Yamakichibei Tsuba

[Steve Waszak]

Yes, there are four Yamasaka Kichibei pieces, and twelve "Meijin Shodai" examples, plus a reproduction of an oshigata which may depict a Yamasaka or a Meijin Shodai" tsuba; it's too difficult to tell from the image whose work it is, though it looks to me more like Yamasaka's than Meijin Shodai's.  *Note: of these twelve "Meijin Shodai" examples, at least three, and possibly a fourth, are erroneously attributed to him.  So only eight or nine of these are actually his work. 

 

There are also several Sakura Yamakichibei sword guards, but I do not consider him part of the actual Yamakichibei atelier, since he worked at least 30-40 years (perhaps more) after Nidai Yamakichibei was active. 

[svarsh]

Dear All:

The First Draft is ready: YAMAKICHIBEI TSUBA. A LIMITED BIBLIOGRAPHY. Please provide your feedback, critique, edits, etc. (incl. but not limited to correcting my mistakes in the foreign language).

Unfortunately, I don't have Owari to Mikawa No Tanko. I need it badly. Please help. Other suggestions regarding missing references would be highly appreciated.

Even more unfortunately, most photos are of poor quality. This prevents the community from serious analysis of the signatures, similar to One Way Of Looking At Kaneiye. I hope that someone will do this job in the future (not me though).

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Sergei

 

P.S. If you want to sell a few really good Yamakichibei pieces (Momoyama), I would be more than happy to buy.

[kissakai]

Very nice to see so many examples as it helps to get a feeling about this school

Well done

[Bazza]

Sergei,

 

My goodness, what a wonderful study.  I have one more to add that I bought from Evan Worley nearly a year ago.  The thread is http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/22905-wonderful-early-iron-tsuba. For the sake of the thread I'll put here just two pictures from Evan's sale notice - I haven't taken any of my own photos yet.  This tsuba is similar to Fig. 3 and Fig. 15 in Sergei's study.

 

Best regards,

Barry Thomas

aka BaZZa.

 

[sabi]

Glad to see you're still enjoying it Barry!

 

Quite an enigma that piece...of course very much in the Yamakichibei style and it has several traits of the Nidai in particular. The thick yasuri, rim, style and placement of the udenuki ana and tsuchime are all eerily similar. The iron is very Yamakichibei-like as well, although finished much differently than my no-doubter Nidai, the color and patina is very close. The tekkotsu is also small in diameter but very high relief as we see in a lot of Yamakichibei tsuba.

 

Where it gets fuzzy is the extensive folding, heavy yakite and lack of a signature. My signed Nidai does show several clear fold lines on the rim and wasn't eroded via likely kusurashi treatment as this one was. Perhaps mine might show similar activity if it were??

 

Sadly, you'll never know who made it. Could be a known YKB tsubako, could be a workshop guy and I think something along the lines of Hoan or even early Myochin could be a possibility. What I do know is that it's a fantastic piece of iron made by a very talented artist. It radiates power and character and has an immense presence in hand. You won't find many tsuba that so closely emulate the process driven, organic beauty of buke tea aesthetics.

[Steve Waszak]

Sergei,

 

Kudos to you for your efforts in compiling this.  You are to be commended! 

 

Unfortunately, however, there are many errors (not yours) in the understanding of Yamakichibei revealed through this compilation, and many errors in attribution across the sources you present here.  Of course, some of these attributions are correct, but others are exceedingly problematic.  Going through all of the content and images your compilation provides would be quite time-consuming and complicated, I'm afraid.  I am thinking that a formal article/monograph on Yamakichibei sword guards is truly necessary at this point, and have begun considering how I might put this together.  Barry Hennick has invited me to submit just such an in-depth article for the JSSUS, and so that may be the venue for me. 

 

Again, I want to applaud you, Sergei, for your focused effort and enthusiasm here.  I'm sure I am not alone in saying it is much appreciated!

 

Cheers,

 

Steve

[Brian]

A very extensive and professional work, well done Sergei!
I am sure it will evolve as the studies of these expand.

