No Papers For An Altered Tsuba?

[ROKUJURO]

Good evening!

I had the opportunity to purchase a few TSUBA, and there are some questions coming up:

The first TSUBA is an OWARI, and it has a HAKOGAKI by Dr. KANZAN, but no papers. My question is if a TSUBA that has been altered, e.g. by a copper FUKURIN, will be refused by the SHINSA commission and not be papered?  

Would it get papers without that additional rim?

Of course I would appreciate a translation of the HAKOGAKI if someone would be so kind!

Thank you in advance for your efforts!



 

[Brian]

I don't think the addition of a fukurin would prevent papering. I think it would be considered as part of its history. May affect the level of papers, like suriage and machi-okuri..but I think it would still paper. The addition of semigane and closing of hitsu ana does not prevent papers, so I think you are good to go, assuming they don't see the work as a modern addition.

Just my opinion though.

 

Brian

[Soshin]

Hi Jean C.,

 

Check out the updated NBTHK shinsa standards translated into English at the following link.

 

http://nihontocraft.com/2015_NBTHK_Nionto_Tosogu_Shinsa_Standards.html

[Marius]

Jean,

 

don't get too excited by the hakogaki. Your box is NOT custom made for your tsuba, so...

 

If your guard is Owari at all, it would be later work. Papering this tsuba makes no sense - I recommend that you save your money. It come back as Shoami

 

Nice guard. What are the measurements?

[Soshin]

Hi Jean C.,

 

I tend to agree with Marius, not sure what can be gain from a submission to the NBTHK other then a paper with nice Japanese writing on it that might say Shouami (正阿弥), Owari (Edo Jidai) [尾張 (江戸時代)] or maybe even Higo (肥後) if they like the tsuba.  I recently acquired for almost free a tsuba with a NBTHK hozon papers where the previous owner though the NBTHK botched the appraisal of the Owari tsuba in 2014.  This is coming from a collector with about six more years of experience collecting and a long held respect for the NBTHK.  Therefore keep in mind you might not get the result you expect with shinsa and NBTHK often provide little or no information in terms of how they arrive at a particular attribution.  

 

In an upcoming project I will be accumulating historical and observational evidence if possible in support of the previous owners claim for this tsuba, organizing the evidence into a thesis, and translating it professionally into Japanese.  This written thesis will be sent along with last years NBTHK hozon paper and the tsuba for a resubmission to the NBTHK next year sometime.  If I don't find the necessary historical and observational evidence to support the previous owner claim I will just leave the tsuba as is and accept the NBTHK judgment from 2014.  I have never done this before and still need work out the details with my Japanese sword broker in Japan.  I am hoping that having membership to the NBTHK since 2007 will help with working out the details.                               

[Henry Wilson]

The hakogaki on the top describes the tsuba as 花形文 which translates as "flower pattern decoration". Unfortunately my super-human reading powers are not strong enough to read more than three of the kanji inside the lid.

 

For the sake of it, I postulate....

To me the pattern of the said tsuba does not look like a generic tsuba representation of a flower. It looks a bit like the karahana 唐花 on the right in the Onin tsuba below... kind of...

 

 

The even continuous repetition of the small semicircle pattern to me looks more along the lines of a snowflake, like in the tsuba below.

 

.

 

 

This might indicate that the tsuba and hakogaki are a mismatch, or maybe not. Just food for thought.

 

Posted from iPhone so please forgive any errors.

[Soshin]

The inside cover of the box reads top to bottom on the left.

Maru-gata

Tetsu

Ji

Sukashi

Bori

 

The next line moving right to left reads... ????

[ROKUJURO]

Dear Sirs

Thank you a lot for your comments.

I did not intend to send the above mentioned TSUBA (w 84 x h 85 x t 4,5 mm) to a SHINSA panel. But AOI/TSURUTA-SAN often sell TSUBA with a paper, and I was just wondering why a TSUBA with KANZAN HAKOGAKI did not have one. So my suspicion was that TSUBA and box might not belong together, as Mariusz suspects.

It is indeed a later TSUBA, but besides all, I like the design which is probably not representing a floral motif, as Henry underlines. It was not sold as OWARI, so I had an idea why it was not expensive.  

[ROKUJURO]

.......In an upcoming project I will be accumulating historical and observational evidence if possible in support of the previous owners claim for this tsuba, organizing the evidence into a thesis, and translating it professionally into Japanese.  This written thesis will be sent along with last years NBTHK hozon paper and the tsuba for a resubmission to the NBTHK next year sometime......                               

David,

 

thank you for your thoughts.

 

Are you sure that the NBTHK will find pleasure in discussing their decisions with you? I used to be a longtime NBTHK member in the late seventies of the last century, and I am sceptical in this respect. In the past, they used to have a monthly KANTEI contest, and that would probably be a better place for an exchange of opinions.  

[Marius]

Jean,

 

The NBTHK represents three things:

 

- an unbelievable pool of knowledge (and for this I love it)

- a typical Japanese respect for orthodoxy (because of this I am mistrustful)

- economic interest and vested interests (for this I...)

 

But let us focus on your tsuba. It looks ~7 cm with 5 mm thickness (6 at rim), right?

[ROKUJURO]

Marius,

the TSUBA measures: w 84 x h 85 x t 4,5 mm at SEPPA DAI, thickness at FUKURIN is ca. 5 mm.

Do you have an idea what school it might belong to? The SHOAMI attribution seems too simple to me when I see no real evidence. 

AOI's explanation for the box and the rim was: 

 

The Hakogaki is related to the tsuba F13449,

The translation is as follows: 
 

"Owari sukashi Tsuba.
Flower shape sukashi Tsuba,

inside Hakogaki:  Round shape iron plate sukashi bori (openwork engraving)

Mumei Owari sukashi

Later the  brass hikurin (rim) was added  Showa Otu Mi（1965　Showa 40)  Kanzan shi (Written by Kanzan) ." 
To preserve the tsuba well, the brass rim was added. The iron and brass color match perfectly with the tsuba.

As I said, I like the TSUBA as it is,

[Soshin]

Are you sure that the NBTHK will find pleasure in discussing their decisions with you? I used to be a longtime NBTHK member in the late seventies of the last century, and I am sceptical in this respect. In the past, they used to have a monthly KANTEI contest, and that would probably be a better place for an exchange of opinions.

Hi Jean C.,

 

I don't think they do a monthly tosogu kantei like they do with swords. I do know other people (no names please) that have submitted tosogu and nihonto multiple times until they got a different result but I digress. If you like the tsuba go ahead any buy it from Aoi-Art. It looks fine to me.

[Marius]

Jean,

 

could be any school, frankly. I like the tsuba, too. A simple iron guard with a nice fukurin, pretty big, plain, good. 

 

Shoami?     Shoami is a grab bag. When you have no idea in which neat box a tsuba belongs, you put it in the huge box called "Shoami". The NBTHK will never say they don't know what school. They say Shoami. For swords they say: (ko)Uda or Hoju or Tegai, depending on how much masame they see in a blade

 

I am tired of NBTHK to be honest. Enough said...