Andi B.

Hi, on Nihonto.com it is announced that the DTI 2023 will be on 17. - 19.11.2023. Is this confirmed? (I'd hoped it would be one or two weeks earlier...)

I can contribute these two rotten wood tsuba for reference. First I found the Umetada signed one (Japanese auction) and few months later there was the ant piece on ebay. I couldn't resist because they make a nice pair - so they're not for sale. It looks like there is a template for the wood pattern/hole positions and this has been used by different artist.

Hello, here I have an unsigned tanto blade and no idea about school or age. Currently I'm writing kind of index sheets of my items but "Tanto, mumei, ubu" is a bit weak . Can someone please send me in the right direction? What could be guessed from the size, shape and hamon? Nagasa 27.2cm Sori 0.1cm Motohaba 3.1cm Kasane 0.73cm Thanks!

...this tsuba from horse thread has a '73 green paper mumei Bushu Masakata ....

Hello, here're some further horse related pieces :

Some years ago I've seen a pure gold mekugi on a kantei session but afterwards I've heard it has been lost/stolen(?) there... 😠☹️

By the way, I checked the kanji on the back: "早道" = "Hayamichi"... 🤦🏼‍♂️

Thanks Piers! I started searching and your hint with 'hayamichi' helped to find similar pieces. But your detailed information is great! Mostly you only find data like material, dimensiones etc. in cataloges which are obvious but these background stories like actual usage or legends behind the decorative parts are the interesting stuff!

Hello, I want to find out more about my stuff and here I have a little leather pouch with integrated coin(?) case (diameter 0,8 inch). Does anybody knows, what it actually is and how it is called in Japanese? Thx!

Wait - someone is willing to spend thousands of dollars for a Ferrari Testarossa and thinks this piece is the real deal...???

Hi, is the content of the book the same as of the website?

Hi, I asked a similar question a while ago and Ian Bottomley recommended Paraloid to fix the brittle parts (Thanks, it works fine!): https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/30402-urushi-maintenance/?do=findComment&comment=309800

At least on my piece the horn parts are frames and not clued flat to the tsuka and saya...

no, he's a different one: https://www.nihontophoto.com/

Hello, if you are interested in tsuba here you have the chance to see more than 3.000 photos of items from the Klefisch auction house. Uwe Grabowski digitalized tons of slides and you can find this great archive under klefischauktionen.wordpress.com.

Found this writing utensil tansu at a Kyoto flea market - ideal for tsukamaki stuff!

Fuchi / Kashira are nice! But that "hadori hamon" looks strange and it seems there is a real hamon near the base only...(?) Could it be that someone tried to re-harden the blade? Above the wavy part there is this strange additional line (kind of mizukage?) and big nie crystals(?)...? --- [My general advice for buying blades (and any other expensive things which require some knowledge): Treat them like mushrooms in the forrest. There are eatable and poisonous ones. And some look good and some are rotten. Pick them only if you really know that they are eatable and if they look good/acceptable for you. If you are unsure, what they are and if the could make a good dish, simply don't take them! You won't enjoy eating a suspicius soup.... Maybe a more experienced collector could identify them as treasures and grab them but that'll be his risk. And not in ebay-forrest ]

With Hadori the steel surface is polished slightly coarser again to create the whitish effect. Here you can see the effect done by an amateur polisher on a train window:

The hi groove is different on both sides. At least it extends much more into the nakago than on the rough hada side. So it seems it was polished not the same amount on both sides... (?)

Have these yanone been made by sword smiths or other specialist? This one is signed and I wonder if yanone can be asigned to schools etc. like swords...

(This shakudo piece is copper colored.)

Unpatinated shakudo is copper coloured. But it would be interesting to see the difference between black patinated copper and black patinated shakudo side by side. But I'm not sure, how untreated shibuichi looks like with its high amount of silver. Still like standard copper?

I thought, we have 7% VAT on books and other print media in Germany, so I would expect 7% but not 19% if I buy outside Europe..?

Looking forward to the Tosogu Classroom 3 + 4! (...please without Moiré pattern in the pictures 😉)

...that's why I wrote 'damage' with ' '. Actually I had shortened blades in mind (cut off to get a more practical lenght - not a 'rescue-cut' due to hagire or broken off nakago to keep the blade alive at least as weapon). I think it's a difference whether a blade has been altered during its active years as weapon or nowadays as part of a collection (which I would reject).