Postcards from the past

[Spartancrest]

Some time ago I had an opportunity to get a full set of old postcards relating to a group of famous makers. They have English translations on the face of the cards which is handy.

What I would like to find out is what the writing on the back actually is? A description of the tsuba or maker etc. Or is it "having a great time glad you are not here!"?

Most of the writing is printed and stuck on the card, some is simply hand written.

Too much to ask for a translation of it all but I would like to know if it has relevant information worth keeping or if it is love letters to a sweetheart, in which case I would like to keep as private as possible. 

Thanks in advance.

 

[Matsunoki]

Never seen anything like them before. I love stuff like these. Must be pretty rare.
 

[Bugyotsuji]

It looks like they are postcards which were being used as collected notes for a study or book on tsuba. The hand-written stuff seems to be describing Nobuie (bottom right) for example.

[Spartancrest]

Thank you very much Piers, I wonder if the original owner ever wrote a book? Perhaps just a private collector - dare I say just like all of us?

For the sake of anyone interested these cards did turn up on Jauce/Buyee and Yahoo JP usually as individual cards [which is a very expensive way to collect them] But I have no problem with an image of my collection, the face of the cards only. There were 50 cards in the series and another single example.

 

 

 

[Soshin]

On 3/2/2023 at 6:55 AM, Spartancrest said:

Thank you very much Piers, I wonder if the original owner ever wrote a book? Perhaps just a private collector - dare I say just like all of us?

For the sake of anyone interested these cards did turn up on Jauce/Buyee and Yahoo JP usually as individual cards [which is a very expensive way to collect them] But I have no problem with an image of my collection, the face of the cards only. There were 50 cards in the series and another single example.

 

 

 

 

Hi Dale,

 

Thank you for sharing the postcards with the tsuba pictures. That is a forging flaw in the iron. I have a Ko-Kachushi tsuba with one of them near its ji-sukashi and once own two Owari tsuba (one with a NBTHK Hozon paper) with them as well. They were common in old iron tsuba and are often not "fatal" so to speak and do not affect function. Yes, Umetada Myoju was a master. That is just one of his low Hozon level work examples. I once saw I Nobuie with only a Hozon level NBTHK paper and was told the same thing at a club meeting in New York. LOL