The cost of getting koshirae made

[lonely panet]

Hi guys.. .

 

Anyone ever had good quality koshirae made. Cost, time etc⁹

[Tcat]

Cost and time are both a factor of the level of complexity of the work comissioned and the grade or level of demand the artist/workshop has.

 

For example, I was recently quoted for a high quality saya in various configurations - with kozuka and kogai pockets integrated the price was close to double that of one with none. 4,750 US or thereabouts. I imagine additional carving such as ribbing, fluting or application of other materials  samegawa, crushed abalone etc sky is the limit.

[lonely panet]

so to help clear details,  what was the finish? and was that just the saya,  not the tsuka ?

 

or is that completed koshirae excluding the fittings cost?

 

like this,  neat and basic?

[eternal_newbie]

45 minutes ago, lonely panet said:

so to help clear details,  what was the finish? and was that just the saya,  not the tsuka ?

 

The Kashima sisters have a good breakdown of the costs on their website (as well as some past examples of more interesting requests): http://www.ksky.ne.jp./~sumie99/costs.html

[Curran]

7 hours ago, Tcat said:

Cost and time are both a factor of the level of complexity of the work comissioned and the grade or level of demand the artist/workshop has.

 

For example, I was recently quoted for a high quality saya in various configurations - with kozuka and kogai pockets integrated the price was close to double that of one with none. 4,750 US or thereabouts. I imagine additional carving such as ribbing, fluting or application of other materials  samegawa, crushed abalone etc sky is the limit.

 

As per Alex,

about 4k not including the price of the parts. I did it for a special blade, but it is a total money sink.

 

Hence why Aoi Arts is always retrofitting koshirae to blades.

Much easier to do that.

[eternal_newbie]

If you're just getting usable koshirae for a shinsakuto / iai sword, you could probably get it cheaper (100-200k yen) going with one of the outfits in Gifu, e.g. Tozando as they'd basically just be using the generic iaito parts and labor with a premium for adapting it to your blade instead of the standard sizes of iaito casts. But you'd definitely want something more premium for a beloved antique blade.

[Grey Doffin]

If the koshirae is for a beloved older blade and if cost is to be considered, I would suggest another option: buy a preexisting koshirae to display beside the sword in its shirasaya. Custom koshirae is, as Curran states, a money sink - you'll never recoup the cost when the time comes to move on - and the blade is best kept in a well made shirasaya anyway. For example, I have a nice, Higo, katana koshirae on my site that is priced at 1/4 or less what it would cost to have it made new.

Grey

[eternal_newbie]

17 minutes ago, Grey Doffin said:

buy a preexisting koshirae to display beside the sword in its shirasaya

 

Good advice, especially if you think you might someday trade the blade out for another one, or if you have multiple blades but only display one at a time.

[Curran]

2 hours ago, Grey Doffin said:

If the koshirae is for a beloved older blade and if cost is to be considered, I would suggest another option: buy a preexisting koshirae to display beside the sword in its shirasaya. Custom koshirae is, as Curran states, a money sink - you'll never recoup the cost when the time comes to move on - and the blade is best kept in a well made shirasaya anyway. For example, I have a nice, Higo, katana koshirae on my site that is priced at 1/4 or less what it would cost to have it made new.

Grey

 

Yes, my thoughts exactly. 

On my katana kake:   I too have a Higo koshirae up with a shirasaya'd mumei Shinto Echizen blade that doesn't really go in it.

The (very) few blades I own are stored elsewhere.

 

On my Higo koshirae, the parts (f/k) are worth about as much as the entire koshirae would bring.

Darcy went through a period where he insisted on telling me that every sword shop in Tokyo was stripping down old koshirae for their parts.

I happened to walk into a shop near Aoi Arts where they were doing this. Obviously they didn't expect the foreigner to pop in on some random winter holiday.

 

If the day comes that I want to rip fine artwork apart so that it can fit into little wooden boxes and be sold off,

then I might as well climb into my own box and close the lid on the casket.

[Bugyotsuji]

If money is no object and a new Koshiraé does not trouble you, then you will be providing vital work and income for needy modern artisans.

 

If you prefer to adapt an old Koshiraé for the antiques feel, this may work out if you are lucky, but reshaping internally and boring of new mekugi ana in the tsuka will probably be necessary, and fine adjustments with tsuba, seppa etc., may cause headaches for someone. This too would be best done by a trained artisan. You may also need to order a tsunagi or takemitsu to hold the empty Koshiraé (the one you are not using) together.

[Jussi Ekholm]

I think there are few very skilled artisans in Japan that can fit very high quality blades & koshirae together and it would be very difficult to understand that they were not originally paired.

 

Then there is the second class of joining old koshirae with an old sword and then it is pretty obvious. I think this is done by many dealers in Japan, and I am bit neutral on it. I can well understand this matching as the dealers and some people probably have lots of lower end antique koshirae laying around, and fitting them to blades makes them a package. I recently got a sword that has this kind of refitment done, you can see filled up old hole in tsuka, and feel the tsuka being bit "loose", however as I was only after this bit unique blade size it did not matter to me at all. With these lower end antique koshirae their parts wouldn't really make money selling them off in piece by piece.

 

Sometimes there is a good sword with good koshirae, however they might get split as someone wants just the blade and someone just wants the high quality koshirae  I can of course understand that too but it is sad when it happens.