Name and Date of Cutter/test Please?

[Bruce Pennington]

Guys, hope I'm not wearing out my welcome!  Nick didn't post even the cutter's name on this one.  Found HERE

 

Also, what are the kanji I've pointed to?  There is something similar on a Nagahisa cut test mei, posted below it:

 

Here's the Nagahisa one:

 

 

 

 

[SteveM]

Cutter's name is Shibazaki Denzaemon Masatsugu

 

柴崎傳左衛門正次

 

Your arrow is pointing to the last two kanji in the name: 正次 (Masatsugu)

 

Date is

 

寛文九歳酉四月十一日

Kanbun 9 (1669) Year of the bird, April 11th.

[Bruce Pennington]

54 minutes ago, SteveM said:

Cutter's name is Shibazaki Denzaemon Masatsugu

 

柴崎傳左衛門正次

 

Your arrow is pointing to the last two kanji in the name: 正次 (Masatsugu)

 

Date is

 

寛文九歳酉四月十一日

Kanbun 9 (1669) Year of the bird, April 11th.

Thanks a ton, Steve.  I think I'm starting to catch on, a bit.  He could have simply put the date, but mentioning "Year of the Bird" adds an import, a significance of some sort or another.  I've tried to come up with an English equivelance, but haven't gotten one.  Next year, 2024, I could write a letter, and date it - 2024, Election Year.  I didn't need to add that, but it's significant to me, so I do it to show it's import, how the year means something to me.

 

On the other blade, have I gotten the cutter wrong?  Is it a "Masa-something", not Nagahisa?

 

[Bruce Pennington]

At the risk of chasing too many rabbits at the same time, I now have 2 Masatsugu blades with different mei and different kao, 29 years apart.  Does anyone know if maybe the latter one is a son of the earlier one?

 

1638 Masatsugu                       1669 Masatsugu

 

    

 

Ideas anyone? Maybe your thoughts @Markus?

[Bugyotsuji]

Bruce, in relation to this I’ve updated the other thread. 

[SteveM]

1 hour ago, Bruce Pennington said:

He could have simply put the date, but mentioning "Year of the Bird" adds an import, a significance of some sort or another.

 

I wouldn't read anything too deep into it. The thing is; even Japanese people can get confused and frustrated with the era continually resetting all the time. And in the feudal days, when the era names were changing every few years without any consistency, the one constant thing was the order of the zodiac cycle. You didn't know when the current era would end - you couldn't predict it. The court might decide to change the era name, and the numerical year would reset to Year 1. But the zodiac cycle is unchanging. So I think adding the zodiac year is just a way of further confirming the year when an event happens, or when something special is made/commemorated.