A beautiful old koi tsuba that is hijacking my mind by looking modern. (texture)

[GreyVR]

Before anything else, I think I'm the problem here. That's why I'm posting. I'm looking for help. 

I was just posting something on colors in general. While looking for pictures to post, I found this Tsuba. 

https://www.supeinnihonto.com/product/marugata-copper-koi-nbthk-hozon/



I think the problem is in me. but I look at this texture, and I see modern machine make. 



Can anyone help me with this? This texture looks modern, but it seems from a number of examples that it is a historic texture. It's different from the fish egg pattern, does it have a name as well?

  

I think perhaps the issue is that the top pattern is easy to produce by machine, but the ability to look at an object and see 'old' or 'modern' matters to me, and I seem to have a glitch in my brain on this pattern. 

Can anyone help? 

[Bugyotsuji]

Good question, so I asked AI, who (!) suggested that I post a photo of the surface in question.

[GreyVR]

9 minutes ago, Bugyotsuji said:

Good question, so I asked AI, who (!) suggested that I post a photo of the surface in question.

Did you give it this image? 

[Bugyotsuji]

38 minutes ago, GreyVR said:

Did you give it this image? 

I suddenly remembered I had to go and see a man about a dog!

[MauroP]

15 hours ago, GreyVR said:

It's different from the fish egg pattern, does it have a name as well?

針石目 - hari-ishime (or just ishime).

 

PS: indeed the NBTHK paper reports suaka-ishime-ji.

[ROKUJURO]

George,

how do you personally define "old" and "modern" in TSUBA, and what kind of machine do you imagine to produce an ISHIME-JI (= "stone-like") texture on a TSUBA in the EDO era?

[GreyVR]

3 hours ago, ROKUJURO said:

what kind of machine do you imagine to produce an ISHIME-JI (= "stone-like") texture on a TSUBA in the EDO era?

Modern as in mass produced using entirely modern techniques, as opposed to the work of an individual artisan, or even a casting shop in period. 

IE, This one. 



As to how? There's lots of textures produced in metal by machine. 

https://tozandoshop.com/collections/fuchi-kashira/products/sakura-higo-fuchi-kashira

Or by casting. 

In any shape you please. 
https://www.custommadebetter.com/products/1-8-snake-skin-clear-textured-cast-acrylic-sheets


Textures of all kinds are not particularly difficult to produce, though raised dot patterns show their origin more then sunken dot patterns. 



any texture can be mass produced by stamping, casting, pressing, die cutting, or even a spray gun!

I put the original image into google images.... but cropped to just the texture. 

[ROKUJURO]

That is all new Chinese stuff which has nothing to do with your above shown 19th NBTHK HOZON TSUBA. 

[GreyVR]

But the point that such patterns are well inside the ability of machines to produce having been well made, (indeed, a machine intelligence identified the pattern as bronze powdercoat) I'll move back to how I'm looking to learn how to see past what I see when I look at it....

....which much like the machine is bronze powdercoat, and see the underlying workmanship the way I can with many other styles, like this one, which does not activate such a pattern in the brain, and looks to me like what it is, a masterwork of a human hands. 

[Spartancrest]

 

Various types of Ishime-Ji - by their very nature they tend to be "unique"    Technique : Ishimeji base, Certificate :NBTHK hozon tosogu paper (Issued 24 December Reiwa 3(2021))

 

  https://nihontocraft.com/Ko_Kinko_Tsuba_G.htm  ishime ji.   This tsuba dates to early - mid 1500s

 

 

   Tsuba with eagle searching for prey (NBTHK paper)

Modern cast examples are not "unique" in that they are numbered in the hundreds if not thousands. It is a matter of finding multiple examples and comparing- I can't find another matching the Carp, but plenty of obvious fakes with a Carp theme.

Edited Friday at 04:56 AM by Spartancrest
typo

[Bugyotsuji]

Spongiform encephalitis is the only expression that leaps to mind. Copper, so therefore soft, but those holes do not look like they could be reproduced with a pin or needle…(?) 

 

Besides, the elaborate bubbling or stippling stops at the edge of the seppadai, so it’s surely not part of the original overall casting process. Perhaps it’s a unique process known only to the artisan (ideal scenario!) so maybe it has no ‘official’ name, leading us to go generic with ishimeji, etc.

[ROKUJURO]

As we know, texture/plain surface decoration like NANAKO-JI or ISHIME-JI was often outsourced and done by young non-artisans. They were just workers with a steady hand and a good eye, and they were trained for that special work.

