Hello I would like to introduce myself and on his insistence my 6 year old boy. I'm Adam and he is Ned.
I collected many many years ago at a very low level where quantity seemed to outweigh quality and my acquisitions were not exactly great stuff but I had a lot of it and my ignorance was complete.
After a significant lifestyle change occurred I parted with everything but a Koto o-tanto.
Nothing special, but I kept it as a last handhold on nihonto. Many years passed and my interests turned towards Tosogu. Eventually I got the Tanto down from the loft and my then 4 year old got bitten by the bug. He has a few items of relatively low quality and a couple of home made (he made them) koshirae and I've provided tsunagi to keep it safe. Thing is he's as mad as I am about nihonto now at 6yrs he is very passionate about what he has and displays it regularly for my and my friends (also collectors) to appreciate.
Me?
I was fortunate to be educated by the late John Lissenden aka Docliss in that he opened my eyes to a different level of appreciation of Tosogu through a friend. What I thought was perhaps high quality was challenged and clearly was a long way from being even mediocre.
Only by holding, feeling and seeing quality do we really start to understand and get real joy from these mini masterpieces.
I appreciate beauty is in the eye of the beholder though.
John's huge collection of very nice fuchi kashira, kogai& kozuka amongst many other things was exceptional in my opinion. Not always busy or packed scenes but wonderful minimalist tranquility which must have been a nice respite from the realities of the world back then for people.
John's collection was enhanced in 1955 when he was given the WA Young collection (collected from late 1800's to 1931)
These items have never been out of private collections and shinsa was not a consideration back then.
I'm lucky to have several of these pieces in my modest collection, problem is there is no turning back from exposure to this quality.
So now I'm out for the Koto three/four a Koto katana is my last target. I have the O wakizashi (ex Tachi) the Tanto and a nagimaki naoshi reshaped from a naginata. The sword fittings are where I really get my enjoyment.
Regards Adam (and Ned)
