kazarena

The okimono is SOLD. Please archive. Donation to NMB will be made in due course once the sale is concluded.

This fine okimono depicts two Oni demons carrying a cauldron, with a figure of a woman appearing from the clouds of steam above the cauldron. I tried finding the original Japanese story, but my search wasn’t successful so far. Any hints would be appreciated! Made in the Meiji period circa 1880-1910. Condition: excellent, with some naturally occurring longitudinal cracks. I bought it in a small antique shop in Portugal about 10 years ago. Height: 13.5cm Width (at base): 5.5cm Depth: 3.2cm SOLD Payment: wire transfer or PayPal (the buyer pays the fees), shipping extra. The item is located in Ireland. Some countries do not allow importing objects derived from endangered and other protected species, even if a certificate of origin is provided. Please check your local legislation for shipping restrictions.

The wakizashi is SOLD. Admins, please archive the thread Regards, Stan

The wakizashi is now ON HOLD. Regards, Stan

Thank you, Ken. Much appreciated! Regarding the mono-steel construction, I'm not an expert in this subject, but the polisher confirmed it's mono-steel, and I'm pretty confident about it too, judging from the jitetsu. As far as I know, this method of construction may have stopped being mainstream around Nanbokucho, but it was in continuous use until Shinto times, when new production methods resulted in higher quality steel that was also more brittle, hence the lamination technique was essential. I believe Ohmura study confirms it: http://ohmura-study.net/008.html (see the very bottom of the page). Regards, Stan

Dear friends, I’m offering a wakizashi from my personal collection, that I enjoyed for many years. The blade is in a fresh polish with a newly made shirasaya. It also comes in a new bag. I think it belongs to Mino school, early to mid-Muromachi. As with many functional, sturdy blades made in that era, it's hard to attribute it to a particular smith. The cross-section is diamond shaped. This blade has a one-piece construction without the inner core. As it’s a very old blade, some ware are visible, after many polishes, but no fatal flaws. This blade should be sent for shinsa. I just didn’t have a chance to do it myself. Nagasa: 52cm (20 1/2'') Saki-haba: 26mm Moto-haba: 18.1mm Sori: 12mm Sugata: shinogi-zukuri Nakago: mumei, one mekugi ana, kiri. Yasurime is katte sagari. Boshi: midare-komi Jihada: running masame with shirake-utsuri Hamon: gunome, with groups of nie in the valleys between the gunome If you need high-res photos or more detailed dimensions, you may find it here: https://nihontoclub.com/swords/0000-1442. SOLD Payment: wire transfer or PayPal (the buyer pays the fees), shipping extra. The sword is located in Ireland. I would prefer a buyer from the UK, Ireland or continental Europe, because shipping swords out of Ireland to any other destinations can be quite an experience. Kind regards, Stan

Chris, thanks for sharing! This makes me sad: https://www.hermann-historica.de/en/auctions/lot/id/18289 Regards, Stan N

I was extremely lucky to see many of these pieces in person. Don't miss this opportunity as the prices are very reasonable. For less experienced collectors (like most of us) it's a very safe way to acquire new pieces for serious study. Regards, Stan

Tickets purchased. See you there! Stan

Ray, Nihonto Club list is based on Yamanaka's Newsletter. As a result, it's not entirely complete. I did my best to link it to modern data. I.e. find photos and present location. Regards, Stan

Thank you, Barry, much appreciated Stan

It was a very enjoyable event. Very solid, as you would expect from Mark and Eckhard, sessions on sukashi tsuba (I learned a couple of new terms including 'shindig zukuri' :-) ) and Akasaka school, and ground breaking stuff from Ford - myths vs reality in relation to soft metal alloys. Huge thanks to Paul and everyone else who organised the event. Regards, Stan

Please count me in. Stan

Hi Oleg, It looks like a modern repro, I'm afraid. Patina is off and the sukashi is of poor quality - take a look how uneven and 'choppy' the walls are. Regards, Stan

Hi Jason, I'm happy to answer your questions about the sources. It's been cross-checked against Hawley's, Fujishiro, Nihonto Meikan, Toko Taikan, Markus Sesko's Index of Japanese Swordsmiths (Hawley's is a given, others - it you see a book reference on the smith's page, it's been manually cross-checked). Coverage and depth varies between smiths, but there wouldn't be any knowingly spurious information on the site. Sword attributions are, as always, just opinions, but I'm trying to stick to higher level papers & respectable books only. Regards, Stan

Another great temptation is out of the way! Big thanks to the lucky buyer! :-) Stan

It was indeed a fantastic meeting! The presented selection of tsuba was superb and our German colleagues were very welcoming, eager to share knowledge and advice. Even though I was most impressed by the 'old iron' part of the meeting, I agree that Ko-Kinko pieces were incredible. Regards, Stan

I would like a copy, thank you! Stan

Ray, I was only able to find 4 Juyo swords by Yoshikage sold through Aoi in my records in the recent years: wakizashi, around Aug 2011: 23th Juyo at 2.5m yen katana, around Nov 2011: 47th Juyo at 3m yen naginata naoshi, around May 2014: 13th Juyo at 3m yen naginata naoshi, around Jan 2015: 16th Juyo at 2.6m yen All are different swords from the one in your link. Regards, Stan

Stephen, Yup I saw this one too and even put a sneaky bid on it, just in case if I get lucky. Unusual hitsu-ana, almost naginata/nagamaki like nakago-ana (not if I saw many of those..) and the sheer amount of inlay were tempting enough to try and see it in person. Didn't work out! Stan

Steve, I had the same problem a couple of years ago. I was worried it would permanently give a reasonably new shirasaya an unpleasant appearance, not to mention other issues. But then while I was looking for solutions the spot disappeared, like Franco described it above: partially blended, partially evaporated but the difference in the colour was gone. Since then I'm trying to be more careful and not to leave excessive oil on the blade. As I recall now, this problem appeared a couple of years after I started storing swords vertically. My guess was that I was always putting too much oil in the past but it wasn't an issue for horizontal storage. Regards, Stan

And here's a tsuba for you: http://www.ebay.com/itm/251749891323 Regards, Stan

Markus, You may find the scanned articles using the following URLs (I'll remove the files once you download it): http://nihontoclub.com/files/umetada/257.pdf http://nihontoclub.com/files/umetada/258.pdf http://nihontoclub.com/files/umetada/263.pdf http://nihontoclub.com/files/umetada/265.pdf Unfortunately I don't have TB #256 - the very first part. Regards, Stan

Markus, I have #263-268 and a good few subsequent ones. Will look for this article over weekend. Stan

Thanks guys, I've updated the page on nihontoclub.com. This was certainly a translation mistake, a leftover from initial upload. Regards, Stan