August Tsuba Kantei Exercise - For Fun

[TETSUGENDO]

??????????????????

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1-Horai

2-Kaga Myochin

3-papered to Horai

4-Yours/5-Horai

[Stephen]

My pondering as well.

[Curran]

I posted the wrong picture earlier.

It is now corrected.

--Refer to the Wakayama Vol.1 picture. {the one without the hot pink tab at top}

[Curran]

 

 Horai as in closely associated with the _Kaga_ Myochin armor makers.

 

Regarding my kantei tsuba, I revise my opinion slightly and think best attribution should be 'Horai Ippa' (Kaga Myochin linked) instead of Tosa Myochin.

 

The Horai school is akin to the Kaga_Myochin.

 

If you clicked on the Bob Haynes link, you could read his statement " This example would seem to be the work of the Edo period Myochin school. The original Horai school was related to the Kaga Myochin group, and this example was probably made by a later master of that school."

 

Both the tsuba below are 'Horai' according to the books.

[Curran]

 

1-Kaga Myochin.

2,-papered to Horai.

3-Horai.

4-Yours

 

1- Horai

2- Kaga Myochin (?)    According to Haynes n Long Website

3- Horai

4- Horai

 

Or it is better to say 1, 3, and 4 would have been called Horai at the time #3 was papered.

A friend loaned me one about identical to #3 with only tiny variations between the two. I cannot tell the date of the papers from the picture I have on file, but it had Hozon NBTHK papers were to Nishigaki.  This could be an example of 1980s opinion vs early 2000s opinion.

[TETSUGENDO]

Flawed sources produce flawed conclusions, I see no clarity here, only more questions. Any attribution here is only as good as the accompanying. papers. My personal leanings are Kaga Myochin with a Horai accent....and I'm not overly comfortable with it, too many puzzle pieces missing.

 

-S-

[Curran]

NBTHK and NTHK rely very HEAVILY on Wakayama. Personally, I think the NBTHK relies on them a bit too much.

If you want to doubt, that is fine by me. I considered the NBTHK gold standard up til about Jan 2014.

Now I think their tosogu shinsa results since Jan 2014 can be a bit squirrely or rather weak-sauce. You have to give them obvious stuff or stuff a dead match for Wakayama reference books.

 

Study tsuba I used for this kantei   <--->  Wakayama Vol. 1 Horai example.

 

(1)  Going totally off what I could observe and had learned over the years up to 2018 , I came to Tosa Myochin.

(2)  While hitting the books for Jean, it was thrown at me by Dojokiri (person unknown) and another via PM that these are 'Horai'.

      I wondered, "What the heck is Horai?". It sounds a CDC term for a social disease Patient 0, or the plural form for those things Harry Potter went around destroying.

(3)  Back to the books..........oh, okay... Horai is some term used to attribute Myochin.... but somehow Kaga Myochin rather than Tosa Myochin.

 

Myochin, Myochin, Myochin   ["Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!"] {joking Brady Bunch TV show reference for any non US that might be confused}

Anyway... it was a relatively good kantei until I had to be open minded and consider the opinion of older guys and the old books.

Not that they are right. I just am deferring to them rather than my original opinion of Tosa Myochin. You say Myochin, I say Myochin, or Horai by another name. Ergo Edo period Myochin.

So there ya go. I think I am going to take a break.

[MauroP]

I'm a little confused. Hōrai (蓬莱) refers to a specific school or is just the definition of crane+turtle design? See:
https://blog.goo.ne.jp/tsuba_001/c/3705ca04ebe5e5b0ee21a03a053fc48a/3
https://blog.goo.ne.jp/tsuba_001/e/fe55e018541a57923830533a7ad4f1bb

[TETSUGENDO]

Curran,

 

A break is a good idea, It's that or the inevitable Cole Porter number.  I agree about "NBTHK", quite right, yet like "She who must be obeyed" they get the last word.

 

"Let's call the whole thing off!"

                        -S-

p.s.- when you feel like continuing, any new thoughts on Jeans tsuba?

[TETSUGENDO]

Mauro,

 

Horai is a school, the Crane/Minogame is an emblematic design used by them.

 

-S-

[Curran]

Steve,

    Thanks for editing to the correct photo from Wakayama.

[Guido]

蓬莱 Hōrai is a legendary, holy Chinese mountain in the Eastern Sea that is often visited by hermits. 鶴亀 tsurukame (crane and turtle) are symbols of a long life. The both can be synonymous for each other, so tsuba that have a motif of crane and/or turtle and/or rocks and/or pine trees and/or bamboo are often referred to as 蓬莱図 (Hōrai-zu).

[MauroP]

Guido, that's exactly the point I've found and that makes me perplexing. Mereover there is a tsubaku family (late Edo) called Horai, but its name is written with different kanji.