How a collection gets focus

My interest in Japan and "things Samurai" goes way back, and I've devoted various amounts of time, study, and money to pursuing that interest since High School. As it turned out, I did not have the extra money to get serious about collecting swords, fittings, armor, etc. until the mid 1990's, and that was also when information started to become more available on the internet, and I started to attend sword shows.

I wanted to have something of everything. Actually I wanted to have a lot of everything! While I was buying swords, tsuba, polearms, and the occasional bit of armor, I was also figuring out what kind of reference books I needed for those interests, and as things turned out much of the library I assembled became part of my starting inventory of books when I switched careers starting about 6 years ago - but I get ahead of my story. While I was busy learning (and buying) I was trying to have some of everything and learn as much about it as I could - I even had a bit of correspondence with IanB about how to go about re-lacing a do I had bought.

One thing I could never understand were those ads in the JSS/US newsletter from collectors who were interested in "swords by the Nth generation XYZ smith but only from the middle of his career." Huh? How could someone limit themselves so much and pass by all this other fascinating stuff? I didn't get it.

As it happens, it was only when I had made the decision to become a full time bookseller, and realized that booksellers don't make enough to maintain expensive art collections, and started to sell off what I had accumulated at shows and through other means, that the opportunity presented itself to bring focus to my collection.

I had always felt more of an affinity towards kodogu, especially tsuba, and after 9/11 made it more challenging to fly around with swords, it was easier to think of myself as "mainly a fittings collector." I had a fairly representative collection, iron and kinko, various schools, always things that had some appeal to me.

As I was divesting, though, I had decided everything had to go. I was at a Tampa show, and Jack F. had been to my table and picked up one guard in particular more than once and put it back down. Finally I asked him about it, and he pointed out to me that these tachikanagushi guards had a particular subtle aesthetic, that they used to be seen more often at shows, and were generally underappreciated. Now, I knew all this already, but something just clicked for me and when he walked away, I took the tsuba off the table.

That tsuba is shown here, third row, middle tsuba: http://www.yamabushiantiques.com/YBA2_CONSIGNMENT.htm

I had decided. Even though I could not afford to be the kind of collector I thought I wanted to be, I could collect these. I had a few already, and loved them. I was not likely to see more than a few at any sword show, and they were generally fairly inexpensive.

Over the next few years, that's just what I did. With the help of many, but most notably Bob Haynes, I assembled a small but focused collection of early soft metal guards, generally tachikanagushi but also other ko-kinko. One of my guiding lights in an area with little written about it was a book called "Treasures of the San Diego," which documented the artifacts recovered from a Spanish ship sunk in 1594 near the Philippines. Some Japanese mercenaries must have been aboard, as a number of yamagane tsuba were recovered, of typical tachikanagushi designs. This gave me some frame of reference for time. All of what I had learned about "feeling" the age of old iron tsuba no longer applied, and I loved the time I spent with these guards trying to unlock their secrets. Ultimately it came down to a pure appreciation of the materials and workmanship, and the function they were made for, as real dating or assigning to schools is fairly meaningless with these tsuba.

I've moved on, and let go, and my friend Boris Markhasin, who has an appreciation for these, has put him on his website on consignment. I realized that finally as I let go, I can see my collection as a whole (there are a few pieces there that predate my focus.) I'm enjoying seeing them find new homes and become part of new collections, and hope that sharing my story might bring out some others about directions your collections have taken, or help a newer collector see that there are ways to focus a collection in ways that are as unique as each of you are as collectors.

Have a look, if you like, at my collection http://www.yamabushiantiques.com/YBA2_CONSIGNMENT.htm - your comments, and your stories, are most welcome.

-Craig

I had wondered who was selling this nice collection. When I was collecting actively and had a small collection of later Edo signed pieces I was proud of, Peter Klein sat with me at the Tampa Sword show and showed me fine tachi kanagushi pieces with a magnifier. I learned a much greater appreciation of their subtle aesthetic from Peter, and am thankful he took the time to discuss them in dept. It made me reconsider what I was collecting.

Craig's listing with the descriptions is equivalent to a good intro sword show lecture on the topic. Before the SOLD ones are taken down, people interested should at least visit and read: http://www.yamabushiantiques.com/YBA2_CONSIGNMENT.htm