The weight of History

[Jean]

https://www.aoijapan.com/koshirae-hijikata-toshizos-shinsen-gumi-koshirae/
 

this fine Koshirae will never achieve Juyo  but due to History its price is far above a classical tanto koshirae Juyo.

[Curran]

My impression is that someone swapped out or lost the original tsuba.

Everything else is carefully understated quality and en suite, but the tsuba is one I have seen many times.

Unless it had some wartime or special secret society meaning, it doesn't feel like it correctly belongs to the rest.

 

 

 

 

[DKR]

Never buy a story............and I agree with Curran .

This tsuba is a bad joke.

With this in mind the price of this " Arrangement " is not acceptable. 

 

[Toryu2020]

Where are the love letters?

[16k]

An actual piece from the Shisen Gumi, juyo or not is something I wouldn’t mind having in my collection!

[Curran]

Romance video games getting the women young and old into the Nihonto hobby.

 

https://hakuouki-hakumyu.fandom.com/wiki/Hijikata_Toshizo

 

 

[lonely panet]

yes its very good quality but isnt this a little odd, revering this for the fact of its history is like collecting badges from the einsatzgruppe.

 

putting extra value to it only because of the voilent histroy,

 

that aside its over 50k for this hmmmmmmm, sounds like a fishing trip 

[Rivkin]

I've seen many old swords that were carried during the WWI and went to museum collections immediately afterwords... Quite a few have condition issues diminishing the value to collectors, sometimes to the point that were such offered for sale without their provenance they would have been rejected loud and clear by every member of the discerning public.

Swapped and replaced parts, mismatched serial numbers, brutal and erroneous repair, ersatz modifications to make them look like a newly adopted pattern, or simply choices made by the original owner because that's what he liked. Things seen by collectors as either shady manipulations by unscrupulous dealers or something "that had no valid reason to exist in the first place". Yet this is the actual military life.

With Japanese antiques I personally tend to be a bit concerned about the strength of provenance, since its a country where professionals prefer to resolve the disputes by appealing to sensei's judgement rather than to the original period documents, and what is accepted today as such and such might face scrutiny a generation later and suddenly you have nothing to show for it except that based on someone's words it was at one time accepted in this catalogue... 

But for this object it does not seem to be a strong objection.

Would love to own this object at a lesser price, but personally don't see the sum demanded as unreasonable.

 

And I personally really appreciate Tsuruta san offering such items in the open. It is not common.

 

Kirill R.

[lonely panet]

As per usual, krill puts forth a great and insightful opinion, that always makes me rethink what i have posted. 

 

Thank goodness for other people's points of view

 

 

[Ford Hallam]

Here's my 10 yens worth...

 

 

If, as some have suggested this is a genuine piece of late Samurai history with all of its supposed associated integrity etc. then perhaps whatever price is paid is it's current 'value'.

 

However, it strikes me as suspicious, particularly given the overt political expressions in Japan in recent years of 'virile nationalism' that this rare treasure wasn't snapped up long before it became necessary to offer it to all and sundry on the internet.

Even if we ignore that unsavoury aspect of our present political climate any serious and credible piece of Japan's history is unlikely to be hawked on an internet web-site so frivolously.