Curran

"Fürwhar" oder Fürwahr? Lucky lotto ticket right here.... If we win the grand prize, then free Juyo for each of the current admins (Brian, John, Jean) and for Pete. The rest will get a Nihonto Lottery.

El Lotto, Yo tambien.

Mike, You asked me before what schools I collected. Your Moritoshi is exactly the sort of thing I enjoy. It is well done and has a certain sense of humor to it. Dark as night tiger with gold bright eyes, silver teeth, and a laughing cat smile. It captures the menace of the tiger in the dark, the feline fluidiness, and Cheshire Cat smile of something that knows it is big, bad, and got you dead to rights. ~~~~~The artist isn't a biggest name artist, but he is good. In this example, he's also added a dimension of something specific- sort of the hypnotic threat (the more you look, the more you want to keep looking- though bad for you). These are the fun or interesting sort of mood tsuba that I like having rounding out my small collection. Please consider bringing it to Tampa. I'd benefit from studying this particular fine example of Unno Moritoshi's work.

Herr Richter, Thanks for posting these. Your visual database always amazes me. I thought to begin a visual database with many of the images I catalog, but realize it would probably be better to collaborate with someone like you and one or two others that have assembled what are already very extensive catalogs. In conjunction with Wakayama, the Haynes Index, and some of Mr. Sesko's work- it is nice to imagine it becoming the Kodogu E-Encyclopedia. It would be what we call a nice, "academic labor of love" for the person who can coordinate it. At one letter of the alphabet per month, maybe 2 to 3 years work? In regards to this artist (Umino) Moritoshi: Thanks to you and John and another private party, I have now seen several of his works. He seems very fond of the design of goddess and gods in gold. He is a bit prone to caricature of the faces, but I like his sense of humor in his work.

John- Wow that was fast. Thank you for the information. Yes, Mito work fits with what I am seeing and some of the cartoonish rendering is more the sort of thing I can understand being done in late Edo / Early Meiji as western influence spread. Hope your last storm passed uneventful. Both neighbor and I seem to be out making post summer repairs. If anyone can scan in the reference signature from Wakayama Vol3 page 101, I'd appreciate it. From what John wrote, I'm fairly sure it is authentic work- but good practice to confirm it.

Storm Sandy resulted in all of my Nihonto & Kodogu books spending the winter in northern storage. I am looking at a nice pair of menuki by "Umino Moritoshi". Very complex but slightly unrefined work. Mori as in the mori used for Osafune Morimitsu. Toshi is complexer old form. It may be simplified to new form 'Toshi' in some modern texts. __________________________________________________________ Can anyone scan or type in the appropriate Haynes entry for me? If there is a reference signature in Wakayama or elsewhere, I would also appreciate that very much. I'd much appreciate it, as I am curious about this artist.

Well, as you touched earlier... signature doesn't look so good. See signatures here- http://www.aoi-art.com/sword/wakizashi/12388.html http://www.aoi-art.com/sword/wakizashi/12525.html Easy litmus test with Yasumitsu: Look at far right-hand atari of the 'mitsu' cross-stroke. Genuine Yasumitsu, the *atari* almost always points a little down. Also chisel is a bit narrow, like a fine point pen. Both examples at Aoi Arts show this. ALso, two of Eric's fine examples show this clearly. If atari is 90 degree or points up a bit, then explore further with serious doubts. For such a simple character, Yasumitsu's "Mitsu" is very distinct.

Not collecting until at least a decade after the theft. Curious to see the list. Hawley c.1981, theft:

To be very blunt: if the mei checks out in its current condition, probably $3000 to $4000 the condition is an issue. Also please see thread here for Yasumitsu information: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14100 Healthy papered Oei Yasumitsu O-tanto command a premium and go for around $8000 to $12000. One on Choshuya.com popped off quickly for around $5000-$5500. The slender wakizashi type turned out in larger numbers after 1410 or so go for less. The Morimitsu example linked has been up for a very long time. The one on Nihonto.com is polished, papered, nice habaki & shirasaya, and has been up for one (to two) years? The Hawley one is akin to them, though Brian is right about the issues and it does look more like a boy's sword or a very polished down altered slender wakizashi. The spread on Yasumitsu work is rather wide. The best Yasumitsu tachi command over 6 figures. A slender later Yasumitsu "wak" in questionable condition will be decidedly in the 4 figure camp. Not $30000.

