Frog Overlord Menuki (Unique?)

[GreyVR]

Last month I was in Kyoto.

 went into a tourist trap antique shop. It was at the end of a long street that is aimed at the tourist trade, but had genuine antiques for sale. 
 

There was a large section of sword fittings, most of them in poor shape. Some were sets connected by small bits of plastic, others individuals.

In the individual menuki box, I found this treasure and bought it on the spot. 

 

A giant frog holding an umbrella, while a man in court dress bows down and prostrates himself to the frog. 

(I, For One, Welcome Our New Amphibian Overlords!)

Whatever it was paired with has been lost to time. 
 

I am therefore posting it here, to ask if anyone else has seen it's like? 

(Besides the fire breathing toad of Tenjiku Tokubei...)

[ROKUJURO]

Hi George,

looking at the motif, size and pins, it may be a KANAMONO for a tobacco or money pouch.

[Spartancrest]

 Is this the same piece? - found on another site

[GreyVR]

1 hour ago, Spartancrest said:

 

It looks very like ,but it appears as if that one has gold eyes, but certainly close enough to be of great interest. Can you tell me where and how you found it? I ran your image thought google reverse images, and while it turns up, it's not anywhere my antivirus will let me go. 

-Edit: Looks like the gold eye thing is a reflection, and the end of the man's garment has identical wear. Might be that's the piece I bought? 

Edited May 6 by GreyVR

[GreyVR]

BTW, I've decided I love this thing enough it's now my avatar. 

[Spartancrest]

4 hours ago, GreyVR said:

Can you tell me where and how you found it?

https://xmhqqg.dlubowitz.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=13979&sid=6XDvntj  The site won't open for me either but the image is able to be copied. When I tried to search the second image I get a link including Yahoo Auctions. But still won't show where it originated.     

 

Need a froggy tsuba? https://www.jauce.com/auction/w1228933639  Heads up it is a "popular" cast piece! Note the simulated sekigane! 

Edited May 6 by Spartancrest

[GreyVR]

@Spartancrest, After my last reply, I did a LOT of digging. 

Now, when I buy a unique item online, I always try to do a reverse image search, because I've seen a lot of people selling items they do not own, then rushing off to buy the item if it sells. I bought a wonderful set of Fuchi & Kashira off ebay, asked the seller to send them to a Japanese company making a koshirae for me... and the guy panicked, acted weird as heck, and canceled the sale. I don't think I was even able to bad review him because he cancelled it. 

I did a reverse image and found out it was on a Japanese site for half the price. I bought it there out from under the swindler. Lately though Japanese sites are bouncing the reverse image search, and ChatGPT who I occasionally use for assistance (though I do NOT trust LLMs. I use them as search engines now that search engines are mostly bad at the job.) tells me that it is not able to access the images on those websites if I link them, I have to download the screenshots and manually enter them for Chatgpt to look at. 

This is a big problem, and I think I should make a thread about it, because if I can't reverse image to the Japanese auction sites because they are bouncing the search it's much harder to catch swindlers. 

Still, I took your photo (which I originally didn't recognize as a link to Yahoo auctions Japan's images) and reversed it, and got those suspicious websites we mentioned. 

It seems what these websites are doing is scraping the internet to have the entire internet on their site so they can mirror whatever you are searching and can come up for every search. You search "Prehistoric potato chips made by time traveling dragons from mars" and they will somehow always manage to come up and look like they have something for you.... 

The scraper sites however did have some real images.... and copies of the Japanese kanji text from the original yahoo auction. 

And using that text I was able to search google for that text exactly, and the original auction (from 2021) came up.... and it's the place I bought the item at. 

Which was a lot of work to go in a circle. Seems they had the neat little thing 4-5 years before I walked in and was enchanted by it. (IT was also 8K more in person..... but I still love it.) 
https://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/t1026815632

Still, the ability to reverse image to these sites directly matters to collectors, and I really do want to dig into why the search engines are getting bounced by them. Anyone have anything on that? 


Below is (some of) what ChatGPT had to say on it. Also, note that where it says "And this is important: your object may not originally have been catalogued as a netsuke at all" is an example of an LLM having a breakdown, as it was never suggested the Frog Overlord was a netsuke, and I always referred to it as a menuki, since it was sold to me as one (though I think the idea above by @ROKUJUROthat it's actually a clasp has a lot of merit.) 

