References for (ko)tosho or (ko)kachushi or akasaka tsuba

[OceanoNox]

Being new to the forum, I did a cursory search, but nothing came up. I am interested in data about (ko)tosho, (ko)kachushi, and akasaka tsuba. In general, iron/steel tsuba prior to the Edo period.
At the moment, I have a couple of books in Japanese about private collections, and I am perusing the websites of the MET or the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston. But a few questions remain:

 

1- Are the qualifications on the museum pages reliable? It seemed to me that tosho were wide and thin, while kachushi were thicker with more piercings. But the info on the museum pages (the few that I found) seem to contradict those trends.

 

2- Are there any references/websites where one can look at collections of such tsuba? I could find a lot of Edo tsuba, but not so many from earlier periods. I have also misgivings about whether the tsuba that are kept in collections are representative examples or exceptional examples (survivor bias, perhaps?)

 

At the moment, I am interested in checking the evolution of tsuba made out of iron in particular (my goal is to see trends for copper alloys as well, but that will take some time). Specifically, I remember academic articles about tsuba, where there are claims of being strong despite sukashi (for akasaka) or being thin (for tosho), but I cannot find any reference in those same articles.

 

At any rate, thank you in advance for any info.

[kissakai]

When I did my book (from LuLu) on the Birmingham museum tsuba at least 75% had the wrong attributions

What I thought a a one year project took me 4 years to correct the errors

[Toryu2020]

1. Tosogu no Kigen - Sasano

2. Sukashi tsuba - Sasano

3. Akasaka tsuba - Sano Bijutsukan

I believe Sano also did a "Sukashi" monograph but I'm not at home so cannot lay my finger on the title. FWIW I think Akasaka is an Edo period school and if you are looking at earlier development you want Kyo-Sukashi and Owari...

 

-tch

[Spartancrest]

Arnaud, you may run into a lot of trouble narrowing in on Pre-Edo guards, as such patterns and styles persisted and were made right up to the end of the Edo [and indeed forgeries are still being made today!] Separating very early guards from more modern pieces can be extremely difficult - 

On the other part of your questions - No museums can not be trusted with their attributions, some are very lazy and ascribe what they were told by their donator who were either guessing or may have passed on the 'sales pitch' from where they in turn procured them. Like Grev. I have done a few museum books and there are plenty of mistakes with descriptions. 

On a side note you will find some museums that don't even give dimensions, so you are left to your own devices even to work out how large and how thick each piece is.

Welcome to the board.

[Curran]

1 hour ago, Spartancrest said:

 - No museums can not be trusted with their attributions

 

I'd agree that most museum attributions cannot be trusted. Even the Boston Museum collection has some issues and attributions that were best guesses.

 

2 exceptions:

[1] The Tokyo National Museum Tsuba book is an exception.

[2] Also, Markus Sesko is at the New York Met these days. Most anything he has reviewed will be correct or very close to it.

 

There is also a private museum website that is good, but I am forgetting the name right now.

[Soshin]

I agree with all that has been said. I have been a collector for many years, dealer for four years, and have had an interest in Ko-Tosho and Ko-Kachushi tsuba and old iron in general since the beginning, especially after reading the Sasano books discussed above by Tom. I noticed that I had much better luck finding nice Ko-Kachushi tsuba to collect and sell than I have had with finding any Ko-Tosho tsuba. This might have something to do with the rarity of the Ko-Tosho tsuba.

 

       

[OceanoNox]

My apologies for not replying one-on-one, but thank you all for the information, both about museum and reliable curators, and the books. I will try to find the Sasano books.

About the dating of tsuba, I suppose besides clear documentation from earlier eras, only carbon dating remains to be really sure.

[OceanoNox]

On another note, what is the level of accuracy of the website Aoijapan? A lot of their tsuba have papers, but as seen earlier somewhere here, it is possible to fool judges.

[Curran]

Aoi Arts? Tsuruta-san has been around forever. He was old even when I was young.

