rkg

Not a scam, he's looking for a bunny... There's actually a surprising number of mumei tsuba out there done in this style, quite possibly by somebody associated with or actually the orignal Nobuie boys (they're not signed so we will never really know, but they used the same iron, design language, had the same surface work/treatment, have the right age, etc etc) - and... they usually only go for a few hundred up to a couple of grand. (I've always been amused by the 20X or so the price goes up on these tsuba for that mei). My favorite one of these is owned by Bob Haynes - just saw it again a couple of days ago - it catches your eye from across the room as "real" nobuie does, and... its mumei (worse yet the mei was removed). Bob's theory was that it signed by one of the other guys associated with the group and somebody pulled the mei to try and get a "den Nobuie" designation to try and sell it for more (which is better than the alternate theory that some idiot thought( or got told) it was mumei and had the mei pulled for that reason). Best, rkg (Richard George)

Piers, My bad, I thought you were talking about how the tsuba were being pictured, not a tsuba display stand to hold tsuba in the "blade down" position. I apologize - I don't think I've seen an old display stand like that either. Most of the time when I display them I used the box bottom and its trivial to just turn it upside down or have peg in the exhibition display made blade down. Of course, since this display stuff/"box thing" is for the most part a modern phenomenon anyway. They started showing up with the nifty boxes with hakogaki in ~Meiji and later to spiff the kodogu up for sale/as a gift/etc... If you look at old Daimyo collections, kodogu they cared about were usually just wrapped in several of pieces of washi, one of which was often the description of what it was/Goto origami/etc (if they were lucky) - often tsuba were just strung like beads on rope or stacked up on a spike in the kura - or just stuffed/klanked together in a bag and left in the bottom of the strong box part of a tansu. Best, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, Has anybody recently used EMS from Japan to the US? Is it moving at less than a glacial rate now? I've always been counseled that you have the fewest customs hang ups with higher dollar pieces using EMS, but when I used them back in January it took several weeks to get a package from Japan to the US. I've had problems in the not too distant past with DHL lodging my higher dollar items in their expensive customs box hotel while they ask for redundant information, and... Thanks, rkg (Richard George)

Charles, The real deal is usually displayed edge down, though often they get shown the other way around (blade up) after hitsu have been added (piece has been visibly repurposed). Piers must be looking in the wrong books - I've got a shelf full of them with actual tachi tsuba generally being shown edge down/its what I'm generally told to do when I shoot them - or did Piers get turned around and mean he couldn't find any shown blade up? Its kind amusing actually - they tend to re-label tachi tsuba that have been modified with hitsu as something else (if soft metal its often tachishi or even ko-kinkou). Best, rkg (Richard George)

Jon, If you want to go down the rabbit hole on tachi tsuba/tachi koshirae in general... There's a bit of a blerb in torigoye's book Tsuba Geijutsu kou - Haynes's xlation is available, as well as the odd old tachi koshirae/tsuba image spread out across numerous Japanese books on the subject, but as a place to start I'd suggest getting a copy of Markus sesko's Koshirae taikan - he goes through the various types of koshirae through the ages (and if you get the e-book you can blow up the images...) - you can get it from him directly I think and its on lulu as well: https://www.lulu.com/search?adult_audience_rating=00&page=1&pageSize=10&q=koshirae+taikan&project_type=EBOOK Otherwise Geraint's brief description covers it - tachi koshirae were meant to be worn blade down and the tsuba often have a shape conducive to that (less width at the bottom than the top), generally used O-seppa (often made of leather early on - and during the Nambokucho period a lot of the tsuba were made of leather as well), and the old ones pretty rarely (or never depending on who you talk to) had hitsu (though they got added a LOT later as the tsuba got re-used). and... and the really old ones often weren't that big. I don't currently have any of the archaic (shitoji) pieces, but here's a examples of other styles: kamakura period: Nambokucho-muromachi period: Best, rkg (Richard George)

Dan, FWIW, that's Jim Gilbert's blog. As he notes, there's a whole class of cast tsuba that are generally thought to be pretty old - just google kagamishi tsuba (鏡師 鍔) to find more to study. A lot of them have the coarse figures on them as shown, but... some of them can be pretty well done - here's an old one that you have to look at a little before you realize it was cast: Best, rkg (Richard George)

