Randy McCall

Just an FYI: Since I posted this during the holiday period, I'll wait a week or so for interested people to check in before I distribute the file.

Many thanks, Morita-san! This certainly adds more clues, though a quick online search under those names doesn't identify a specific historic individual. Likely my poor Japanese is hindering my search...

Happy New Year to all. Back in October I announced I had been lucky enough to acquire an Edo period hand-rubbed oshigata notebook (see http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/17768-edo-period-oshigata-notebook/) . Since then digital copies have been sent to several highly-experienced NMB members for inspection. While nothing earth-shattering has been reported, at least one reviewer has said they've found a number of items worthy of further research. In the spirit of sharing information, I will make digital copies of the notebook available to NMB members. Please note the file (.pdf) is extremely large (300 megs), consisting of over 200 page images with more than 300 individual oshigata. Each page of the book (with one exception) has two contrasting photographs, as different details emerge under high / low definition and lighting. The images are zoomable, so members will be able to take a very close look at fine detail. To spare the Forum bandwidth, I will make the file available via a sharing service. If interested, you can reply below or via PM. Once I have the list of all those interested, I'll upload the file and send you the sharing service download link. Once you receive a copy, I'd request that you would post your finds, comments or thoughts in this thread, for the use and edification of other NMB members. FYI, It has been suggested (by nature of the paper and writing) that the book may be later than Edo, perhaps Meiji or Taisho. One reviewer said the way the book is laid out suggests it may be rubbings of the author's own collection. We would be very interested if any members could help us identify said author. The first page of the volume is reproduced below, apparently saying it is the "Possession of Nakamura Naoyu or Naooh", and includes the owner's seals, but my own research using that name has not been fruitful. Any help in identifying this person would be appreciated.

I have book I could donate, if it's of enough interest. I picked it up at auction in my first wild-and-crazy days. It's a 1977 edition of a Japanese technical / metallurgical analysis and comparison of tachi recovered from burial mounds to more modern nihonto. We'd need to get a formal translation of the title and author though. Can anyone help here?

Hello all, I was extremely fortunate to pick up an Edo period notebook with the oshigata of several hundred blades (katana, shoto, tanto), and a dozen or so yari. It is, quite simply, amazing. Most of the oshigata have a title or notes. A couple of dozen include a drawing of the hamon, suggesting they're of special note. Half a dozen or so display the Imperial Chrysanthemum incised on the nakago. As well, several dozen have a clan mon which I don't readily recognize (see last photo below). A number of horimono are included, some of which must have been on gift or temple blades I would guess from the size, design and placement of carvings. I will be digitizing the volume and making copies available to select individuals in the nihonto community to in order to see if it contains anything of historical interest. It came in what appears to be a special -- if not custom made -- protective folio with peg bindings, suggesting it came from a private collection Due to the faintness of some of the rubbings, a few of which were done done in red ocher, I will have to experiment a bit in order to make some of the faint images as clear as possilble.. I may be reduced to photographing each oshigata individually to ensure maximum clarity. As usual, click pictures to enlarge.

Our dojo (a Canadian charitable non-profit organization, based in Windsor, Ontario) will be fortunate this August to host Nakano Hitoshi Shihan (6th Dan, Aikido) of Japan, at our yearly Summer Synergy event. In addition to his martial skills, Nakano-Sensei is also a shodo artist of some renown, having twice won the All Japan Shodo competition. In order to help us raise funds for our organization, he is offering his skills to create custom shodo art (on paper art plate or rice-paper scrolls) for those who make donations. He will inscribe any Japanese word, phrase or saying (ishii), within limits (amount of text and content); if someone wishes an English phrase or saying written in Japanese, he will inscribe the nearest Japanese equivalent. A $50 CDN donation will receive an 8"x10" art plate (stiff paper) with their desired text. A $125 CDN donation will receive an 1 foot x 2 foot rice paper scroll (suitable for framing) with their text. A $200 CDN donation will receive an 1 foot x 4-5 foot rice paper scroll with their text on it. All sizes are approximate, as (of course) traditional Japanese measurements for shodo paper are slightly different from North American standards. A charitable tax receipt will be given for all donations. Note that shipping / insurance charges will be extra. If interested, you can contact me for more information, or go straight to our organization's web page and contact our executive director, Kevin Blok. http://www.aikidocanada.org/ (We have some of his work at our dojo, and I'll post pictures of these as soon as they're made available to me)

Windsor, Ontario here.

