Needless to say I ran back and bought some more of them, leaving the really tatty ones behind. During the subsequent month I discovered that with a bit of TLC I could repair them to some degree. The Museum of Fine Arts? in Boston has some incomplete sets, I seem to remember finding on the net. A month later I went back to the same stall holder and got the last two, which were good at least for providing similar coloured paper for the repairs.

 

Working on these for hours on end I found myself slipping back into the Edo Period, and one night shuffling along the corridor to the o-benjo I was well and truly back there and genuinely unable to get my brain back for a moment to the the 20th C!!!

 

The result is a three-quarters-complete set of repaired Chushingura Ukiyo-e prints. No idea what they are worth, but I really like them.

 

PS I like your 'print' above, Milt!

[John A Stuart]

Good one Piers, I guess the porcelain chamber pot more or less returned you to the present. O-benjojinja, a great place to think. :lol: John

[paulb]

Only one I can think of is the attached water colour of Kozan and Jirataro. The story of two eccentrics speaking their own langauge and laughing a lot reminded me of me and NTKS colleagues getting together. what particularly appealed with these two is their habit to abuse any stranger who seeing their jovial appearance made the mistake of saying hallo, only to recieve a stream of abuse in response!

The grumpy old man approach seems to have an increasing amount of merit as I get older!

Paul

[mercierarmory]

I was browsing abebooks.com and found a 1st edition of Broad and Smallsword Exercise by Colonel Thomas Stephens for only $5USD. Not knowing much about this book at the time it still sounded too good to be true so I bought it. Since then I have only heard of 2 copies for sale in the past 2 years and the only libraries in the US that own a copy are big name ones like The Library of Congress and West Point. Lets just say it's quite rare. I also managed to pick up the 2nd edition printed in 1861. for under $50 I believe. These books were highly recommended for the US Army Cavalry for swordsmanship training and give detailed instructions for the use of the saber. The earlier edition had the plates of the soldiers in Mexican American War uniforms and the 2nd edition uses Union and Confederate uniforms.

 

 

Mike

[Bugyotsuji]

I was browsing abebooks.com and found a 1st edition of Broad and Smallsword Exercise by Colonel Thomas Stephens for only $5USD. Not knowing much about this book at the time it still sounded too good to be true so I bought it. Since then I have only heard of 2 copies for sale in the past 2 years and the only libraries in the US that own a copy are big name ones like The Library of Congress and West Point. Lets just say it's quite rare. I also managed to pick up the 2nd edition printed in 1861. for under $50 I believe. These books were highly recommended for the US Army Cavalry for swordsmanship training and give detailed instructions for the use of the saber. The earlier edition had the plates of the soldiers in Mexican American War uniforms and the 2nd edition uses Union and Confederate uniforms.

 

 

Mike

 

Wow, is all I can say, Mike. Can we see a plate or two, please?

[sencho]

Just picked up the afore mentioned Nihonto Zen Shu from Noadashi (the parents in law)... books 1, 2 , 3, and 5... I bought for $50 which included domestic Japanese shipping....

 

....and bugger me if they weren't all in pristine condition in their original plastic wrapping... now there is a deal!!... especially when they were originally 4,500 yen each!!

 

Here's a gloating git, full of shochu!

 

Cheers!