Bob, Did the seller actually state it was edo period/authentic in his writeup, or did he use the usual "I don't know what this is, do your own due diligence" verbage? If its the former, you might be able to contact buyee, point out that the guy lie-er, was mistaken about its age/authenticity, and ask them to ask the seller to take it back (though that's a long shot unless they really buggered their listing). Best, rkg (Richard George)

and just for grins two more that seem to be crowd pleasers: 11. pretty generic mei, but... 12 and last but not least, an oh-no: Happy Holidays, rkg (Richard George)

continuing.... 6. Really Nice Kyou sukashi: 7. Mokume and made by a swordsmith: 8.sadahiro 9. old kagamishi 10. I don't know what it is (probably myouchin I'd guess), but I like it: rkg (Richard George)

Since its (almost) the end of the year, let's see what treasures you've acquired this year - I seemed to have gotten entirely too many pieces this year, but here are some of the top ones, in no particular order: 1. Killer kanayma: 2. Monkey/moon themed ko-shouami: 3. and just to make your skin crawl, here's a millipede themed tsuba attributed to Myouchin: 4.Kodai Jingo 5."ume" tada: Enjoy, rkg (Richard George)

The first one makes me think of looking down on a Dalek :-) rkg (Richard George)

The other day it struck me how the composition of ebay kodogu fittings has changed over the years. Back in the day most of these er, foreign made utushi were listed out of China - now they are all pretty much listed by sellers from Japan. Between that, the Japanese re-listings of items on Yahoo!Japan (both by the actual owners of the pieces and arbitragers), and the large number of pieces out of Japan with very er, market leading prices (not sure why they do this - fine if you want to dicker, but starting out the piece at several times what it "should" sell for? Really? Maybe they get enough bunnies to make it worth it) its too bad you can't just block certain countries - used to be I'd want to block listings from China, now I'm wondering if it might be more productive to just block the Japanese ones rkg

Glen, I personally kind of think the sekigane on that piece is real, but there does seem to be something odd there - the carving has problems as you point out, there's those odd divots in the surface, etc - could it have been corroded and cleaned up, some kind of period casting, or....? what's odder is that it "rated" Tok Hoz papers. I mean, I guess the condition is OK, but that shigetoshi isn't listed in my "usual suspect" mei book*, so he's probably a lesser known tsubako, etc. The seller seems to have up a number of other er, lackluster (IMHO) pieces with Tok Hoz papers as well. I guess its another "what actually allows a piece get TH papers isn't what we think" moment. I should note that the seller seems legit I am in no way trying to say they aren't, I just can't figure out how some of these kodogu got higher level papers: https://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/seller/yokohama_chishin_net Best, rkg (Richard George) *Markus sesko's excellent translation of the mei book whose name escapes me at the moment - the electronic copy is searchable and makes finding the guys when they are noted in the Japanese auctions a snap (gotta love cut and paste) - highly recommended - he might sell a pdf directly if you ask (contact him directly on that), but here's a link on lulu to the physical book: https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/markus-sesko/signatures-of-Japanese-sword-fittings-artists/hardcover/product-1mwe2v6y.html?page=1&pageSize=4 Not deliberately trying to threadjack here but... As an aside, you can do the same thing with his e geneaologies of Japanese tsuba and tōsō-kinkō Artists book (same thing - searchable kanji is great for those of us who are getting old/suffering from CRS and can't seem to memorize/remember the up to 8 different pronunciations associated with those 2000+ kanji of interest anymore :-/ ). rkg EDIT: again, to be fair, the seller has other papered pieces where IMHO the Tok Hoz papers seem right, like this yondai yasuchika - the back/end is a bit beat up, but....: https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/c1021388601

Glen, Just to be clear This isn't my piece (I wish it was). I shot it for somebody else and was given permission to show the images for discussion purposes. Because of the pretty overt Christian symbol its an amazing study piece because you -know- it wasn't mounted after about 1637 (unless one had a death wish). Note that there was a fair amount of missing inlay, even from un-corroded/un-worn surfaces on it. We'll probably never know if it was a fashion/wabi sabi thing, the owner yanked the bits that were tearing at clothing, or what. Best, rkg (Richard George)

pm sent rkg (Richard George)

