Help With Box 'o Gaki Greatly Appreciated

[rkg]

Hey guys,

 

Not too long ago I got a piece with an ancient scrap of paper glued to the inner lid, and I'm trying to figure out if it actually has anything to do with the piece.  Since I had to reassemble my kodogu shooting rig anyway, I took the liberty of shooting a few images...

 

The seller said (via the xlator) that it reads:

"1541 years the following two letters could not be read. After that, you can not read the following letter Myochin Shin house"

天文十年以下二文字が読めませんでした。あと、明珍信家以下の文字が読めません。

 

 

 

I have enough trouble trying to puzzle this stuff out when its written well - I can maybe see the Ten bun ju nen in the red on the right, but the rest of it... I can't read it at all  - Haynes looked at it and he could make out a "myo chin" - but looking at this my brain doesn't even see that.

 

The confusing thing is that it looks more like something the Umetada guys would make so I'm starting to wonder if this is just a case of a swapped box or what (though from the pad it looks like the piece has been in there for a loong time, which adds to the confusion)

 

Oh, obligatory images of the piece itself - its actually pretty cool in hand...

 

 

 

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

rkg

(Richard George)

 

[Brian]

Just playing a bit, doubt it helps..

 

[Pete Klein]

"Box o' Gaki???

 

https://eastasianart.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/hakogaki-%E7%AE%B1%E6%9B%B8-also-kakitsuke-%E6%9B%B8%E4%BB%98/

[rkg]

Pete,

 

yeah, yeah, yeah, I know...    I've just always liked how close that sounds to hakogaki... :-)

 

rkg

(Richard George)

 

"Box o' Gaki???

 

https://eastasianart.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/hakogaki-%E7%AE%B1%E6%9B%B8-also-kakitsuke-%E6%9B%B8%E4%BB%98/

[christianmalterre]

very doubtful in my eyes Richard....

(least me)

 

unquestionable a very interesting Tsuba....

but!

did you notice the discrepance in the mei ? ( there are obviously 2 different ways it got punched!)

 

 

the furthermore and much more interesting thing is but the origami here...

i do notice 2 points which are very untypic (least to say, i did never encounter such yet)...

1. a attribution is lacquered in red ink onto the topic ( here, it´s a Tsuba typically)- not onto a origami...(we do see such ofthen on Katchu, partially also on tangs...)

2. a origami issue ( even if it is just a fragement, like here, normally is added separately "to" a item...and not "glued" inside a storage box.

3. there is a "seal" missing- which is neither on the gaki "attribution"- nor issued on the object itself. ( this is standard custom and a definite "must have" if done via official gaki issue dating pre Meiji)

 

in sum, actually i am puzzeled where to put this all.... to say this honest- and rather would give it to a simple, old "collectors estimation" only.

 

( but! "Box-o-Gaki" sounds great! LOL! !)

 

 

Christian

[SteveM]

In red

 

第六十八？

 

68th something or other. Not an era. 

 

鉄？？？？

耳亀甲形毛彫

信家

 

It doesn't say Myōchin anywhere on the box, although it does say Nobuie.

It doesn't say Tenmon 天文 anywhere on the box. Very deceptive for someone to be telling you this box says Tenmon 10 (1541). Even a Japanese person without any experience in hakogaki or antiques can tell this red writing doesn't say 天文十年. 

[rkg]

Thanks to everybody who replied!

 

Just for grins I put the translation as I understand it along with the original image below.  I'll try and hunt up the kanji for the missing romanji and visa versa when I have more time  Thanks to Steve M, Tom Helm, and Milton Ong  for taking a swing at this. 

 

Things make a lot more sense if this is just a case of the wrong box.

 

Steve, the box was incidental to the purchase (I would have paid more for just the piece than I did), but these old papers are always fascinating, and you always hope they're related (though they often aren't.  I just got done shooting several items where the period wrapping paper used is just being recycled and writing on it had absolutely nothing to do with the item).  Deception and ignorance are the names of the game on Yahoo!Japan though, right?  You hope for the latter, but all to often get the former....

 

Christian, as always I appreciate your insightful comments - Yeah, I believe you are correct - this is just an old owner's description (and I bet the red number is actually the guy's code for a ledger entry for the piece or something). 

 

I'm not so sure about each character on the mei being by a different hand (the spacing on the chips seems to match - not sure why the iye is cut shallower), though I do have this humorous vision of forg -er, utushi maker #1 tapping away with forg -er, utushi maker #2 looking over his shoulder, cuffing him in the head after he finishes the "nobu" character screaming "no! you idiot! you do it this way!!!", grabbing the graver/hammer and finishing the mei :-)

 

It looks like it was done at the same time the big adjusting chops were made prior to the mei being put on - though curiously that may not mean it was ato bori - I've seen a lot of utushi where they do this - I'm supposed to be shooting somebody's pieces (if he ever replies to my email about what he wants shown), so I'll look at it under the microscope after I get done with that to see if the mei is actually under the patina or what (it looks like it is hand, but...)

 

 

Thanks again,

rkg

(Richard George)

[Jean]

Bungo butted in?

 

By the way, have you have seen him in his full cavalry uniform? He seems coming right out of Fort Apache movie

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10201767966474128&set=a.1483589302949.62754.1630356414&type=3

[christianmalterre]

LOL!

 

beware! do not doubt the tagane i did!

 

!

 

:beer: !

 

 

 

 

 

[Brian]

I glossed over an article this morning somewhere on FB, and now cannot find it anymore.
Was on a militaria page, and they were trying night vision mode on cameras and IR night vision devices and night vision nanny cams, and looking at military webbing etc where the markings were faded.

The results were pretty staggering. Many markings invisible to the normal eye popped right out and could be read with ease.
Definitely worth trying if you have a video camera with night mode etc.

[rkg]

Brian,

 

you know, last night I was just thinking about your version of my image and how it would be interesting to get one of my outdated DSLRs that I don't use anymore IR converted just for this purpose.... 

 

rkg

(Richard George)

 

I glossed over an article this morning somewhere on FB, and now cannot find it anymore.
Was on a militaria page, and they were trying night vision mode on cameras and IR night vision devices and night vision nanny cams, and looking at military webbing etc where the markings were faded.

The results were pretty staggering. Many markings invisible to the normal eye popped right out and could be read with ease.
Definitely worth trying if you have a video camera with night mode etc.

[rkg]

I'm not sure if I should repost this in the tosogu section or what, but in case anybody is interested, here are a couple of VR image sets of this tsuba - sorry that the closeups in the magnifier are a little fuzzy - the tool I use to generate these just uses the embedded jpeg and I didn't take the time to redo them from the raw files with (better) color correction/sharpening/etc...

 

http://rkgphotos.com/facebook_stuff/brass_nobuiye/nobbuiye_front/nobbuiye_front.html

 

http://rkgphotos.com/facebook_stuff/brass_nobuiye/nobuiye_back/nobuiye_back.html

 

Enjoy,

rkg

(Richard George)

[Brian]

Always love your VR sets Rich. Not to mention incredibly impressed. This should be the future of online displaying, selling and study.
Thanks for sharing.