[yogoro]

I recently bought a dragonfly tsuba signed by Yamakichibeie, dimensions around 83x80 mm, a similar work was presented by Steve in this thread, I wonder if it's a work done by Norisuke or a later generation YKB,

[yogoro]

ang grayscale photo

[rkg]

Here's a little "low crossbar" yamkichibei piece I got not tooo long ago:

 

 

Best,

rkg

(Richard George)

 

 

[Steve Waszak]

Hi Mikolaj,

 

This tsuba ,in my view, is probably a later "homage" piece.  The mei is certainly not that of any of the Momoyama Yamakichibei men, and it does not strike me as likely to have been done by either of the Norisuke smiths:  not only is the stroke production quite different from the way the Norisuke inscribe the "Yamakichibei" characters when they make homage pieces, but also, the Norisuke smiths would usually (or always) also sign their Yamakichibei utsushi with their own names, too, often in so doing indicating the utsushi intent behind the making of the work (thanks to Curran for pointing this out to me 🙂).  Further, the workmanship (metal treatment) does not align very tightly with the Norisuke Yamakichi guards I have seen.  At the same time, the edges of the sukashi appear too crisp/sharp for genuine early Yamakichibei work.  

 

What's interesting about this guard, and one of the indicators that it is probably a later copy/homage work, is that there appears to be an effort to emulate the mei of the Shodai (not Yamasaka Kichibei or "O-Shodai, but the "Meijin Shodai"), yet the actual design and features are decidedly Nidai.  The Shodai Yamakichibei did not use uchikaeshi-mimi or sukinokoshi-mimi, so the fact that we see that feature on a tsuba with a Meijin-Shodai-esque signature creates a contradiction. 

 

At the same time, there are other curious details.  The width of the nakago-ana is rather noteworthy -- it seems quite wide, and, given the size of the tsuba overall, would seem to have been intended to accommodate a pretty substantial blade.  The sekigane hint at the the possibility of the tsuba having been mounted at least twice.  Both of these details may point to earlier production, but of course, we cannot reach any definite conclusions based on this. 

 

It looks to be a pretty well done utsushi, Mikolaj.  Here is the tsuba I have that is very similar to it -- a Nidai Yamakichibei piece.   

 

Cheers,

 

Steve

[Yves55]

And another one! (just got it) 😁

Yamakichibei is back... Fake, copy, real...?

 

Dim: 8,53 x 8,09 cm

Rim: 0,47 > 0,52 cm

Seppa: 0,31 cm

Weight: 143 gr

 

Now I'm reading "The Yamakichibei Group of Tsubako" bij Steve Waszak. Very good 👍🏻

 

[Yves55]

And with another exposure:

 

[Yves55]

And the other side:

[sabi]

Later copy/utsushi IMO

[Yves55]

Surprise... (?)

I think there are no real hitsu-ana, only a layer (x4) on top where the hitsu-ana should be!

Anyone seen such way of decoration?

Dating tsuba?

 

 

 

[Bugyotsuji]

Here are a couple of signed YKB Tsuba.

(The second has a burned(?) surface.)

 

 

[ROKUJURO]

I was told that this small TSUBA was also a YAMAKICHI BEI, possibly a school work. 

[Yves55]

On 1/5/2022 at 3:39 PM, Yves55 said:

And another one! (just got it) 😁

Yamakichibei is back... Fake, copy, real...?

 

Dim: 8,53 x 8,09 cm

Rim: 0,47 > 0,52 cm

Seppa: 0,31 cm

Weight: 143 gr

 

Now I'm reading "The Yamakichibei Group of Tsubako" bij Steve Waszak. Very good 👍🏻

 

 

On january 7th I wrote "I think there are no real hitsu-ana, only a layer (x4) on top where the hitsu-ana should be!" but I'm completely wrong.

I tested the metal under the hitsu-ana with a strong magnet and it jumped away to the iron around.

Still don't know what the upper layer is...

Can it be an 'Iwata Norisuke' copy?

[ROKUJURO]

Yves,

this could be any soft metal, but it is probably lead that has oxidized a bit. I don't think it is a "fake" HITSU ANA. 