Johan, Hoo boy, that's a lot of material to cover... you might start by getting a copy of Markus Sesko's Koshirae Taikan - he does a pretty good job of covering the various styles of koshirae and when they were used. I had gotten an electronic copy a while ago but hadn't really looked at it much until I was researching a piece I -thought- was an old naginata tsuba but -actually- was a Kamakura period tachi tsuba, but I digress: https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/markus-sesko/koshirae-taikan/ebook/product-1gg5dkp6.html?page=1&pageSize=4 I love his e-books because they are searchable (including the kanji), and you can zoom in on the images and see a lot of details, but I digress again. Tachi koshirae kind of quit being used in battle regularly during the Muromachi period*, but tachi koshirae were made up until the Meiji period as "dress" pieces (for court in some occasions, the imperial family usually wore an archaic version, etc etc). In addition, there was a b*stardized version of the tachi koshirae called Handachi that was similar but was meant to be worn blade up that you see right up to the end of the Edo period - they typically had the large seppa, etc. If I had to guess, that's what I'd say your piece is (despite its decayed condition, it doesn't look -that- old to me, doesn't have a lot of layers, they built up the mimi with lacquer, it has kozuka/kogai hitsu that kind of look ubu, etc - though ymmv on that - there's one that is in the elephant book that is dated fairly early (momoyama? can't remember now) that might have had lacquer work done to build up the surface (just can't tell until you see it in hand, right?)). Forensically you can look for the brown undertone in the black lacquer, what the crazing looks like, etc - or you can get it carbon dated (kind of cool that these actually -can- be carbon dated, but...). Sometimes they have an iron layer in the middle, sometimes not. - seems like most of the really old survivors had the iron plate in the middle, had a fukurin that held it together, or were small. Intact ones made before the early Edo period are really rare, as they pretty much all delaminate and usually are lost at that point (and it seems to be a fairly destructive process - I've seen a nambokucho period tsuka/seppa set where the seppa are cupped outward from the nakago ana/tsuba surface, apparently by the action of the nerikawa tsuba as it fell apart over time - they must swell at the same time). Good Luck, rkg (Richard George) *outside of the Ainu, etc anyway

John, Its pretty shiny so I'd posit that its waxed. Best, rkg (Richard George)

Well, There's two problems - first, boxes often need to be big enough to stick the customs forms on (depending on the service it was sent by). In addition, sometimes a slightly larger package tends to not get lost, damaged less, etc. And... if the seller has a "system" that works for them, has prevented damage claims, etc it really can be a major pain to do something different. Second, damage is a thing - envelopes can get mutilated (and lost), and even boxes require some thought - here's a couple of my favorite "receptions" (NOT!! - I almost had a heart attack when each of these showed up, as they both had 6 figures worth of kodogu in them for me to image): https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1462966100425400&id=266005023454853 In the first case, the sender did everything right, but UPS tried real hard to smash it (and it arrived in the winter so I had to wait a number of hours for it to warm up before I could even open it for inspection to prevent condensation issues). In the second case, the shipper probably could have put this box in the next bigger one and got a better result - again, keeping your goodies away from the corners/sides of the box generally gets you better results... I'm sure some of you guys can probably attest to the crazy packaging I personally use, but I've shipped a lot of small valuable items all over the world/have received a fair number as well and I only do it in response to the damage to boxes I have seen/had to deal with.... I'd love to use less, but until the package carriers of the world stop trying to crush things, that's not gonna happen.... Too bad guys like Pelican/sks, etc haven't addressed this market with lightweight plastic cases so it all could be reused (their normal cases aren't really right for this - tooo heavy) Best, rkg (Richard George)

There's an amazingly large number of cast copies of these, and ts scary how much some get bid up on YJ sometimes - you know the buyer isn't gonna be happy when they figure it out. rkg (Richard George)

