Bugyotsuji

It looks good to me. I wonder what others will say?

Yesterday evening I went round to collect a couple of things from a Kinko shokunin, and drop off a couple more. I had bought a really small copper and shakudo Tsuba for the Tanto, but it needed some Sekigane work to make the Tsuba a tight fit. It's solid now. The Yari has a black lacquer haft bound in silver here and there, but the fittings were patchy and bright, so he recoated them in a semi titanium-type traditional finish. The spear looks perfect overall now. Really pleased with this work. One of my guns has some indented patterns on the barrel which were never meant to be filled in with Zogan, but a previous owner had experimented with silver inlay and left a bit of a mess in one area. My friend is going to take out the blobby silver inay and restore the barrel to its former appearance. Yay! Also, he doesn't like the bright appearance of the Tachi Tsuba on the sword I wear for displays, so he's going to dull it down for me. Excellent. (The Tsuba is horribly modern looking, but we all wear Tachi Koshirae so even a toy one - from a Mozo-to? - was said to be better than nothing.) Oh, and the local sword shop had a folding wood and leather Shogi stool which I have been thinking long and hard about. It is dated Bunsei 8 Nen, and I rather like objects with dates on them! So that has now found a new home...

Just had a quick read. Very good.

My first instinct, after reading everything you have said, is to let it go and go to bed with no tears.

One shilling! Hahahaha.... lovely. John L. thank you for taking the time to look at my tsuba on the previous page. I understand and agree with what you say. Incidentally, I missed what Barry was saying in his post about the removable seppa dai plate, but picked up on it when you mentioned it. An interesting feature indeed!

Forgive the jumping on the wagon here, but I've just got to ask. Some time ago, Barry asked me to post hi-res pics of this Namban tsuba, (the only one I have, likewise) and I did, but never found out why. It measures about 7.3 cm vertically and 6.9 cm across. I know nothing about it, except that I bought it on impulse, and even now have a love/hate relationship with it. Any comments, guesses welcome. Docliss mentions the seppa dai being gilded as unusual?

No, I didn't, Ian, but I do now! I know he was very highly regarded both in the UK and Japan and I have read many stories about him. Here are some pics for you, Carlo.

Mark, Piers, All, I once had a sankaku yari mounted as an aikuchi tanto, the blade being only 4 or so inches long. The nakago had been cut, of course, but the mei SHIMOSAKA was still evident. Now, it is true that I have never seen another one (maybe one other??). Edo?? Whilst the yari itself was no doubt old, the aikuchi tanto koshirae I thought was perhaps Meiji although of course it could have been late Edo. It was a somewhat poor quality affair and my feeling at the time was that it was a cheap way for someone to have a defensive weapon, a tanto blade almost certainly being more expensive than a by then more-or-less useless short yari, of which I'm sure there were thousands freely available. Maybe they are "rare" in Japan because they were mostly sold as curios in the Meiji period?? Regards, Barry Thomas. Good point. Lots of yari with rusted lower tangs which can be snapped off and reshaped, and lots of out-of-work katana shokunin, and lots of Western visitors and you get... a+b+c =

Something I came across today which I bought for the NMB Edo corner here. A small Kutani porcelain tea or sake cup with a photo in the bottom of a chap in uniform. Some debate among the dealers and customers ... "Nogi Taisho!!!" etc., but they were not really sure who it was. It was Admiral Togo Heihachiro, but I realized that people have generally only seen pictures of him as an old man. He looked too young for them in this portrait! In small gold letters inside the rim and upside down it says Togo Taisho. He became Taisho as a result of winning the Tsushima Straits battle against the Russian Baltic Fleet, so the cup has to be post 1905. Comparison of the medals on his chest might date the cup more accurately.

