rkg

Is that a tobacco pouch clasp? Best, rkg (Richard George)

Bert, I think there's a death of good introductory texts on tsuba - I keep hoping for a fittings equivalent of "facts and fundamentals of Japanese swords", but nobody seems to write it. I have no idea if the Raisbeck book is good as I won't buy a book from him - he used at least one image of mine w/o permission in the book you listed - some of the reviews said it was pretty basic, but that might just be sour grapes on my part (particularly annoying as I probably would have just let him use it gratis if he had bothered to contact me), so YMMV... If you buy it, please post a review! A good place to start for broad survey books would be Haynes's translation of Torigoye's Tsuba Geijutus-kou titled "Tsuba An Aesthetic Study". I'd also recommend picking up a copy of Sesko's "Handbook of Sword Fittings and Related Terms" - its really handy when you're trying to make sense of descriptions. I actually have two copies for when I misplace one (ended up getting the second because I misplaced one and couldn't find it) I have/refer to regularly Sesko's Genealogies book, but he has also translated a signature book which is handy (particularly the pdf version as you can search for kanji in it, helpful as you often get a pointer to at least a period/what school you should be looking at/correct English reading, etc). Markus has also translated a number of other fittings related books as well. If you are looking at a lot of signed tsuba, Haynes' index is also useful (I REALLY want to get a pdf version of this - it would make researching things a LOT faster). The kodogu volume of the koza is useful too, though I seem to not open mine that much anymore unless I'm looking up something really esoteric. Beyond that, I'd recommend spending the book money on going to places where you can study a LOT of good tsuba in hand so you know what the introductory texts are talking about. Plus it will make purchases of other texts more useful because you'll "know" what the pictured pieces actually should look like so you aren't tripped up by bad pictures, no 3-d image, etc. Good Luck on going down the rabbit hole :-) Best, rkg (Richard George)

OK, how about this - Nambokucho period tsuka, seppa, and habaki... Note that the big seppa are deformed because there was a nerikawa tsuba on the piece and the leather apparently swelled before it came apart/disintegrated: I have more images, but not the time to post process them (better). I've posted tachi tsuba, nerikawa tsuba,etc. before... Best, rkg (Richard George)

In case anybody's interested, I think maybe my er, iai tsuba presented above came from this guy (or somebody else doing this as a cursory glance through the many tsuba this seller offers didn't reveal my pattern): http://tsubaryuken.com/index.html Some of these look a little off, but you could strip a great many of them, remove the tacky modern sekigane, corrode them to create what people call "bold hammer work" (which is actually usually corrosion), and.... Its ready for Fleabay (or yahoo!Japan).... Be careful out there, rkg (Richard George)

Kathleen, The short answer is "no, not really", but its more complex than that . the Fleabay/Preypal combination is probably better from a safety/ease of return standpoint, but even that requires that you know what you are looking at so when it arrives you can ascertain if there are problems that were not described (or deliberately hidden), if the piece has been doctored (and whether you care - some people don't - but the next buyer might), and the quality of the piece in general, so you can try and your money back if you feel you've been rooked... And on yahoo!Japan returns are difficult - few agents are experts on fittings, so you're generally not going to know you're screwed until you open the box from Japan, sometimes weeks after the auction close. And the yahoo!Japan marketplace is changing - used to be there were a few dealer types (some reputable, some not so much) and a lot of individuals who I guess were cleaners/junk shops/people using yahoo an alternate venue to the Dealer Industrial Complex who didn't want to pay them much for something (there's a reason most of those guys are millionaires...) - and there was actually a surprising number of not-bad-pieces mixed in with the bad/mediocre stuff. Now, its becoming dross dumping ground just like fleabay so you have to be extra careful/picky....Though to be fair, there's still some pretty good pieces that show up once in a while (and actually a surprising number of items end up being offered on both venues simultaneously, sometimes by the possessor of the piece, sometimes by a reseller). But.... The thing is that both venues are like catnip to treasure hunters/gamblers - Both have slick systems for you to forage for prey, find overlooked things, battle with other bidders, and participate the whole auction rush thing in general - so safety kind of takes a back seat to our baser desires.... Best, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, The owner of the image I was talking about earlier actually saw this thread and... The good thing is that he agreed to let me put up the gif I was talking about of the two tsuba. The bad thing is that he fact checked and pointed out that I had messed up the attribution of where he found the piece. It was indeed at the SF show, and it wasn't on Cary's table, it was on Cole Cantrell's. AND... while a lot of Cole's pieces are firmly in the er, value kodogu category, its not "junk", so that isn't correct either If the sysadmin would either let me put an "EDIT" comment on my earlier posting or just copy the above into them I'd REALLY appreciate it. I usually at least try to fact check stuff before posting and messed up Anyway, here's the gif of the tsuba at the show and mine. you can see they are real similar.... I assume they must have been investment cast for iai or something: Sorry about the screwup, rkg (Richard George)