[rematron]

Old thread but I believe this is the most appropriate place to post photos of my own what I believe to be an ‘homage’ to a Yamakichibei tsuba.  I bought it in Kyoto back in 2008 from a Nihonto shop. It wasn’t sold to me as a Yamakichibei piece and it wouldn’t have meant anything to me if it was. This was my first purchase of any kind having to do with Nihonto. I liked it’s shape, design, color and it felt great in my hand. I also liked the four tiny holes punched in it that I could see through. A couple months ago I finally decided to research it and try to learn who the artist was which is how I discovered NMB and that brings us to now!
 

Height: 7.2cm 

Width: 6.1cm

Depth: mostly .4cm but varies from .3-.5

Color is medium chocolate/coffee bean

Enjoy!

 

-Jeremy

[Bugyotsuji]

Nice tsuba Jeremy! No need to be humble about it...  In my heart of hearts I would like to be thinking it could be the real McCoy, even though I know Yamakichi was a favourite target learning tool for up-and-coming emulators.

[rematron]

1 hour ago, Bugyotsuji said:

Nice tsuba Jeremy! No need to be humble about it...  In my heart of hearts I would like to be thinking it could be the real McCoy, even though I know Yamakichi was a favourite target learning tool for up-and-coming emulators.

Thank you Piers!  I certainly do enjoy it! If anybody has any alternate opinions as to it’s ‘authenticity’ I’d be happy to hear it. The research I’ve done thus far has lead me to believe it’s gimei and I’m honestly fine with that.  Considering I’m still quite green in the Nihonto world, I could easily be mistaken. However, I have been and continue to be impressed by it regardless. Another thing I wonder about is the design itself. Is there a name for that particular shape/theme that is cut out or does anyone know what it/they could represent?  From a design standpoint alone it pleases me but it does leave me curious. 

 

Thanks!

 

-Jeremy

[Bugyotsuji]

Good question, although it does look a bit like Cookie Monster!

[sabi]

On 12/20/2022 at 10:22 PM, rematron said:

Thank you Piers!  I certainly do enjoy it! If anybody has any alternate opinions as to it’s ‘authenticity’ I’d be happy to hear it. The research I’ve done thus far has lead me to believe it’s gimei and I’m honestly fine with that.  Considering I’m still quite green in the Nihonto world, I could easily be mistaken. However, I have been and continue to be impressed by it regardless. Another thing I wonder about is the design itself. Is there a name for that particular shape/theme that is cut out or does anyone know what it/they could represent?  From a design standpoint alone it pleases me but it does leave me curious. 

 

Thanks!

 

-Jeremy

 

A revival homage piece IMO - honestly not a bad attempt to capture the spirit of Yamakichibei tsuba, but doesn't stack up to the sensibility and overall skill level of the real thing.  

[Akitombo]

Hi, I understand that Bob Haynes described a hitsu-ana which is irregular and complex as Kawari-gata.

Also the design was explained in some books as a "rusted hatchet"

Merry Christmas

David

[sabi]

4 hours ago, Akitombo said:

Hi, I understand that Bob Haynes described a hitsu-ana which is irregular and complex as Kawari-gata.

Also the design was explained in some books as a "rusted hatchet"

Merry Christmas

David

 

A sen is another possibility.  The hatchet (nata) and sickle (kama) make regular appearances on Yamakichibei tsuba and are typically rendered a bit differently.

 

[MauroP]

An unusual interpretation (as far as I know) of the sukashi shape: in this NBTHK paper is reported as 芦 - ashi (common reed).

[Bugyotsuji]

Jeremy, this morning I saw two O-yoroi kabuto helmets in your tsuba! The holes could possibly represent the mon.(?)

大鎧 兜 - Bing images

[rematron]

@MauroPInterestimg.  I don’t see that at all. Haha. When I look at it sideways (which isn’t how you would normally view a tsuba so I don’t know if it’s a possibility) I see one as a reflection of the other.  Images that come to mind are a rooftop of a temple, the canopy of a tree (maple or pine) and the mouth of a dragon with nostrils. lol. But since the sulashi are also mirror images vertically if you imagine a line horizontally through the middle of the tsuba, that could be the representation of a reflection as well.