Bazza

The key is the character 於 - 'oite' or 'at', indicating I think that Kanenaga was away from his usual place of residence/work and made this blade whilst visiting Seki. BaZZa.

Just browsing and found this very interesting link: https://www.atlasobs...apanese-living-dolls BaZZa.

Rolland, a thoroughly absorbing and excellent read, thank you. You wrote: > What puzzles me is the enigmatic "orphan" mekugi ana on the left side. It is empty > and has no counterpart on the right. I've seen something similar in other teppo's photos. > I found this mekugi ana very useful for removing the karakuri, but what was its real purpose? In my experience with the 6 teppou in my collection its real purpose is exactly what you used it for - gently removing the karakuri. Best regards, BaZZa.

Kiril wrote: > Lots of Hasebe and Masamune will not have a "quality nioiguchi", in fact it can be quite difficult to observe As I was reading through the discussion the thought came to me: "I know 'best' here means from an 'art' point of view, but from a battle perspective do the points mentioned one way or another matter???" BaZZa.

Ahhhh, Steve, a hint of trouble in google's camp. I've been having trouble with google for quite some time and thought it might be a 'local' problem, i.e., me!! Or Microsoft wanting to promote Bing. i note that some google searches default to Bing, and others wind up at a dead end of "That site is unavailable at present". Others wind up at "air..." something. Sorry now I don't have a dossier of issues, but more then interesting to read your comment. BaZZa.

It was a joy to re-read this thread. Brian, how about a 'sticky' "In memory of a celebration" - or should that be "cerebration"!! BaZZa.

No one has mentioned the bear fur trimming on the haidate. I know nussink (as a certain guard was wont to say) except having a niggling memory that bear fur was 'macho'??? BaZZa.

For the OP offering, I can't help but think of 'jigsaw' puzzle pieces, perhaps something from Mingei that was popular amongst 'the people'??? BaZZa.

Jon, As you can see, it's a 'becoming' big club... Nonetheless, it's one of those topics that are evergreen and deserve the occasional airing for folk who are new or older folk who welcome the re-reading. BaZZa.

If I could hop in here again, being aware of some of the problems with KUNIKANE blades (from this very thread plus a pink from one in the hand!) I found it very useful to revisit this thread from the very beginning. Thanks, Jon, for reviving this important subject. BaZZa.

This is one of the most interesting necro-posts I have read. I have always been interested in the Psychology of Collecting, but never got really deeply into the topic - my love of Nihontou kept that at bay! However, from a long, long time ago in my reading I remember this comment "collectors decide their own categories", so I googled it. Do so google it yourself and have a delve into yet another topic we can tear ourselves to pieces on... BaZZa.

This the first downvote I've ever placed. Dan, your expressed view is a disservice to the whole ethos of collecting and studying high level artworks of a culture in many ways so much more sensitive than our own blundering efforts. Do please keep on staying off the Forum unless you can show some real respect and maturity and earn your place here. BaZZa.

> we all have made poor purchases simply because something was cheap. John, tell me about it!!! My beginning years were full of blunders and bodgy swords because I essentially had no idea what I was doing and bought anything that was on offer. I stuck with it, joined any club I could find in the world and 15 years later hooked my first really good Tokubetsu Hozon katana. It was the cheese to the chalk my collection was up to that time. Then I purged the much lesser pieces I'd picked up in the intervening years. They all went. I persevered, studied the books AGAIN and AGAIN and continued seeking out other collectors to hold and look at their finds and learn from them. We all benefitted and some of the good people are still close friends today. Now some 55 years after the good find I still have that sword and I'm in as happy a place as I can be for my circumstances in life, still finding other collectors and making new friends along the way. Michael, take heart and keep on. This is a lifelong affliction, and it doesn't come easy. All it takes is money, more money, and persistence in the face of disappointment along the way. BaZZa.

Agree with Ian and John. The tang has a smooth appearance and combined with a blackish finish suggests artificial patination. Check for ububa (flat edge for a short distance from the hamachi) as Ian suggests. Also, your observation that the habaki seems to be a refit suggests a shorter tang lengthened by machiokuri to fit a WW2 koshirae. Now here's a tear (sob). I have a nida Hizen Tadahiro katana that had machiokuri performed to fit the blade to a shinguntou koshirae (sob again). Ubu, but no longer pristine... BaZZa.

Dear All, it is with great sadness I announce the passing of my good and dear mate in swords Roger Dundas. He had been unwell for some time and passed with his family present. I will miss his good friendship and the conversations we had. RIP Roger. BaZZa.

MUMEI is the most prolific artisan of all... BaZZa.

I wonder if its anything connected to the 'troubles' I'm having here... Anyone else in Oz having connect problems on a google word search??? BaZZa.

Well, as a complement to the discussion here is the Hikozo utsushi I bought from Ford some years ago. Passing time has not diminished its immense appeal to me. BaZZa.