Lovely tsuba. It would have been exactly my cup of tea a few years ago. David's was almost certainly a "Kaneyama" a bit heavy on the Owari feel, but I think it should be classified as one of the late Momoyama - Very Earliest Edo Kaneyama that enjoyed a period of en vogue. The carbon nodules are almost too prominent little heads and have sort of been shaved around or finessed to be highlighted so clearly. Everything else looks right. Now the funny thing is that the NBTHK, depending on the year such tsuba go to shinsa, will sometimes give these late momoyama - earliest Edo examples calls to Kaneyama, Ono, Owari and Shoami, in basically that order of frequency. I've seen one tsuba that got "Shoami" and the owner said it was an idiot call, then waited a few years and sent it back. Second time it got "Kaneyama". I've seen both sets of Hozon papers. With these momoyama-earliest Edo ones, don't be too overconfident that it will paper Kaneyama. NBTHK seems to like to give the sharp stick to the eye on people papering these about 30-40% of the time.

Ezo does not mean Hokkaido. It also certainly includes northern Honshu. Unless these are some of the Yasuchika knock offs, I'm still betting the way I did.

Well, I guess I am the dissenter here. My shoot from the hip impression is very late muromachi or momoyama okimono ko-kinko / kinko menuki. I guess I should choose, so: large (early) momoyama ko-kinko menuki. Not as precise as they could be, but have their own rare appeal. Design is that we see in some of the earlier Muromachi Ezo menuki, but the copper and the rendering looks much more like some of the large copper menuki we see from the late-late Muromachi period on in to Momoyama. Richard George had a large set of Fu Dogs from this period, in similar copper, that he sold years ago. Excellent pieces to study. Finesword.com com has a pair of such okimono late muromachi 'Ezo' menuki of a pine tree motif. They would be slight precursors to these menuki. I always wondered for what sort of koshirae they were intended. Probably only seen a half dozen to eight sets of this type in the past ten years. That is my 2.5 cents.

As FH said, definitely after or somewhat in the style of... Somin. Late Edo.

Taking a break from marathon of work, glad I did and visited NMB. Thanks to Mike and especially Mariusk (thanks for that link), learned a bit more Japanese mythology that I had not known.

I have seen this one before. The image is huge on my screen. ~The thing is people need to zoom out and realize this is a kinko tsuba on the petite side... ~Realize that even as large as it is on the NMB image, the precision of design is still so tight. When viewed in real life and correct scale, it hits that the workmanship is as exact as anything any Swiss watch maker had done. It is what makes Ishiguro work so desirable (and so often gimei). I cannot remember 100%, but I seem to remember the level of detail even includes the bird's tongue as well. Would make your average bench jeweler cry. To do this work nowadays would, in most instances, cost more than buying a papered original.

Mike and Jean, Now I'm jealous again. I would have loved to see the Yasutsugu utsushi. As is, the Hirata f/k sold to an NYC club member... wow, studying that kashira under magnification was amazing. Look forward to discussing Higo with you in Tampa, though I admit I rely heavily on books and knowledge of others as I learn in that area. I will be bringing two items worthy of a look. One will be in the NBTHK lecture, though I don't know if you, Ted, or Bob Benson are leading on that.

Mike- Get some rest , and come back when you can. You're posting the sort of stuff that even those of us who have aggressively collected kodogu for many years do not get to see very often unless traveling to Japan. NMB has grown to several thousand members, some whom surprise me with PMs demonstrating they read if they don't actively post. With an audience this large, please learn to overlook the occasional contrary item thrown on stage when you are sharing. These are particularly fine tsuba you have shared, from an area where I have much to learn. Though you and I may have gotten off to a bad introduction many years ago, I respect your info & image sharing as keystone to improving the level of discourse here. You and Ford are primary members when you two can participate. Please keep in it, when you can. I'm also looking forward to images of the ko-katchushi mentioned elsewhere. As I said, get some rest and then join us. Hope to bicker with you over your fine items in Tampa.