Hi, Has anybody recently gone through shipping higher dollar pieces from Japan to the US using EMS? How did it go? Thanks, rkg (Richard George)

A picture of the piece (well, the nakago ana) is in Wakayama's Toso Kodogu Meiji Taikei (volume 2, p.260 if you want to look it up), so I guess at least he thought the mei was good, but.... That work really isn't (IMHO) - most natsuo stuff makes me go "ooh" - the workmanship on this doesn't... George M's assertion that its a student piece that received a "courtesy mei" sounds like as good an explanation as any, though I guess we'll never really know (maybe he did it for a customer he hated/ordered something he didn't want to make, or...). The auction was more fun to watch than the one for that beat up Myoju/Mitsuyoshi piece that was up not tooo long ago... Best, rkg (Richard George)

Bruno, It looks ishiguro-y, but often the later guys would be "inspired" by (or get an order for a piece that looked like) other groups, the maker might be an unrecorded minor smith, etc. Given how good some of these guys were, looks can be deceiving. First off, did you run down the other artisans who signed 正克 in Haynes to see if they did anything like this (H04076.0 - H04081.0)? Bob was usually pretty good about noting when they signed with a kao as well, so there being no note of one on these is kind of a red flag that this might be a waste of time, but... A quick check of Wakayama and the mei book xlated by Marcus yielded nobody signing masakatsu this way, which makes me think maybe the better explanation is that the guy is an minor maker (or the mei a rare alternate one from somebody else) that isn't recorded in the "usual suspect" books. Elliott Long worked with Haynes to put all the mei/makers that Bob found since he did the index and their addendums into a book - maybe you could either get a copy of this or beg somebody who has it to look in it and see if this 正克 is in it? Also, is there a book with a more thorough listing of all the ishiguro artisans out there? Good Luck, rkg (Richard George)

Michael, Yeah... that one (especially with crusty rust like that in what would be considered wear areas) is just kind of neglected. I think the Japanese really were into wabi shabby for quite a while (a lot of earlier goto work was apparently "pre worn" to have this look, etc), but I don't think your piece is that. - here's one that was just used a lot: This piece is probably right on the border of having too many losses, but its interesting to me because it was used quite a bit and appears to have always been cared for. Note also that sometimes on pieces there's this stuff called sukirushi that can start looking pretty bad/like corrosion, but it isn't. I think it was some kind of lacquer clear(??) coat that seemed to have been popular for a while (you see it on several different types of tsuba and actually other artifacts of a certain age or older) that didn't age well: Oh, and here's an onin covered with that gunk as well: Best, rkg (Richard George)

I looked really quickly in the mei book Sekso xlated - I 'think' the kao looks like the first's... I agree with Curran - it doesn't really make me go "ooh" either, but to each their own or if you're collecting mei... best, rkg (Richard George)

Glen, I generally try and support education about this stuff, so reposting is fine as long as you aren't trying do do something fraudulent (photo credit appreciated :-) ). I've actually posted images of most of of my collection on Rich Turner's Kodogu no sekai page on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kodôgu-no-Sekai-小道具の世界-266005023454853 You gotta put up with the occasional "streaming consciousness" and rant posting, but.... Unfortunately facebook seems to be working hard at making cross posting stuff harder, so its not as useful as it used to be. Not sure what to say about a publication - they're a lot of work, and after seeing really top end stuff, I'm not sure I've got enough pieces that are publication worthy to do much of one.... Besides, I'm always trying to do better imaging, and an electronic format is more amenable to adding better images, 360 image sets, etc as I get more interesting images of stuff, discover things later, etc. The "amoeba" piece on the lower right is actually pretty big, measuring 81.2mm (H) X 77.9mm(W) X 3.60mm (T, seppa), 5.40mm (T, mimi). The one of mine you reposted measures 111.1 mm (H) x 79.8 mm (W) x 4.2 mm (T, mimi), 3.6mm (web) On my most favorite piece, I actually posted some images of my most favorite tsuba ever on the fb page above: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=266005023454853&set=a.2863362817052381 Its a pretty atypical Nobuie, but in hand it blows me away - surprising, as I'm not normally a huge Noubie fan, but I digress... Best, rkg (Richard George)