Sticking my neck out - Nathan, if you add up all the component costs of polish, shirasaya, habaki, packaging, postage from Japan and incidentals, for a modest price you have a nice looking REAL NIHONTOU in better than good condition. Rather than return it at an expense can I suggest you keep it for some time to remind you of the best way to collect. Look for NBTHK current certificate format of HOZON and TOKUBETSU HOZON. BaZZa.

Ford - do you mean to say this is a gimei of Motoyama Ishitada??? Bob Morrison showed a tsuba No 267 of a similar construction with NBTHK paper and in katakiri: I know Ford said: > I wouldn't pay too much attention to the mei, whoever cut it could barely use the chisel . > Having said that the tsuba was decently constructed and the kata-kiri, while not exactly a masterpiece, is a fair enough example of late work. , Vitaly, if your tsuba is a genuine work by Motoyama Ishitada I strongly, STRONGLY suggest you let Ford restore it. I have a tsuba by this artisan and the style of signature with ISHIYAMA in small characters and MOTOTADA in 'normal' size characters point to a genuine, high quality work unless 'someone' says it is gimei. I honestly think that a gimei tsuba is hardly likely to be a sandwich construction of high quality shakudo facing pieces. I have compared the two signatures in side-by-side windows and even the mei on Bob's tsuba looks a tad clunky to my eye. Is there an expert in the house??? More below. This may well be gimei, but in this thread Stenbar asked Ford wrote: Posted August 14, 2008 To add to the picture of who the man was... the following is from Haynes; with some added speculation on my part. Mototada was also a painter, something which may have added to his design abilities. He was schooled in metalwork by the Kyoto branch of the Goto family and other Kyoto studios. I get the impression of someone somewhat outside of the mainline school system therefore. He inherited his father rank of 3rd level court noble ( Kuge ), perhaps this allowed him a certain freedom in moving between schools etc. This type of bold and sweeping kata-kiri work is more likely influenced by the Yokoya lineage, Somin being credited with the invention of the technique. Many other artists used the technique subsequently but this does have a strong Somin look to my eye. Some clearer, and larger images would allow for a better assessment of the quality of the work but it seems to me to reasonably good, as one would expect. Regards, Ford So maybe Vitaly's tsuba needs a closer look???? There is one more tsuba offered by Kyle Shuttleworth that has a similar 'clunky' looking mei - is this a characteristic of Mototada's mei??? Its the third tsuba down. BaZZa. PS: Edited to add that I would put up a photo of my MOTOTADA tsuba but I don't have a photo readily available. Furthermore, it is iron and in a completely different material and style, though of course the mei could stand scrutiny. I'll try and get this together.

Not a spelling error, methinks. Well, not in the sense of a romanisation error, of which there are 3 systems of rômaji to my knowledge. No, if I remember my 2 years of classroom Japanese from 30 years ago, in spoken Japanese 'spelt' -fusa can be 'spoken' -husa, the 'f' being pronounced more as a 'f' in 'phooey'. In other words, more like a short, blown 'phoo' rather than an 'eff'... I particularly remember a pronunciation of SADAFUSA in the film 'Gate of Hell', where Kiyomori in greeting a Samurai distinctly said "sa-dah-fu-sa", compared to my native Japanese speaking college tutor who offered the short 'phoo' pronunciation to his pink-faced students. Or so it seemed to me, the feckless gaijin struggling to learn any Japanese at all. Maybe I missed the subtlety of Kiyomori's pronunciation... BaZZa.

John, it may have something to do with a problem I've had for a week or so. Just sent this to my ISP: Dear Support Folk, I’m not sure how to approach this, but I will try. For at least the last week I have not been able to do a google search, yet I can access ‘named’ website links, for example https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/, https://www.msn.com/en-au/ and http://www.bom.gov.au/. Yet if I try a simple search like kinnoto, calisthenics victoria or white grubs I get the following alert: Note the alert search result syntax is: https://search.yahoo...isthenics%20victoria , whereas the syntax as I launch the search is https://www.google.c...alisthenics+victoria . There seems an inconsistency in these two browser window syntax entries. In short, I don’t know whether the problem is at ‘your’ end, ‘my’ end, or somewhere ‘out there’. I’m not aware of any local changes unless I inadvertently made a change ‘somewhere’. I’ve searched through my Firefox settings and wonder if it’s a proxy issue. Here are my settings. I hope you’re having a wonderful day wherever you are (I’m in Melbourne) and that you can solve my google connect issue. Yours faithfully, Barry Thomas (aka BaZZa)

Saw this very interesting sword on Mandarin Mansion: https://www.mandarin...aic-asian-shortsword BaZZa.

Seen on Peter Dekker's website: https://www.mandarin.../winged-dragon-tsuba BaZZa.

Yesterday Robin Alexander wrote: > can't find any historical or spiritual importance in the humble grape. It appears Japan only had one type of indigenous > (Koshu) grape from Yamanashi Prefecture. So traditionally grapes don't appear to be 'big' in Japan in terms of symbolism. I'd just like to interject here to point out that the grape and squirrel motif has been discussed in these pages. I searched on 'grape squirrel' and had more than one hit, but here's one just to kick off the byway: BaZZa.