After a busy few weeks, this is the first chance I've had to reply to this excellent topic. As someone relatively new to the art of collecting myself, let me offer a few thoughts. First, any path which brings a person to explore at the least the edges of nihonto appreciation is a good path. How they come to the hobby (avocation?) isn't really important: whether a person launches directly in sword collection via a lucky strike on Ebay; first studies martial arts before slowing gaining an appreciation for the sword; have a starting interest in Japanese culture or history; or, as one collector told me, started simply by watching chambara and reading fictional novels on feudal Japan, the point is they have arrived. Making a new member of the community feel welcome is, of course, ultimately important; people become involved in groups out of enlightened self-interest... they want to both give and receive. NMB does an excellent job of this. For those lucky enough to have an established group in their city, the personal interaction and mentoring which takes place in that environment is extremely helpful. But no matter what group is joined, it's a fact that new people are occasionally going to ask dumb or obvious questions. It's part of the learning curve, if somewhat tiresome for the old hands who've heard the same question over-and-over from newbies. On the flip side, too strident a response to the same-old-questions drives people away... certainly if someone went to a local sword group meeting and asked a question which was answered with "Go read a book!", I think they'd likely shut up and leave quickly. I wonder if creating a forum for Beginners, where they would be welcome to ask the dumb / basic questions and receive helpful feedback (either direct answers, or suggestions for book chapters etc.), might encourage tentative newcomers? Perhaps this could be set up as a special group, so those not wanting to take part in such discussions wouldn't be bothered? Secondly, while handling swords is the best way of learning sword flaws and other details, we know many people simply don't have access to such collections. I've often wondered if there wasn't some way to help these people learn by experience. Well, I'm going to toss out a very odd suggestion, stolen from another organization: Many years back I was studying gemmology and the organization in question realized that many students wouldn't have access to precious stones they needed to gain the practical experience they needed. What they did was put together sample packs of gems, which would be lent to students. The student had to give a safety deposit on these sample packs, in the area of $2000 to $3000 Let's mix this with the fact that here at NMB, members have talked about how there are many, many poor quality swords on the market (rusty, many or fatal flaws, broken, etc.), suitable only for melting down, or perhaps keeping solely as historical curiosities; often these swords are mentioned as having one or two positive points, such as a good example of a type of nie, hamon, etc., but that's all. Would it be possible for an organization (JSSUS?) to take some of the damaged / broken and otherwise useless blades, and create learning packs for sword flaws, hada types, hamon patterns, etc by sectioning out pieces of such damaged blades with the best examples? These could then be loaned out (via mail) to help people learn from real examples, with the student having to leave a safety deposit first. Finally, I'd like to make a general offer to NMB, JSSUS and Canada, and any other group interested. For many years I ran a small Internet-based NGO working with governmental and non-governmental agencies and organizations assisting crime victims. One area I specialized in was knowledge curation and management, including the development of COPs... communities of practice (in essence, communities of professionals for the purpose of institutional knowledge/skill sharing-and-retention). If I can help by dusting off some of my old skills, I'd be glad to do so... just drop me a line; this is much too large a topic to go into in a post. A decent intro to COP concepts can be found here: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/nli0531.pdf (Edited to clean up some errors and improve readability... it was very early here when I wrote this, after a very, very late night )

Ah, thank you for the clarification and pointer, Guido-san. I'll make sure that's made clear!

An amazingly fascinating discussion, by people who have obviously spent much time and effort in researching it. At some point I would like to blog on this topic on Tameshigiri.ca, using some of the uploaded files and perhaps some of participant's comments (with proper permission, attribution and paraphrasing, of course). If anyone would prefer not to have their posts or files in the thread used for this purpose, please PM me. Since several people have expressly said they have been working with media companies, it may be that -- contractually -- they can't have their name associated with an independent article... more than understandable. Thanks all!

Seconded!

Which pretty well how everyone here starts out, myself very much included. Welcome!

On the recommendations of several contacts and academics, I have a couple of books on kamon order. Rather than list them now -- when I don't know their actual usefulness, I'll wait till they come in and then post a review. One should be here within a week... another is being shipped surface mail from Japan, so may take some time.

