Potluck tanto

[Bugyotsuji]

Recently I bought a melange tanto more for the tosogu than for the blade. I was debating whether to put it under Nihonto here or under Tosogu, but since it is a registered blade I have decided to respect that.

 

1. The blade is slim, but with thick kasane. The condition is not good, to put it politely. One side has the remains of 八万大菩薩 Hachiman Dai Bosatsu. The other has a small pit or hole in it. The hamon is suguha, but does not scream anything special to me. The silver habaki fits very tightly, but there is no tsuba, more like one thick silver seppa. It is unsigned, so cannot be declared gimei!  I have a bag of Tantō tsuba, but none fits, like the ugly sisters’ feet and Cinderella’s slipper.

 

2. The Saya is an interesting lacquer finish, and the saya fittings are iron: there is an iron bashin in the narrow slot. The tsuka menuki are two branches of Japanese apricot (plum) in shakudo and gold. The shakudo fuchi has a wonderful suaka lobster on a fine nanako ground, and is signed Hidetsugu + kao. The work is good but the Mei could have been added later. The kashira is also shakudo with nanako-ji, and the design looks to be noshi (?) jinja hangings.

 

My plan is to show this to some artisans and get feedback on it. Is the package worth saving, or improving? Will I be having the blade polished, for example, or should it be left alone as a kind of tsunagi? Should I let this one slip quietly back into the market?

 

General shots follow...

 

 

[Bugyotsuji]

Overall

 

 

[Ray Singer]

The blade looks like a nice Sue-Bizen tanto with attractive shape. I don't typically recommend investing in restoring mumei Sue-Koto, but I would not completely discount it and it certainly looks too nice to classify only as a tsunagi. Perhaps a madoake is in order, to evaluate the workmanship and health, and decide from there. 

[Ray Singer]

I recently had the surprise of seeing that the NBTHK is now awarding Tokubetsu Hozon to osuriage mumei Muromachi blades with only a school attribution, not even to a specific smith, so some of the advice that I've given in the past about how high a mumei Muromachi period blade can achieve needs to evolve. 

[Bugyotsuji]

Thanks for the feedback, Ray. Food for thought... 

[Alex A]

Good pick-up Piers, 

 

Like that Lobster fuchi. nice fittings and blades ok too.

[Bugyotsuji]

Well, I hope so Alex. If/when there is any interesting update, I’ll post here.

[Okan]

Pretty nice, Piers! I especially like the saya very much. I'm scared of lobsters, so that fuchi is a no-go for me.

[Bugyotsuji]

Re Hidetsugu/Eiji Mei.

Visiting the place where my books have been moved to, I found the book I wanted and looked up the Mei on the fuchi. There were three Kinko artisans with the name Eiji 英次. I wonder which one might have signed with just 英次+Kao.

This Yokoya school work has similarities:

 小柄　貞義（花押）　伊勢海老図　　 | 日本刀・刀剣・名刀・短刀の販売・通販・買取は和敬堂へ

 

Photo of entry follows below... .

 

 

[Lewis B]

The Bashin is rather cool. Overall a very handsome setup. What is the motokasane measurement?

[Alex A]

That lobster is done really well.

[Bugyotsuji]

13 minutes ago, Lewis B said:

The Bashin is rather cool. Overall a very handsome setup. What is the motokasane measurement?

Not sure Lewis. I'll get it out and measure it. (That's the thickness at the habaki, right?)

 

Yes, I love these little bashin, though they do not come up too often.

[Lewis B]

17 minutes ago, Bugyotsuji said:

Not sure Lewis. I'll get it out and measure it. (That's the thickness at the habaki, right?)

 

Yes, I love these little bashin, though they do not come up too often.

Correct. At the munemachi to be precise. And a measurement just in front of the habaki as this is often where the sharpener will start sharpening. Going further towards the nakago and he risks loosening the fitment of the habaki. 

 

Yes, I have one as part of my Shikkake's Tensho koshirae, with a wave motif to match the tsuba. It also has that heart shaped design element which I was told is not actually a heart but boars eye (inome) iconography. The inome represents bravery and determination shown an attacker by a provoked boar. They are pretty rare, having only seen a couple. 

[Bugyotsuji]

At the munemachi Lewis,  the kasane is roughly 0.6 cm by my non-digital Shinwa. The thickest part of the nakago is just behind that at 0.7 cm, covered by the habaki.

[Lewis B]

That would suggest to me the blade hasn't been overly polished being quite consistent from the Nakago. Certainly a candidate for further consideration re a fresh polish.

[Bugyotsuji]

Ah, now I understand where you are coming from. Thank you. Yes, that makes sense.

 

I spent some time just now trying to find some evidence of hamon that could actually be photographed under the kitchen light!

 

Will check the shots and see if anything came up... warts and all. May be beyond redemption.

 

 

 

 

[Matsunoki]

Hi Piers

Looks an elegant ubu koto blade…..not everything has to be in perfect polish (imo!) ……lovely saya. Hamon/boshi looks healthy in these pics.  Wonder if the fuchi is a replacement? 
Trouble with getting it repolished…..means shirasaya which then means tsunagi which then means the blade can’t really go back into it’s original saya which seems a pity…..but then I like “original packages”  that can stay assembled together.