Talking with a Japanese friend today I mentioned these two slots and he immediately said Kakuri Kurishitan. I said, nope, ...Ford said that that was the one thing we are not allowed to say. He looked astonished and said "Who's Ford? Everyone knows it's a hidden cross." Then I thought to myself, why do we have to swallow that very first restriction put upon us. Why, Ford, why? :lol: Then looking at the Namban ship tsuba on the cover of the book posted over on the Namban Tsuba thread, the Nakago ana suddenly looked like a ship, and the cut away sections looked like the sail of the ship. Hmmm... then I thought that when it comes to proscribed things, the Japanese love to have a second or even a third explanation lined up for times of trouble. Everything in Korakuen Pleasure Gardens for example can be said to be for beauty etc., but there is often a hidden military meaning behind almost all of it. (Mark, sure let's start a different thread! I saw another one today, BTW, but the koshirae was much poorer quality.)

On the book cover Tsuba above are square slots, bringing our two threads together.

Yes, I agree with Reinhard on the readings. The first character on the fuchi may be 光 Mitsu-, but possibly 芝 Shiba-, but it's hard to see, and I would want to check my books first.

Hi Mark. There are modern versions, but the one above was done in late Edo; the saya Koikuchi is cut specifically for this yari, as too the seppa and tsuba. Sword-related Japanese people I have shown it to have been generally surprised by both its relative rarity, and genuine nature. Back to the tsuba in question, the holes may have been cut later to incorporate something, for example a blade with a high shinogi that needed special side pads to hold firmly. A square cut for special copper, gold sekigane? (Really struggling here...)

Hehehe... point taken. My brain is still refusing to give up on the cross-slots puzzle above. I hope Ford gives me the tsuba for my efforts anyway!

Add this to your memory banks, Guido.

Or Nobody's cameo pic from yesterday in this week's Edo Period Corner viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2554&start=705

Oh, wow!!! 2 Ichi-bu (Ni-bu?) bankin? Well, then it is not such an alien concept! :lol:

The answer to your suggestion may be found in trace quantity on the walls of the cavities, unless the incense was wrapped up in three layers of paper. One more possibility presents itself here. Swords sometimes had hidden compartments for little blobs of Mame-Ita-gin or Mame-kin, which could be exchanged for cash in times of need. With his gold hidden in the tsuba, even if the saya was lost, a samurai would not lose grip of his sword unless his spirit had passed on. (As an adjunct to this, I wonder if they ever took out the gold filling from the Hitsu-ana in times of need?)

Love to hear this kind of stuff, Ian. No problems at all for me. I had just had a quick look in a Japanese Super Daijirin dictionary (we all know for example how reliable the E-J and J-E dics can be) and simply quoted the received knowledge. Just rechecked to make sure I was not hallucinating or making things up, and it does say that the very first ones had Western/European motifs. Never having seen such, I was interested in the idea anyway. Always good to take everything with a pinch of salt, and to have the frontiers tested. What you describe makes a lot of sense historically and geographically. :|

The 'free floating ball' (nice!) is the dragon's fiery orb, the jewel for which they both fight. Namban tsuba tended to be European in style at the beginning of Edo when they first started being made in Hirado and Nagasaki, but later they had more of a Chinese theme to them. (Quote from dictionary!) Nice piccie here! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... longBi.jpg

Something to do with...

What an excellent photo. Thank you Koichi san. The accompanying Japanese explanation seems to suggest though, that he was executed upon his return from his world tour... :| Somewhere there is a detailed description of the wonderful gifts the Japanese delegation took to the USA and where they are stored today. It also describes the manufacture and presentation of these medallions. Mine looks as if the recipient used it for tapping out his kisseru!

Not exactly what I was looking for, but nicely set out with a menu on the left. http://www.ny.us.emb-Japan.go.jp/150th/ ... nrinE1.htm

Yes, Koichi san, and there should be quite a lot written in English on the web somewhere if I can find it. I believe there were about 80 members altogether wearing haori/hakama and carrying swords, and they were all given medallions, three (?) of which were gold, seven (?) silver and the rest copper...

This week's puzzle. Bought this off an acquaintance about three years ago and it has been sitting in my office undisturbed ever since. 7.6 cm across. Rim is 0.6 cm. Copper. Quite heavy.