IanB

John, You are correct about the kirimon and chrysanthemum and yes there is a portrait scroll in the Memorial Museum, Nagoya showing Hideyoshi wearing an armour decorated with the 5-7-5 kirimon. However there is also a sword stand in Tokugawa Art Museum, Nagoya with the same kirimon and the aoimon of the Tokugawa family that is supposed to have been Ieyasu's. There is also another intriguing little mystery about Hideyoshi's use of the kirimon. In the tensho mission to Europe of 1582, some gifts to Philip II of Spain were sent by Hideyoshi, including one of the famous kagamusha armours, another of which is in the Tokugawa Art Museum. Both of these are decorated with the same 5-7-5 kirimon. On Philip II's death his son, Philip III, sold two armours to Rudolph of Bohemia. These appear in an inventory of 1607 of Prague Castle. Now the intriguing thing is why was Hideyoshi sending gifts whilst he was a vassal of Nobunaga (and was busy in Honshu and didn't attack Kyushu, where the trip was planned, until 1587) and why was he using the kirimon two years before it was granted to him by the emperor? Bit of a mystery here. Ian

All, It has always been my belief that the alloys used by the Japanese patinated of their own accord given time. The fact that they had to be patinated initially by some chemical treatment was simply to obviate the need for the maker to leave it kicking around for years before he could sell it. I also understood that handling these alloys actually speeded up the natural patination process, or perhaps it would be better to say repair it, because of the chemical composition of our sweat. Since few of us have lumps of unpatinated shakudo around to see if this is true, we might take copper as an analogy. When installed, copper pipe fittings are bright raw metal but after a year or so in a dry indoor atmosphere they acquire that lovely foxy red patina we so admire in tosogu. I think one of the complicating factors in all of this is the varying nature of the alloys concerned, particularly in the case of shakudo. We have all come across fittings which are hardly black at all and look distinctly coppery. I've no doubt these were made from alloys in which the amount of gold was skimped to save on costs. As a former chemist, long since de-frocked, I have tried to understand the underlying chemistry of shakudo patination but still cannot really understand the role the gold plays. Research at the British Museum has shown that the black patina is copper oxide, so what effect is the gold having? I remember reading that a European spent time at the Japanese Mint in the Meiji period researching alloys that gave the same coloured patina as shakudo but did not contain any gold. Apparently it was for producing medals. He was successful but I cannot now find the reference, although I seem to remember his alloy contained arsenic and antimony. A consiiderable area for study here. Ian

All, It has always been my belief that the alloys used by the Japanese patinated of their own accord given time. The fact that they had to be patinated initially by some chemical treatment was simply to obviate the need for the maker to leave it kicking around for years before he could sell it. I also understood that handling these alloys actually speeded up the natural patination process, or perhaps it would be better to say repair it, because of the chemical composition of our sweat. Since few of us have lumps of unpatinated shakudo around to see if this is true, we might take copper as an analogy. When installed, copper pipe fittings are bright raw metal but after a year or so in a dry indoor atmosphere they acquire that lovely foxy red patina we so admire in tosogu. I think one of the complicating factors in all of this is the varying nature of the alloys concerned, particularly in the case of shakudo. We have all come across fittings which are hardly black at all and look distinctly coppery. I've no doubt these were made from alloys in which the amount of gold was skimped to save on costs. As a former chemist, long since de-frocked, I have tried to understand the underlying chemistry of shakudo patination but still cannot really understand the role the gold plays. Research at the British Museum has shown that the black patina is copper oxide, so what effect is the gold having? I remember reading that a European spent time at the Japanese Mint in the Meiji period researching alloys that gave the same coloured patina as shakudo but did not contain any gold. Apparently it was for producing medals. He was successful but I cannot now find the reference, although I seem to remember his alloy contained arsenic and antimony. A consiiderable area for study here. Ian

All, As chairman of the Northern ToKen Society, and a recently retired Senior Curator at the Royal Armouries Museum, may I offer a crumb of comfort to those concerned about items handed in to police stations during amnesties. It is true that the attitude taken was one of 'If its handed in take it off them' and some good items were undoubtedly destroyed. Despite this some forces did show some sympathy towards antiques and I was able to rescue a very fine wakizashi with a Tadayoshi blade, a suriage blade in gunto mounts (which I failed to identify because of its condition but which I felt held great promise), and finally a Tokyo Arsenal made gunto in the most pristine mounts I have ever seen. Similar rescues occurred previously and all of these items have become part of the Museum's collection and are now available for study. Ian Bottomley

All, At first glance this does look Chinese but the tapered tang rather than a socket indicates otherwise. The form is not a problem as the Chinese came up with some pretty wacky staff weapons. In the Royal Armouries we had dozens, 19th century copies of early staff weapons originally in Nanking but destroyed by bombing. Most of these weapons had a knop between the socket and the head proper. Although I have never seen anything exactly like this, its general form seems to shows a lot of Chinese influence whilst the use of a tang suggests somewhere in the South East Asian area. The knop above the tang would stop the blade driving into the shaft and splitting it. All in all I would hazard somewhere like Indonesia as the origin. Ian B.

Welcome back to the real world. Last year I went through a positive diagnosis and subsequent treatment (with a happy outcome) so I know what you have been through. :D Ian

All, The red copper oxide, like the patination of all Japanese metals / alloys, is only a surface effect. Scratch it and you see the normal colour of metallic copper underneath. Years ago, when I was a chemist in a research lab, I played around at patinating alloys. Information from Japan was very scarce in those days and fittings that had been polished bright by the ignorant were fairly common. The best I ever came up with was a simple solution of copper sulphate. The object to be patinated had to be chemically cleaned and then immersed into the solution just as it came up to the boil. This gave a good black with shakudo and a good grey with shibuichi. Unfortunately copper comes out pink, but left to oxidize in the air it soon assumed a nice foxy brown. The odd thing was that the solution had to be fresh each time. This effect may have something to do with dissolved oxygen in the water. Ian

Mariuszk, The metal is not red lacquered but coloured by heating. To obtain this colour the base metal has to be copper, traces of other metals may well be beneficial but not essential. To get the colour the copper is heated to red heat then plunged into boiling water. The water has to be at a rolling boil to work properly. The colour is known as 'Royal Copper' in Europe. Ian

Just went through the whole thing only to have been pipped at the post by the previous post. Ian

James, This is quite an interesting tsuba. On the right is the date: 2nd year of Keio (1866), 8th month a lucky day. The signature reads: Miochin Katsumi Ki Munenaga saku. Kei Chappelear (Japanese Armor Makers for the Samurai) gives him as a member of the Tosa Miochin working in the late Edo period and known to be a tsuba maker. What is a bit unclear is the Katsumi. Koop & Inada gives this as the name of a courtesan. Perhaps he moonlighted to bring in a bit of extra income :D . The inscription on the left is interesting. The last two characters read motome - to the special order of. The person referred to seems to read - Sakamoto Naokata (or Nogata). A very nice tsuba. Ian