 

Their physical presence has almost always been next to the NBTHK, old site and then the new location. Because of the Pandemic, I have not yet visited them in their new location. Perhaps due to their location, many or most of their items have NBTHK papers. The attributions of items with NBTHK papers is fairly accurate, but the tsuba themselves tend to be 'beater' examples with a few nice ones popping up now and then. Aoi Arts' pricing can be erratic (high and low), relative to the condition. Don't try and infer too much from their prices.

[OceanoNox]

Thank you, I don't think that I can afford to buy their tsuba. I am mostly interested in the details (size and era) in the descriptions.

[ROKUJURO]

8 hours ago, OceanoNox said:

About the dating of tsuba, I suppose besides clear documentation from earlier eras, only carbon dating remains to be really sure.

Arnaud,

how will you get the carbon (if there was any - TSUBA are not hardened steel in general, and many are plain iron) out of the steel without damaging the TSUBA?
C 14 carbon dating method is mostly done with organic matter.

There are a number of criteria to tell the approximate age of a TSUBA, and these are mostly related to the manufacture and the design. The SASANO book "Early Japanese sword guards" will give you a rough idea. The rest is seeing and learning, but that is fascinating!

The first thing to learn is that there are no schools of KO-TOSHO and KO-KACHUSHI. These are merely denominations which are based on the style or the decoration of a TSUBA, and not precise as far as provenance or age are concerned.  

We can expand on this in a PM or on forge.collin@gmail.com if you like.

[Geraint]

Dear Arnaud.

 

You probably know it already but there is some useful information here. https://www.shibuiswords.com/tsuba.htm  Also the book, Tosogu: Treasures of the Samurai has an interesting article on Muromachi tsuba as well as quite a bit of eye candy.

 

I would certrainly take up Jean's offer and try to see examples where you can.

 

All the best.

 

 

[kissakai]

I thought ko in this case referred to it's age only. I asked about sometime ago and came to some finalish dates for various schools that included 'ko'

 

[OceanoNox]

33 minutes ago, ROKUJURO said:

Arnaud,

how will you get the carbon (if there was any - TSUBA are not hardened steel in general, and many are plain iron) out of the steel without damaging the TSUBA?
C 14 carbon dating method is mostly done with organic matter.

There are a number of criteria to tell the approximate age of a TSUBA, and these are mostly related to the manufacture and the design. The SASANO book "Early Japanese sword guards" will give you a rough idea. The rest is seeing and learning, but that is fascinating!

The first thing to learn is that there are no schools of KO-TOSHO and KO-KACHUSHI. These are merely denominations which are based on the style or the decoration of a TSUBA, and not precise as far as provenance or age are concerned.  

We can expand on this in a PM or on forge.collin@gmail.com if you like.

Sorry, I mostly meant it as a joke. I did not know that C14 was mostly for organic matter, and anyway I do not have access to the equipment. I meant only that it is basically impossible to be 100% certain of the date (I wish they engraved it like the nakago).

But at any rate, you are correct, most analysis will damage the tsuba if they are done to get significant information (I remember a paper where they did destructive analysis, because the tsuba had initially been damaged beyond repair by thieves).

I will try to see if the Sasano book is available. Thank you for the precision on tosho/kachushi. At the moment, I am reading the Ogasawara book on tsuba (1975). So far it has been most interesting, but it will take time to digest all the info.

[Toryu2020]

You should also invest in the "Tosogu Classroom" translations by the NBTHK/AB (Markus) - Volume one covers your subject well.

 

-tch

[Curran]

Yes, as Tom said "Tosogu Classroom" is another favorite. It is hard to believe I forgot to mention that one. Probably I presumed Tom and mentioned it.

 

Please remember ko-tosho and ko-katchushi were produced in a decentralized way and by artists whose primary work of swords and armor were quite different than sword guards.

This is to say that the decentralized nature of production means a wide variety of material and specifications. While there are some trends in periods along the long long timeline, there is a lot of variation.