Quote

Are you able to safely load this page and see if it's safe? https://www.farinandmore.com/items/E771263653/

 

I checked the page, and it does appear to be a real reachable website rather than an immediately dead or malware-blocked domain.

What I can tell from the indexed snippet is actually very interesting:

The page title is:

【2331】刀装具 江戸～ オリジナル 赤銅地 蛙 大金具12g（初品・買取品）

Which roughly translates to:

“Sword fitting, Edo-period original, shakudō-ground frog large fitting, 12g (first item / purchased item)”

That is a very strong sign this was copied from a genuine Japanese antique listing.

A few important clues:

• 刀装具 = sword fitting
• 江戸～ オリジナル = Edo-period original
• 赤銅地 = shakudō base/ground (the dark copper-gold alloy used in high-end fittings)
• 蛙 = frog
• 大金具 = large fitting

So the scraper page at least preserved the original Japanese title.

And this is important:
your object may not originally have been catalogued as a netsuke at all.

It may have been sold as:

• a sword fitting,
• kozuka ornament,
• menuki-related object,
• or detached tosogu component.

That actually fits your earlier suspicion that the piece felt “odd” and did not neatly conform to normal netsuke construction.

As for safety:

• The domain does not immediately present as classic malware/phishing from the search result alone.
• HOWEVER, it still behaves like a scraper/mirror commerce site, and I would not log in, create accounts, enter payment info, or disable browser protections.
• If you want to inspect it safely:
  • use a browser with scripting limited,
  • or open it in a VM/sandbox,
  • or use a text-only fetch service.

But the key takeaway is:
you now have real Japanese metadata attached to the piece. That is valuable.

And honestly, “赤銅地 蛙 大金具” is probably the most useful lead you’ve gotten so far.


{I asked about the scaper sites and it came back with 
 

1) Why those scraper pages exist (and why they look sketchy)

They’re not random—they’re SEO parasites.

How they work:

• Bots crawl places like Yahoo Auctions Japan, Rakuten, Mercari
• They copy:
  • title text (often in Japanese),
  • thumbnail images,
  • sometimes prices/IDs
• They auto-generate fake “product pages” on cheap domains

2) Why the real Japanese listings don’t show up

This is the part that actually matters for your use case.

 

I'm also discussing work arounds with chatgpt, but he's being unrealistic in the way that LLMs sometimes are. Giving academic ideas that actual users will immediately see are bad. 

Have there been big discussions on here about that? There likely should be. 


EDIT: Actually do kind of like that frog Tsuba.... if it stays low maybe I will buy it.... I like fitting with animals, especially aquatic animals. 

Edited May 6 by GreyVR

[ROKUJURO]

Short reply: Know what you are going to buy, and buy from trusted dealetrs.....

[GreyVR]

38 minutes ago, ROKUJURO said:

Short reply: Know what you are going to buy, and buy from trusted dealetrs.....

Good advice, and advice I'd take on anything as substantial as say, a blade, but when hunting through little weirdbits (which so many of us have a passion for....) it's the good advice you just can't take. 

Personally on the weird finds, I keep myself to a few rules. I am not buying old, I am buying art, and judging what I buy on that basis.

If it's good art, it might have been made last Thursday and it'll still be worth the price. Assuming the price isn't insane that is... as if it is I won't touch it if I can't see it in person or have a reliable dealer putting their reputation on the line. This frog for example? I'd have bought it online as well, and considered it a steal just because of the charm it has. 

[Spartancrest]

9 hours ago, GreyVR said:

EDIT: Actually do kind of like that frog Tsuba.... if it stays low maybe I will buy it.... I like fitting with animals, especially aquatic animals. 

https://www.legacyswords.com/portfolio/sadayuki-tsuba/  This one sadly sold. Another either an utsushi or degraded from the other sale appeared about a month ago on Jauce - it did get a lot of interest. 

https://www.jauce.com/auction/o1226150302

 

seen these? https://www.jauce.com/auction/h1026816107      https://www.jauce.com/auction/j1227489912