Peter Bleed

There is a big - heck huge ! - literature on Japanese archeology and the Jomon era. It turns out that stonepoints have a very long history during the Jomon era - call it 10,000 BC til 500BC - but there was very little formal variation in the category so that arrowhead typology is way less important in Japan than it is in North America. Simple, small stone tipped arrow where used for centuries so triangular and stemmed points are quite common. I think I may have some which I will try to - ahh - dig out. I do have a pair of tsuka that have stone projectile point menuki. Indeed, as I recall they were discussed on the Message Board a couple of years back. I would LOVE to see more. My impression - well its a guess, really - is that they are from northern Honshu and they date from the 19th century. They look like 'country" stuff to me. Artifact collecting was a rather popular pastime inLate Edo times.. I could dig out a reference if any was interested. Peter

Sorry, but . my "vew Current Content" tab is not hot, It won't click. I ahve I somehow turned it off? Peter Bleed

Jussi, Well, gee. Now I have closed the "new Contect" tab and I can't even open it. Sorry, I am just an old guy! Peter

Brian, I remain a big fan of the NMB. I think it is "world central" for Japanese sword enthusiasts. I am impressed that individuals I respect have expressed support for the new format and presentation. Thank you for must have been a great deal of work. And i well know that "change is good." Still, . . another learning curve presents challanges. One feature I miss from the old format was the open-ended list of "recent" or was it "active" topics. That made it very easy to find discussions of the past day or two. Peter

Chris et al Indeed, this sounds like a potentially wonder resource. Simply paging thru interesting old volumes would certainly reveal treats, but a problem orientation is what guides searching most effectively. So, let me ask, Chris, where to you start? What are you looking for? Please advise us on how to use this resource? Peter

I spent a bit of time this afternoon wandering thru Jim Gilbert's tsuba page and I have to say that it really is a treasure. Of course we all know about Jim's site but we shouldn't take it for granted. What we all should do is wonder thru Jim's site from time to time to sharpen our eye. Thank you Jim! Peter

Dear Friends, The point of my initial post was to encourage diversity and tolerance in sword collecting. I apologize for using a mildly vulgar term. I hoped that the term would be taken as light, jocular quip. I did not mean to be offensive. And for the record, let me assure Dan that I was in no way offended by his cleaver characterization of me as a “High mileage guy.” There is plenty of self interest in welcoming to new collectors, but we are not recruiters or salesmen. Expert sword collectors worked hard to acquire knowledge. They have also organized information in ways that make collecting much easier to master than it was. New collectors should accept some responsibilities and expect some challenges. Peter

I vote with Mark. Peter

I have to agree that this seems obviously to be a recent product. But Lots of people have turned their hand to a bit of metal working. And I think that replication is a good means of building perception and appreciation. Somebody made this and it wasn't a waste of her/his time. Look at the ishimei. He tried a couple of techniques and tools and if my reconstruction of the sequence he followed is correct (he started below the seppa-dai, which is up in the image!), he developed some skill. Notice he didn't raise the mimi til after he had done the ishimei. That strikes be as odd, but maybe it isn't. In any case, tsubas like this are going to appear on the market, so we better develop assessment skill. Peter

Ahh, the joys of the NMB and the internet. I did some scouting and found this bit of Youtube Clearly Curran was spot on in comparing it to Etruscan wire jewelry. I don't have much on Hirado work, but I would love to see evidence that folks in Japan were doing this sort of work. Peter

My first reaction to these menuki was that they were 1) very good, but 2) NOT Japanese. Interesting comments so far have made me less certain about #2 above. The gold portion of these fittings looks like classic "gold granulation." That maybe what Curran had in mind. It involves making gold spheres and fusing them on to a decorated surface without solder. I don't think this was ever much practiced in Japan - but who knows. I could easily believe that foreign Buddhist objects could be added to menuki in Japan. That's what they look like to me. Go back to #1 above! Peter

Dear Friends, Several of us have clearly enjoyed the threads started by Barry and Brian on the future of sword collecting. They have been fun, but they have grown to the point that they are hard to scan and absorb. Please let me parse the discussion by suggesting that there actually are a couple of ways of being avocationally interested in Nipponto. “Japanese sword collecting” describes the hobby practiced in Japan and internationally by people who like to appreciate swords the way the Japanese do. This hobby is organized like much of Japanese society. It is hierarchical, factional, and rule driven. It depends on learning the established categories and becoming expert in their appreciation. The aim of this hobby is to get and appreciate good swords. This hobby has great literature and well organized means for identifying and assessing swords. It also has a clear evaluation scale – NT, Jubu, Jubi, Juto, TBH, Hozon, and . . . well, “other”. I think this hobby may be in trouble. Younger Japanese seem to be having a hard time entering this hobby. It is expensive and ruled by old guys, but I think the main problem to this hobby is that it is too well organized. In a rather short time- if not already - all the swords in Japan will be evaluated. And in this hobby nobody wants swords that don’t fit in the established evaluation scheme. A sword in Japan with a big name but no origami has got to be suspect. Likewise, this hobby does not have room for “Plane Jaynes”, i.e. potentially nice old swords that show enough down-side potential to make restoration prohibitive. These swords are leaving Japan. “Collecting Japanese swords” is another hobby. It focuses on acquiring swords and related gear from Japan. The rules of this hobby are very loose. On the margins it includes guys who spend money on things made in China called “katanas.” I don’t like thinking about the low end of this hobby since it includes some real dipshits. At the high end, however, this hobby has made real contributions. This is the hobby that initiated gunto and gendai-to appreciation. If the world wants to know about WWII Japanese swords, they read Fuller and Gregory and Jim Dawson - books that I bet are not even for sale in the Yoyogi. Hustling is a common variant of this hobby. There are some people who enjoy looking for under-appreciated Japanese swords in “the woodwork.” Variants of this collecting style involve researching “whatever the heck I just discovered.” Another variant is listening to the old veteran tell about where and how he got this sword. Both of these variants are fast disappearing. Some collectors of Japanese swords have sincere and legitimate interest in Japan and its historic swords – even if they are sort of ordinary. There are people who find Japan interesting. They like reading and thinking about Japanese history. They can find intrigue in swords that “Japanese Sword Collectors” would find wanting. Folks in Tokyo might consider these collectors dipshits, but I think that this category has growth potential. Peter

