Rich T

Hi all, does anyone have an example of a mei by the 6th gen Yasutsugu ( 康継 ) ? Cheers Rich

Hi Tim, better, you know that has a nasty crack at the bottom don't you. Just as an example, these are around the same price, and Koichiro san at Seikeido speaks excellent english. http://www.nona.dti.ne.jp/~sword/tuba/t0087tenpo.htm http://www.nona.dti.ne.jp/~sword/tuba/g0004hana.htm http://www.nona.dti.ne.jp/~sword/tuba/t0122tuta.htm http://www.nona.dti.ne.jp/~sword/tuba/t0120fune.htm http://www.nona.dti.ne.jp/~sword/tuba/t0156goko.htm http://www.nona.dti.ne.jp/~sword/tuba/g0053nanban.htm I am unsure what your theme is and these cover many apsects. I am biased towards several stores I will admit, but that is because they have such good reputations. cheers Rich

Hi Tim, I think 1 and 3 are Nagoyamono and not very different from the worst Shiremono. To help you understand all of that. Shiremono basically means 'Mass produced' and at or around the start of the Meiji period, when Japan opened it's doors to the rest of the world, tradesmen in area's like Yokohama mass produced tsuba and other items to sell to the tourists as they came and went. Some were good, some were not. Nagoyamono generally relates to mass reproduced fittings that mimic Goto, Ko Kinko and Mino style fittings. That's what one and 3 are I believe. So they are tsuba made in Japan prior to 1900, but they are not very good ones sorry. Number 2 is as Dave says, although I would just rate this just above Shiremono, the mei is not badly cut but the Kebori ( carving ) is quite poorly done and armature'ish. I have no idea what you are intending to pay for these but I would suggest buying a few books instead, having a look at what is available in both style and school. Also have a look at the following sites for an idea of genuine tsuba. http://www.nihonto.com/itemsaletsuba.html http://www.nihonto.us/tsuba.htm http://www.ricecracker.com/japanese_swords_tsuba/tsuba.htm http://www.nihontocraft.com/Tsuba_for_sale.html Next take a look at Jim Gilbert's website, read through and look at all the images. http://home.earthlink.net/~jggilbert/tsuba.htm I would also like to point you to an article I posted on Tosogu.com recently. http://tosogu.blogspot.com/2006/08/modern-collections-where-are-they_15.html#links It might be worth a read at this stage of your collecting life. It is a hard time being new to collecting, you want to buy to learn but what to buy ?. Buying several cheap seems like fun and the way to go, but maybe buying one good tsuba would be better ? just my 2 cents worth. Cheers Rich Turner

rich

Will do.

Rich, does the book shows the mei on the koz and f/k ? Hi mate, no, they are just the same images, only a little clearer. I will point out is is a pretty cheap book, only about US$60 or so, for over 400 tsuba plus the other items. The Museum also does not specialise in Nihonto, and this is their only collection in this regard. Rich

And the JSSUS and Mr Robson have doen abang uo job. Great book at an amazing price. Cheers all Rich

I may be a bit slow but these are nice images, there is a great Zoom tool if you have Active X enabled http://www.mfa.org/collections/search_art.asp?coll_package=27268&coll_start=1 Rich

All, please find attached a link to the 2006 Nihonto exhibition at the Hamilton Art Gallery, Hamilton, Victoria. Just to prove that Nihonto is not totally dead in this state. Please take a look Cheers Richard http://www.nihontokanjipages.com/personal/hamilton/hamilton_2006.html [/img]

for this type of tsuba providing the quality is there I think Henry, see Ginzaseikodo http://ginzaseikodo.com/tousougu.html for an almost 1 million yen tsuba. In regards to the papers, I see Kanteisho Motif ( ? ) Sukashi Tsuba Mumei Kaneyama Edo Shoki. Kiku ? Mokko Gata ? Tsuchime Ji Koniku-kakumimi Hozon tosogu I have not got the rest yet sorry. Cheers Rich

The iron looks homogenous, and it is not very thick, so I would think it would be mid to late Edo, it is a classic Owari/Kyo Sukashi design of wild geese flying, and I think might would be a copy of one of those works. The geese are quite crude, there are no signs of ever being worn, as in tagane-ato or any sort of wear around the nakago ana. It would probably paper as Shoami in this day and age. Thats all I can guess from the image sorry. Cheers

much obliged. I am getting some request for those books, if you are interested, I am thinking of picking a few up when I visit in October. That may save a few dollars. Rich

Hi Rich, they are better, I would scan one but I don't like scannng my books. But I find the same thing, the images online are quite dark on my PC but look a lot better on my laptop. I forgot to add, you can click on the online images and they take you to larger versions. The book is about 50 - 60 dollars with shipping to the US but I would bneed to re check that. Rich

The Sukagawa City Museum in Fukushima has online, the collection of the tosogu of Mr Aotu Yasutoshi. Mr. Aotu was born in Sukagawa in 1893. He collected Tosogu while running a ceramics shop in Sukagawa. He continued collecting for 70 years and donated most of the collection to Sukagawain in 1981. Mr Aotu passed away in 1984. The Aotu collection contains over 420 tsuba from most of the major tsuba schools from the Kamakura era to the Edo era with the main interest being in Iron tsuba. There is also a healthy selection of Fuchigashira, Kozuka and some Menuki. In addition, the curators believe the quality of this collection is to be judged as high. The museum say they were both surprised and pleased that he handed over so splendid a collection to the city. Sukagawa City Museum also note that they take great care of this precious document and work hard to preserve it for future generations. The museum exhibits a part of this collection once in several years. They say is difficult to exhibit it all at one time. Sukagawa City Museum are going to exhibit the Tosogu of Mr Aotu (about 100 pieces) this year from July to August. http://www.db.fks.ed.jp/txt/20011.002/html/00003.html When visiting the site, use the left and right arrows at the top right to navigate. A catalogue is available in limited numbers of this collection, if you are interested, email me and I will help you facilitate it. All monies go to the Museum. Cheers Richard

Brian and Darcy, Brian, you have done a wonderful job setting this up and it is much appreciated. Darcy, I resemble that remark :-) Rich