Swords are a bitch to shoot well - its all about light/reflection control.... You have to control pretty much every reflection the camera can see. Polarizing filters aren't terribly helpful here - Metal surfaces mostly produce a direct rather than a glare reflection, so just a polarizer on the lens doesn't really do much unless you do the cross polarization thing and polarize the light source as well - and you're down so many stops on at that point you're usually better off doing something else. Have fun, rkg (Richard George)

That's actually an interesting can of worms... You've got modern mass produced pieces, modern one-off of old pieces, meiji/taisho period mass produced pieces (like that one ishiguro tsuba you see up all the time - if the artist did the run/was associated with the production, are they "fakes" or Giclées? :-)), Edo and earlier copies (both made to fool the buyer and "homage" pieces), and old pieces with an added mei... Oh, and what what about designs that are "in the style" of old pieces made by later guys who actually signed the same way (think Noubie, Yamakichibei, etc)? This particular piece/auction is so "yahoo Japan" these days. Its pretty flashy, but it has issues, and... somebody paid a lot to look at it in hand :-/ Best, rkg (Richard George)

Pete, It took me a while to realize you were talking about the "lizard box" from that Ko shoami piece - Yeah... I still got it :-) rkg

Its not like everybody could afford to have the top guys make pieces for their koshirae :-) I wonder if the theme is "Ou Shuku bai" (鴬宿楳) - here's a piece of the writeup from a tsuba I have with that theme: "The theme, ou Shuku Bai or uguisu shuku bai refers to a story about an Emperor Murakami who, in response to all the plum (bai) trees dying around the Seiryoden palace commanded the transplantation of all new plum trees in his domain to the palace to replace them. After this was done, a paper of waka Poetry was found attached to the branch of one tree. it said: "Followed the awesome Imperial decree obediently, but how shall I answer the Brush Warblers ("O" (uguisu)) when they ask about their lodging ("shuku")?". The emperor found that the poem was composed by the daughter of "Ki no Tsurayuki", a celebrated poetress, and the plum trees were from her garden. The emperor was moved by the poem and subsequently returned the trees. Best, rkg (Richard George)

This may be marginal to go here as I think I've posted a couple of them in the past, but I've been working on a series of images of my pieces to use on t-shirts - most of these are pretty good, or at least photogenic: Best, rkg (Richard George)

Christian, Sorry not to post more/reply sooner, but I had a computer die (well, the system disk anyway) and a recent backup had failed and I've been working for the last week to bring up a replacement, on top of everything else I was trying to do, and... I also didn't really want to threadjack lotus's thread, but since you asked... The owner of the image of the Condell piece never got back to me on letting me share the image publicly (which is too bad because I have a really cool .gif overlaying them which makes what I was talking about obvious), but here's a couple the first shows a before/after shot in identical light, and the second shows the fake surface: Most all of the stuff on the surface in the second image (including the texture that looks like lacquer under the weird colored wax) basically washed away leaving a flat-ish, blackish surface. Best, rkg (Richard George)

Yup, got burned on one of those not too long ago, off of yahoo!Japan. I was super busy when it came in so I just glanced at it (it more or less matched the lowish-res images, and the surface didn't immediately strike me as having an issue)and put it on the shelf to study later - When I looked at it more carefully later, somebody had carefully crafted a surface using several layers of wax/other stuff that more or less looked OK in hand (maybe a little shiny which I attributed to wax), but when you looked at it under the microscope - YAAA!. The topper was that a pal sent me an image of a basically identical piece that was in Cary Condell's junk section at the SF show years ago - right down to most of the big nakago ana adjustments (they were supersets of each other - there were some large nakago ana adjustments that were common to both pieces, but each had their own too - like two pieces that were made the same way with some nakago ana adjustments got mounted on different swords) Anybody need an iai tsuba? :-/ Best, rkg (Richard George)

There's a book on this technique: https://smile.amazon.com/Textbook-Mokume-gane-Masaki-Takahashi/dp/4990498216/ref=pd_sbs_14_1/144-9206018-4513831?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=4990498216&pd_rd_r=13d45af6-7da1-40ef-891c-4c2268c6c543&pd_rd_w=x2Klj&pd_rd_wg=jEuv8&pf_rd_p=d66372fe-68a6-48a3-90ec-41d7f64212be&pf_rd_r=ZDXVEFSARDFGDZAR7HQ0&psc=1&refRID=ZDXVEFSARDFGDZAR7HQ0 Best, rkg (Richard George)