Jan, The kind of information you are looking for is very interesting, but also difficult. I've tried to do it for several of the Sendai smiths - to great frustration. You have framed the questions very well and effectively organized the expertise of the NMB. Well done! Peter

I think we have to assume that ALL fittings were made in multiples for two reasons. 1. The work of mastering techniques required repetition. Kinko probably never worked in huge volumes, but remember the potters who would make tens of thousand of identical tea cups before they were taught how to make anything else. and 2) I think it is wrong to view kinko as free wheeling independent artists. The work of creating designs was the special reserve of masters. They were the guys who had the time to noodle around, sketch, and draw. They kept the design books. They decided what looked good and what would sell. They might even buy good designs - that they would assign designs to their staff. Peter

Andy is indeed a scholar and a wit. His insights are legendary. "Timing is everything. Look at me, married for the sexual revolution, divorced in time for AIDS." We should try to lure him on to the NMB. Peter

Please let me speak to Rich Stein’s suggestion that sword collecting needs is either 1) more rich people or 2) cheaper swords. I doubt that everyone is going to get suddenly rich, but I am convinced that sword prices are soon going to fall, I mean plummet, collapse, dumperize! For the past generation, sword collecting has been built on scarcity. Nobody had enough swords. If you wanted swords you had to go out and find them. You had to talk to the vets. You had to go to gun shows or run newspaper ads and set up in motel rooms. If you were Japanese, you had to come to the States. Until quite recently, information and communication was also scare. An expert was a guy with a little brass hammer. But all that has changed. Thanks to this Board and it’s parallels, information is not scarce. Now, it is easy to find out about swords. Anybody can get quick appraisals, translations and insights. The abundance of swords is also going to go up, rapidly. Collecting has created little piles of swords in the US and in Japan. Most of the swords in those piles are ordinary. But good, bad, or ugly, collections formed over the past generation are soon going to be dumped on the market. We are about to enter a period of abundance. Prices for all levels are going to have to fall. With lots of swords and easy access to information, I think we are about to enter a terrific time to be a sword collector. Peter

Thank you, Barry, for starting another good thread. Anything that gets Darcy fired up is way cool. I want to sort of brag about the status of the small sword group that has developed at the University of Nebraska. We have been weekly for the past semester and every week a group of 4-10 folks show up. We meet in the Kawasaki Reading room - a wonderful special library that developed with the support of the Kawasaki factory that is here in Lincoln – Varooom Varooom . Please take a look at our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ToNoKai So far we have basically looked at stuff from my collection. And I’ve done most of the talking. Have they seen great stuff? Do they know enough? NO!, but there is a cadre that knows enough to be interested. The basic point is that once there is a program, people will come. Japanese swords, are very interesting, dammit! I also think 1) that many of us have collections big enough to support lots of introductory looking, and 2) that showing them to the next generation is a good use of our collections. Peter

Steve, Are we talking about the quip or you? P

I think I've seen/heard andy quirt use this quip as well. Peter

Wow, Christian, I am looking forward to seeing this sword when you reveal it. If it is the one I think it is, I sold it a couple year ago because two shinsas said it had been retempered and xrays showed that the nakago was welded on. I always wondered who ended up with it. Small world, ay? Peter

Dear Friends, The closing plate in Robinson’s “Arts of the …”shows a rather dull copy of the “coloured drawing” of am image entitled “The Twenty-eight Master Metal Workers”. I have never heard or seen discussions of this image, but it seems to pretty interesting. Robinson says it dates from "about 1790" but that seems loose. The figures are individualized and shown with name panels so you have to wonder if they are accurate renderings. A couple of the figures - Yasuchika and Naomasa – are wearing glasses and several of the figures are armed. Robinson presents a list of the men represented but is a bit unclear about what kind of image this was. It is called a "print" and a "drawing". It was made for Noda Nariaki, but it is unclear to me why the image and the list were produced. I wonder if there might be a high quality copy available or if anyone has discussed the image and its significance. It seems like an interesting document on the history of tosogu appreciation. Peter

David, Terrific tsuba! Old iron at its best. Thanks. Peter

I'll have to check my books, but I think this sword is signed "Ford, Fairlane" and if my guess is correct, the nakago comes with a Maaco refinish certificate. Peter

Daniel, I think Grey is correct. The document says that this sword is signed Osafune, but I sure can't see that in either the oshigata or the image. The fact that the document shows the rubbing it does presumably means that the blade is tachi-mei. Ron has a very good eye, but this does not look like a shin-shinto to me. Peter

Steve, For the rest of the story you have to roll down the hill with a buddy and ride your scooter off a curb. Think of it as Parris Island Lite. Signature looks like Sakakura gonnoshin Terukane, I have never seen one but he seems well regarded guy. TER 17 P