Barrie, re: the tip on Grey Doffin, thanks! I'll drop him a note. John, re: Japanese Design Motifs; I've seen that book, but at the time wasn't certain if it a historical or simply a design resource. I'll give that a closer look.

Excellent suggestion! Once I've posted all the photographs, I'll create a .pdf and have Brian upload it, for easy reference.

Thanks all for your suggestions. I can see I have my work cut out for me in exploring this area. Years back I was a student of UK and European heraldry, so this seemed like a natural extension, spurred on by the serendipitous winning of the sashimono manual. To respond to specific posters: Barrie: I'll keep my eyes open for a reasonably priced copy... I checked Amazon, which has far to many people trying to make a killing on the sale. John: Excellent resource, thanks! Peter: I ran the link you sent me through Google Translate, which did a surprising good job of rendering the page into English. Much appreciated! Ian: Heh, never apologize for reality (that's my motto, anyway). I'll continue exploring options, handicapped as I am with a very slight knowledge of the Japanese language; our dojo has extensive contacts in Japan, so perhaps I can gain some assistance. BTW, I've found and ordered a very inexpensive copy of Kamon no Jiten (Miru shiru tanoshimu "kamon" no jiten), printed in Japanese, so I expect to be doing a lot of studying over the next few months. Shinto23: Thanks for the Hawly suggestion; there are several books I've been thinking about ordering from the http://www.wmhawley.com/ site, but their policy of only accepting orders by surface mail has kept me procrastinating. Perhaps this will give me the impetus I need.

Having my interest in sashimono and related Japanese heraldry piqued by my acquistion of an Edo Period manual (discussed in viewtopic.php?f=9&t=19940 ), I'd like to become better acquinted with matter. A quick scan for good books related to the subject only pulled up two recognized as being useful from a historical perspective: The Elements of Japanese Design: A Handbook of Family Crests, Heraldry, and Symbolism, and McClatchie's Japanese Heraldry. I'm looking for suggestions for other books or reference materials which might be useful in this study. I'm also curious as to the collectablity of period sashimono, items marked with family mon, or other heraldry-related materials. Thanks!

At the suggestion of a forum member who noted my interest in sashimono, I won an auction for a handwritten Edo period manual described as "military hata sashimono", some 60 pages in length. With the kind assistance of Markus Sesko, who assesed the manual to determine if it was worthy of translation, I've discovered it describes the sashimono / heraldry of the Kaga domain, with a few notes on the ancillary fief of Noto. The volume is marked "san" (參), the third volumn of an unknown number in the series. As such, it's not worth translating, though quite interesting as a piece of history. Thus, I thought I would share the manual with forum members. I'll post a few pictures a week (so as not to overwhelm folk with 30+ images at once). I'll start today with the first six pages / page pairs. Note that I'm shooting these with an iPad, then rendering and minimizing them to work easily with forum software and your web browsers, so they will most certainly not be professional quality. I hope members will find these intriging, as I did. Any Nihongo literate members who wish to translate/share any tidbits of interest for the membership should feel free to do so.

Very nice work, Gabriel!

Glad to hear you're feel better, Paul. Hope you're back in full fighting trim soon!

Blogged on the announcement at Tameshigiri.ca.

Very nice. I'll add it to my site's calendar tomorrow, to amplify the signal.

Thanks anyways, Barry!

Hi John. I've found a decent, non-copyrighted version on Wikipeda for basic sword parts. I might be able to blow up to crowd viewable size. Hawley's work is just much more complete... and perhaps a little nicer

I've just been tagged to present a set of talks / demos on iaido, sword history, sword care, etc. at a local event in the last weekend of this month... something of a surprise, to say the least. I went online to find see about ordering some of the Hawley charts (sword parts, smiths and mons), where I quickly discovered only two sellers; Hawley Publishing themselves and the Bugei Trading company. Both have informed me that I have to order by surface mail, preferably sending a money order. As I'm based in Canada, there's no way I'm going to be able to send the order and have the charts back in time. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't carry these items, nor do any major Canadian book / martial arts retailers (at least that I can find). Does anyone know of a retailer where I can purchase via credit card or PayPal for a rush order? Thanks!