Curating your personal collection; quantity and variety?

[Gerry]

I've been collecting nihonto for over 20 years, but have had to stop in the last few years because I moved to a country where it illegal to own nihonto. I left my collection stateside, and recently moved back to resume collecting again.

 

For the seasoned collectors on this forum, I was just curious to hear about how you curate your own collections?

 

Do you have a fixed quantity that you rotate in and out by selling and buying new swords, or do you instead focus on completing your collection with swords from particular schools or styles?

[Tsuku]

I guess I have two principles.

 

The first one is that I try to maintain focus. There is a particular story that I want to explore (thankfully a pretty broad one) so by default every new blade has to contribute something to that story. There are some exceptions, where I have come across something remarkable.

 

The second one is that in a perfect world I want every blade in my collection to be able to stand as a collection of one, and be of comparable quality relative to the others. Sometimes I do acquire placeholders, but if I find a better example of a placeholder's niche, I help it find a new home.

[Gerry]

Ah, that's a very interesting perspective by which to curate your collection, by aligning to your story. I guess that requires enough familiarity with Japanese history and how it relates to sword making to create such a story.

 

Has your collection grown a a moderate pace using your principles of collecting?

 

I always find that I have to reign in my purchases, which would help if I had more of your focus, ha ha.

[Tsuku]

On 6/10/2024 at 2:06 PM, Gerry said:

Has your collection grown at a moderate pace using your principles of collecting?

 

I suppose it depends on what you mean by “moderate.” By my wife’s standards… (I jest, she is very supportive!)

 

I think I accession 0-5 blades a year and de-accession 0-2.

 

On 6/10/2024 at 2:06 PM, Gerry said:

I always find that I have to reign in my purchases, which would help if I had more of your focus, ha ha.

For me, the real utility of focus is ensuring that I have sufficient ability to pick up something exceptional should it arise. I suppose I realized that I couldn’t acquire everything I liked if I wanted to acquire everything I loved.