Studying ko-tosho and ko-katchushi is often more about appreciating the ageing process of iron and the wear patterns developed over many centuries.

Thus, it is hard to write a definitive textbook about them when there are so many exceptions. Still, Sasano did quite the job.

 

 

 

[OceanoNox]

11 minutes ago, Curran said:

Thus, it is hard to write a definitive textbook about them when there are so many exceptions. Still, Sasano did quite the job.

Was the Sasano book published in 1979? I have perused one such book, and it dealt with the origin of uchigatana and their tsuba, with explanations based on picturial evidence.

[Curran]

There are several by him. The "Gold" one probably late 1970s or early 1980s, then the larger "Silver" edition in the 1990s with the much better photography. There are other books too, but probably the Silver is most pertinent to your interests.

 

Amongst the ko-tosho, this one has become decently priced as the US$ has gotten stronger: https://www.aoijapan.com/tsuba-mumeiunsignedko-tosho-2/

There are other more high brow and thus considerably more expensive ones.

It sort of depends what qualities of ko-tosho and ko-katchushi interest you.

I am a bit of a latecomer to them, despite having been collecting a long time.

 

 

[Toryu2020]

I believe you are talking about Tosogu no Kigen, which has not been translated - should be readily available in your furuhonya. Sukashi tsuba was translated and there are two books (gold and silver), the Japanese editions are less expensive and easier to come by...

 

-t

[Jussi Ekholm]

I am not a tsuba guy but very old tsuba are pretty much the only ones that are interesting to me. In general I don't really have tsuba books anymore as I focus on old swords. However years ago I got the book by Japanese Sword Museum: Iron Tsuba - The Works of the exhibition "Kurogane no hana". It has 5 Ko-Tōshō tsuba and 4 Ko-Katchūshi tsuba and in total c.45 pre-Edo iron tsuba in the book. As well as 6 Akasaka tsuba from Edo period. Unfortunately the text passages in the book are very short but I can recommend the above mentioned Tosogu Classroom series that is wonderful resource in English.

 

I just checked and there are 2 Ko-Tōshō and 6 Ko-Katchūshi tsuba that have passed NBTHK Jūyō shinsa. What is interesting in that fact is that all 8 passed between sessions 43 - 52, I should have the books/pages for all of the 8. I was bit surprised only so few had passed.

[OceanoNox]

8 hours ago, Curran said:

There are several by him. The "Gold" one probably late 1970s or early 1980s, then the larger "Silver" edition in the 1990s with the much better photography. There are other books too, but probably the Silver is most pertinent to your interests.

 

Amongst the ko-tosho, this one has become decently priced as the US$ has gotten stronger: https://www.aoijapan.com/tsuba-mumeiunsignedko-tosho-2/

There are other more high brow and thus considerably more expensive ones.

It sort of depends what qualities of ko-tosho and ko-katchushi interest you.

I am a bit of a latecomer to them, despite having been collecting a long time.

Thank you!

Unfortunately, I am in Japan so the prices remain a bit steep for me. Nevertheless, at the moment, my interest is less in collecting tsuba than data.

 

7 hours ago, Toryu2020 said:

I believe you are talking about Tosogu no Kigen, which has not been translated - should be readily available in your furuhonya. Sukashi tsuba was translated and there are two books (gold and silver), the Japanese editions are less expensive and easier to come by...

Yes! That was the book. Now that I know the kanji, it will be easier to look for them. Thank you.

 

3 hours ago, Jussi Ekholm said:

Unfortunately the text passages in the book are very short but I can recommend the above mentioned Tosogu Classroom series that is wonderful resource in English.

Thank you. I think I will need to contact Markus Sesko about getting a print of that book.

[Toryu2020]

Original Japanese...

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/q1056384585

 

Second volume

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/b1062943004

[Toryu2020]

Sano Bijutsukan publication - Akasaka tsuba 1990

Sano Bijutsukan publication - Sukashi Tsuba 1999

 

both should be readily available in Japan

 

-t