This is not unusual in other fields of arts and crafts as well. MICHELANGELO had helpers to fill in paint in larger areas which did not need his gifted hands, and in large quantity ceramic production in the olden (pre-industrial) days, trained workers did the painting decoration. This was done in the East as well as in the Western world.

Making texture on traditional TSUBA can be learned, and its quality depends on the tools and the training. The use of machines is not needed, and of course it wouldn't make any sense in a unique item production.

Today, with a serial production outside of Japan, this is of course different.

[Exclus1ve]

The classic Ishime technique, in itself simpler than Nanako, does not require such extreme precision, but requires preparation of the instrument and concentration to "catch" a certain rhythm of impact. 
 

3 hours ago, ROKUJURO said:

As we know, texture/plain surface decoration like NANAKO-JI or ISHIME-JI was often outsourced and done by young non-artisans. 

And yes, I highly doubt that nanako was made by "non-artisans." Punch preparation alone requires a lot of skill…

[ROKUJURO]

1 minute ago, Exclus1ve said:

.....I highly doubt that nanako was made by "non-artisans." Punch preparation alone requires a lot of skill…

It's nothing I 'invented'. Ford told me, and I think I also read it somewhere. To me, it makes sense as this is repetitive work that can be learned (as well as tool and workpiece preparation).

Ford did not say it was always done by helpers, but when the eyesight of the elderly masters diminished, it was even necessary.

[Exclus1ve]

 

If I'm not mistaken, it was in this video that he talked about the difficulty of reproducing this technique by ordinary workers, but I think they were apprentices or students.

Edited Friday at 10:17 AM by Exclus1ve

[Geraint]

Dear All.

 

I think defining nanako shi as non artisans is causing a problem here.  Quite evidently the work, especially at its finest, requires great skill and there were workers who specialised in it.  We know that not all nanako is top flight.

 

All the best.

[Curran]

Some very talented artists are 'on record' for hating nanako.

 

Nidai Kanshiro was apprenticed to the Goto for 10 years, largely doing nanako.  He didn't manage to finish the 10 years 

If you study enough of his *few* Nishigaki works with nanako, you can literally see frustration in the placement on menuki.

I would say that he liked to 'fudge it' in the extreme corners.

 

 

 

[ROKUJURO]

6 hours ago, Geraint said:

....defining nanako shi as non artisans is causing a problem here.....

No one said so, at least I didn't. I wrote "....NANAKO-JI or ISHIME-JI was often outsourced and done by young non-artisans...".

Please remember that many TOSOGU-SHI saw themselves more as craftsmen than as artists. In addition to that, a good TSUBA by a famous maker is not devalued in case the super-fine NANAKO-JI was made by an apprentice or employee. Of course, we would never know..... 

[GreyVR]

11 hours ago, ROKUJURO said:

Ford did not say it was always done by helpers, but when the eyesight of the elderly masters diminished, it was even necessary.

Ford Hallam had a digital microscope! 

On the topic of the 'helpers' in the old master/apprentice style systems, that isn't 'guy off the street' or 'seasonal farm help' it's 'live in students who will themselves someday be masters' as in @Curran's statement about a particular master being made to do that work when he himself was an apprentice. 

My mother, herself an artist and great appreciator of art, has in her jewelry collection a griffin she treasures. She bought it in Florence from a long term family business with tremendous history in the art, and talked for a long time with the patriarch. She said he told her one of the most tragic things...
"Yes, just when you are starting to get really, really good at it... is when your eyes start to go." 
 

[Spartancrest]

3 hours ago, GreyVR said:

Ford Hallam had a digital microscope! 

The tsubako artists have had glasses for several hundred years - as shown in this Edo period woodblock - also even the Monkeys wore them! 

 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 01:37 AM by Spartancrest

[Exclus1ve]

16 hours ago, Curran said:

Nidai Kanshiro was apprenticed to the Goto for 10 years, largely doing nanako.  

When the question «How was your workday?» actually starts to annoy you

 

Edited yesterday at 07:34 AM by Exclus1ve

[ROKUJURO]

That is how we Westerners would see it. Japan is another world in which most people can do repetitive work for a lomg time without complaining.

It is another topic, but you could compare that to medieval times in Europe when poor people were happy to have cereals/porridge to eat twice a day - and nothing elso for years! 

Coming closer to the subject, the apprenticeship in a forge in former times often consisted in filing workpieces by hand to exact dimensions. Sounds like boring work, but it lead to strong arms and shoulders and a good sense of precision in the work. 

[Curran]

On 6/6/2026 at 3:30 AM, Exclus1ve said:

When the question «How was your workday?» actually starts to annoy you

 

 

This is far far far too true....