[Bugyotsuji]

I am still trying to imagine what has happened to this blade.

 

Possibly it was in shirasaya, registered, and someone had the bright idea of putting together a koshirae package. The saya and bashin seems to be iron-based.The tsuka however is shakudo with a nice pair of matching menuki, and ... maybe the fuchi and kashira are random, or as you say, perhaps the fuchi has been changed? The blade does kind of fit, but not perfectly; the two mekugi holes are too near the habaki to allow for a fat tsuba, or a even a super thin tsuba and seppa set. 

 

It looks like a new hole for either the nakago or the tsuka if a tsuba is to be fitted.

 

Anyway, thanks everyone for the thoughts so far, nudging me in hopefully in the right direction for this blade. I always end up trying to 'improve' what I find out there, in some small way righting the wrongs that others have found too troublesome or too expensive to bother with. :nuts:

[Alex A]

No doubt being in Japan and knowing who you know Piers, you likely can get it polished at a price that wont break the bank, hopefully.

 

Then again, you ask yourself if it really needs it.

 

I have a few that when i first got them i was sure i was going to get them polished up new but then you end up learning to live with them.

 

We don't have the number of polishers you do, as you are well aware.

[Matsunoki]

Piers, had another look and a think. 
Does that fuchi look far too big and heavy for a Tanto?

Has someone put a Fuchi on that is too deep? Loos more katana sized. Has it been packed out internally to make it fit?…..and thus it’s not allowing the tsuka ana to line up? 

Maybe an option (to create space for a [narrow] tsuba) is to find a thinner fuchi and then just take a slice off the end of the tsuka thus shortening it from the fuchi end.

Can you show an image of the tsuka without the fuchi and the internals of the fuchi.

I love puzzles like this but difficult to explain what I mean ….🙂

[Bugyotsuji]

I like your thinking. Apart it comes once more, when I get home. Hoping you are right! 

[Bugyotsuji]

Had a look, Colin, and made sure there was no extra play. Still no room for tsuba or seppa, so it's back again to the single silver seppa/tsuba thingy. Although the copper top plate of the fuchi is comparatively thick, the fuchi fits perfectly. The worn nanako on the fuchi go nicely with those on the kashira. 

 

The koikuchi, however, is of a rather insect-eaten black buffalo horn, so it is possible that this tanto koshirae was originally an aikuchi and the fuchi itself had been badly eaten away.

 

I like your idea of sawing off a section of the end of the tsuka wood, and will float that with the artisans if it does not come up in conversation.

 

Meanwhile, here are some of the tsuba I've been playing with. 

 

 

 

[Matsunoki]

3 minutes ago, Bugyotsuji said:

I like your idea of sawing off a section of the end of the tsuka wood, and will float that with the artisans if it does not come up in conversation.

But I think if you do that you will still have to find a slimmer fuchi because the ito would be impacted when refitting the wider fuchi ie it would crush up into the ito…..unless you then rewrap it!

[Bugyotsuji]

Sadly my good friend Mr Hashimoto died suddenly this summer, so young. Besides being a general all-round good guy at the Osafune workshops, he was brilliant at tsuka-maki and was in Tokyo at the time for the artisans' awards ceremony.  Such a waste of all that training and experience when so few young people are carrying on the tradition.

[Bugyotsuji]

Last night I took this to the local NBTHK sword meeting but quickly warned them it was going to be a detective story. 
 

The blade was reckoned to be ShinShinTō, of indeterminate regional manufacture. 
 

The saya they liked, perhaps original to the blade. The tsuka has most probably been changed at some point. It was pointed out that this was not necessarily ‘wrong’ or uncommon, even in times past, as quite a bit of crossover took place. (Mix ‘n match?)

 

No one gave any suggestions as to how to move this one forward. The silence spoke about not sending good money after it.
 

So, possibly I should just release it back into the stream, where someone else might choose to either enjoy it as is, or improve it, or break it up and sell the tōsōgu separately.(?)

[ROKUJURO]

Piers,

if I had the money I would buy it for the MENUKI alone!

[Bugyotsuji]

Sometimes words have the power to lift a poor person high! 
 

PS At an antiques fair today I heard a voice beside me, “Did you buy that tsuba and the set of  Fuchi/kashira?”

 

It was K sensei, the sword practitioner. I turned around, astonished that he could have known, and somewhat jokingly denied any knowledge of the matter.

”I was just going back to buy them,” he said, but they had gone. “You bought them, didn’t you!?!?”

 

Eventually I pulled them out and he fondled them lovingly. Quickly I grabbed them back. “Why didn’t you buy them when you had the chance?” I wondered to myself.

 

Secretly though, I was happy that we had both seen and liked exactly the same things in a huge outdoor  antiques fair!

[Matsunoki]

…catch and release…..🙂…..but see if you can swap out the menuki first🙂

[Alex A]

I like it Piers, be nice on a little tanto stand.

 

Doubt you would have any trouble selling it.

 

In fact, to me, its the kind of piece that is right for display.

 

One day plan to get a daisho for display purpose only. Im not too bothered about the blades and what to spend as little as possible, but with decent fittings.