It is my opinion that Fred's is a nice Muromachi example. Its size and condition make desirable, though price on these seems to have come down a good bit in recent years. There are others slightly smaller available around the 2.5k to 3k mark in Japan- not selling. Still- size and condition are extremely important. Someone with deep pockets will probably buy this one. There is only 1 that I can think of which would tempt me more, and it is still 'not for sale'. Missed my window of opportunity long ago when it was briefly offered up. As David said, NBTHK has recently been pushing back the giving of Ko-tosho and Ko-katchushi to mid Muromachi. It is a bit confusing, as recently papered "Tosho" and "Katchushi" are sometimes older examples than others with NBTHK papers saying 'Ko-tosho' or 'ko-katchushi'. Ultimately: use your best judgement

Daebak! (ask your wife for translation) That is one robust looking examples. So many of the ones I've seen have been polished down quite a lot to bring out the hada. This one looks elegant, and I wouldn't have a new polish put on it unless something wrong with it. I now understand both the nie and ko-bizen comment. I didn't think it a Tanobe-san sayagaki at first. It looked like his writing with that right hand flair out on certain strokes, but he used a finer brush and wrote so much in a tighter style that I thought it must be someone else with excellent writing style. I hope this one gets displayed at Tampa. Just wow..... I run counter to many in not loving Soshu so much, but this one is smoking beautiful.

Kunitaro-san, thank you for that translation. I plucked out the kin-zogan, Mitsu-tada, and a bit of the rest, but could not have worked out that second sentence. Ray, Yes, I saw from the photo that it was a Norishige and was trying to figure out why the ko-bizen line. This must be a really nice one. Since I've lead the hurricanes away from Florida to New York for 2 years running now (and spared Miami), please humor your fellow Floridian and post at least a partial picture of this blade. Any section of the nice jigane will do, but given the description of shape.... I hope you will post the whole thing. If you don't make it to Tampa, I may need make a trip to Miami.

Wow. Quite a bit there, and more than half of it beyond my ability to read. Nice "Ko-Bizen" and "Especially Precious". If one of the Japanese gents don't help, you might run it against Darcy's guide on such works. You should be able to translate it fairly fast. Harry, Markus, or George Trotter might bang it out too. I'll be curious to read this one when someone responds. That isn't Tanobe-san's handwriting. Whose writing is it?

The Kunisada was mentioned by me in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14101 Geraint and Adam L responded, with Adam showing another sword with the strange extension as on Ed's. I'd seen a few like Ed's listed before where an extension was lapped on and pinned, but never seen one where it was extended with a hollow sleeve extender like on the Kunisada. For the record, I really liked that Kunisada as one of my favorites of the auction. Didn't think I would, but once out of the saya- the sword had lot of personality and the polish was good. However, the extension on the Kunisada wasn't nearly as pleasant as the rest of the blade. The patina was painfully different. It isn't apparent so much in the black and white photos.

Peter, Thank you. The blade is a more polished down than I would have expected, but that sort of full bodied ken horimono is something I have not see often. The signature is very clean and great to study. Hope everyone has themselves a blast at the DTI this year.

Hmm. Anyone able to post a picture of the Nobukuni or the Muramasa?

Peter, Thank you for posting this. I'd purchased catalogs from previous years, but not this year. It does seem there are more top quality items this year. I was curious to see the Juyo Nobukuni tanto (#181) and Juyo Muramasa tanto (#180). I went to the owner-presenter's website and see nothing of that calibre. Are the items listed all for sale, or are many just for show? ___________________________________________________________ Shodai through Oei Nobukuni are tanto are blades I always want to see, though often the katana are less interesting. Yet there was an incredible TOkubetsu Juyo Nobukuni in the USA about 10 years ago. I wish I could see that one again.