Ko-Mino fuchi/kashira set: Best, rkg (Richard George)

https://smile.amazon.com/Light-Science-Magic-Introduction-Photographic/dp/0415719402/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=light+science+and+magic&qid=1567445019&s=gateway&sr=8-2 This has been around so long you can also find earlier additions much cheeper... Best, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, First off, Isn't that a Torigoye Hakogaki? He used a goofy round seal like that when he did shinsa outside of the Japan.... I have a piece that has similar etching, material and maybe age (except mine has a brass rather than iron mimi): https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2046831825372155&id=266005023454853&__tn__=-R I think the material is some flavor of copper. I still don't know who made it/probably never will. Here's a piece with similar material/etching that I'm pretty sure would be binned as Higo Nishigaki (I've seen pieces that are basically identical that have been papered to them): https://www.facebook.com/pg/Kod%C3%B4gu-no-Sekai-%E5%B0%8F%E9%81%93%E5%85%B7%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C-266005023454853/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2049463868442284 On the other hand, I don't think the Higo guys had the monopoly on this etching technique - here's a piece that's similar to the prior one but arguably older - Haynes thought it is early umetada rather than Higo: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Kod%C3%B4gu-no-Sekai-%E5%B0%8F%E9%81%93%E5%85%B7%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C-266005023454853/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1264256200296392 Our pal Bruce posits that there was probably a group that specialized in etching like this in various materials who did a lot of "in the style of" work so their pieces are mis-attributed to various other groups (if I recall correctly he even has records of a few signed ones), but that theory is outside of the normal framework, so... Best, rkg (Richard George)

Did you guys see the close price on this one? I wonder if the buyer knows that its an, er, giclee piece :-) https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/h411428393 Best, rkg (Richard George)

Who found it to be gimei?? check the plethora of late(er) yasuchika mei... Best, rkg (Richard George)

Aizu shoami shigekatsu, H 08296.0. Best, rkg (Richard George)

Just to theadjack my own thread, somebody just got a great deal on a tanaka tsuba by the same guy that just sold on yahoo!Japan - it was in with a bunch o' other tsuba, mislabeled, etc: https://www.sendico.com/yahoo/lot_h402253113.html Best, rkg (Richard George)

Hi, I was given a fairly vague request - bring some Really Good sukashi tsuba for a show and tell session. As I have a lot of tsuba with holes in them, I'm at a bit of a loss at what to bring, soooo... I thought I'd try running a popularity contest - I put this up on the Kodogu no sekai FB page: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2246417732080229&id=266005023454853&__xts__[0]=68.ARCu-SWoEzjm6q2qHZPWyEZWvIfLHRdvKzbHjXgRucfkSf5yyYLzck3NcJq0tRoA0QmSgjHdHtqo7-qOmusw-wCpSBhs0h48G5tyyLCBITHPAjKkkkaJ7KefIktCqOyJFfvTYLy2jQn3TxpQpapUHSvoquaQYKrKAQ4rUwNTuFt0hltw70OC4nmRd209G69aa6pfPBc3QJGD0-t-q9x8eXpAUoBy4mO4b3y0wjv1mGdQb_FxfNjJrUTCYY-1uudzqcA8CBZ2OJWh-fScVXWvsvVHL3fJnpEICdXD_Rnn2I1WwFRKbuWBzkRibbQANGktqXxd2XXQjMEFGV9Q7L59RwHh5w&__tn__=-R The idea being that the 1-2 with the most "likes" on their images will be the ones I take. If you can hold your nose long enough to take a look, please do and... Like the image(s) of the piece(s) you think most represent sukashi tsuba/you like the most Early and Often :-) And for those of you that just can't go there there, here are the er, contestants: Thanks!!! rkg (Richard George)

Here's a chart showing some of the more common tenpo stamps. I don't own the copyright to this/it is being presented for educational purposes only: Best, rkg (Richard George)

It kind of looks like maybe the piece was lacquered at some point? The surface of the tsuba shown in the image next to the bottom kind of looks like lacquer that is partially worn away. Other options are more nefarious - it could be some patination work was done on it (does it smell of selenium salts?) - It could also be wax - You might also try taking a q-tip with alcohol on it to the edge of the mimi and see if somebody brown/black waxed it - though YMMV on that - it could be that was done by the maker, so.... Best, rkg (Richard George)

Sold. Brian, you can move this to the sold archive if you want. Best, rkg (Richard George)