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    #16
    During the feudal period, samurai would change the mountings on their swords based on current fashion and the ability of what the man could afford. In Japan, there are many blades from the Kamakura Period through the Muromachi Period(11th c. thru 16th century.). However, very few intact mountings from those eras exist today. The parts could be recycled and remounted. The approach to collecting and preserving the Japanese sword is entirely different than collecting other militaria. Restoration and improvement due to taste is determined by the owner today just as it was six hundred years ago.



    Originally posted by SgtB View Post
    Thanks for the update!

    It is very informative. If that is standard procedure in the field then I have no complaints. I personally don't agree with the practice, however.

    If say, an M-16 helmet was repurposed during the TR period and double decals and new paint were added, and then in 2013 all of that was stripped off by some "good guy" and the helmet was "restored" to it's WWI configuration - well that would be unpardonable sacrilege among helmet collectors.

    It's apples and oranges I suppose, depending on the POV, but to me it's the same.

    We must agree to disagree.

    Comment


      #17
      Originally posted by nickn View Post
      . . . how can you compare an art sword to a mass produced helmet???
      each blade is an individual work of art some bad some good but art all the same
      I guess you're ok with this then nick? If not, why not?
      It is still one person deciding what something should look like now based on his/her own personal tastes. IMO steps should have been taken to preserve it, but then otherwise left alone.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/wo...pain.html?_r=0


      And yes, the helmet was mass-produced at the start, but once the original owner's hands individualized it, it became a work of art in it's own right. I've owned hundreds of helmets and no two were the same. In fact I've never even seen two the same. If I was to decide that I didn't like the camo paint or decals or even the scratches and natural wear from the ravages of time that a piece exhibited, and changed it to suit my own personal agenda, well that would just be plain wrong. I don't see how any one can argue with that. I'm pretty sure no true collector does.

      All of the history of that sword has been erased IMO. Now it looks like any other brand-spanking new sword one would find on ebay.

      And what's the real reason anyway. Let's face it; human greed. Just another attempt to glean one more buck out of an object for resale. And why? It's not like it's ever going to be used again. It's going to remain a display piece, and IMO it looked better as it was. Sure, re-wrap the grip and polish the blade, but don't remove its whole life's history from it.

      Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic that the art of the ancient sword-maker has not completely died out. But I was totally shocked and disappointed to see the sword returned looking nothing like it did before. Just my opinion.

      Comment


        #18
        Originally posted by GHP View Post
        Hello Gabriel, and welcome to WAF. Thank you for your detailed correction… I hope you would now become a regular participant… Hope to read more from you,

        --Guy Power
        [I was a SwordForum contributor in the early days ... is Adrian still there? He met with me a few times to discuss Nakamura Ryu.]
        Thanks for the welcome. I will stop in once in a while and contribute my opinion (FWIW) if and when I see interesting items.

        Adrian seems to have ceded command of SFI and hasn’t posted there as much. Funny you mention Nakamura Ryu, I took it for a short two years once upon a time. I didn’t know Adrian was involved in it?

        Originally posted by SgtB View Post
        Thanks for the update! It is very informative. If that is standard procedure in the field then I have no complaints. I personally don't agree with the practice, however. … We must agree to disagree.
        I don’t want to give the wrong impression. The standard is no more “anything goes” than it is “thou shalt not alter one iota.” Most collectors I know espouse keeping original items together, fixing rather than replacing, etc. And in certain cases where the koshirae are very old, very artistic (despite any damage), or historically important, everything will absolutely be kept as-is. But the reality is complex and nuanced and when it comes to later-period mishmash-mitchmatch mounts on an older sword, it is not surprising or considered a sin to improve matters by swapping out the obviously wrong stuff; and replacing unusable stuff like broken tsuka cores is considered completely OK. What is more frowned on (but unfortunately done a lot) is simply stripping parts to sell separately…

        Originally posted by FightenIrish35 View Post
        Very well done Gabriel. I enjoyed reading your post. I believe when it comes to restoration projects as long as nothing is altered there is no harm. … I am not an expert on Japanese sword restoration but I have heard once you have a Japanese blade professionally polished you NEVER put it back in its original mounts. The blade now goes into a wooden type of scabbard and you can display the old mounts next to sword if you'd like.
        Right, I alluded to this in my original post. In this case they opted for a hybrid approach where they “fixed” the original koshirae by creating a whole new saya and tsuka core for it. Clearly this does muddy the waters a bit; is the koshirae original? New? Both? And it can be problematic when selling; ideally every owner from now on will properly report it as “these parts were on the sword, these parts were restored in 20XX, etc.” but not every seller is always that scrupulous.

        The much more common course of action is to simply put the freshly polished sword in shirasaya and keep the old koshirae together with a tsunagi. Then everything is pretty much as it was, no ambiguity.

        Originally posted by Bob Coleman View Post
        During the feudal period, samurai would change the mountings on their swords based on current fashion and the ability of what the man could afford. In Japan, there are many blades from the Kamakura Period through the Muromachi Period(11th c. thru 16th century.). However, very few intact mountings from those eras exist today. The parts could be recycled and remounted. The approach to collecting and preserving the Japanese sword is entirely different than collecting other militaria. Restoration and improvement due to taste is determined by the owner today just as it was six hundred years ago.
        This is exactly right as I understand the field, thanks for posting it. It is certainly an extremely different approach than from western preservationism. In one sense it is based on the idea of the sword as art object rather than as historical artifact. In another sense it is a balance of prioritization between what counts as important enough to preserve and what is considered disposable / replaceable in order to restore the sword to its “correct” state. I can certainly understand and sympathize with a differing opinion and my own cultural bias is to keep things together and original as much as possible; in this specific case I would have supported what they did with the koshirae, but ask to keep all the original broken bits as well.

        Originally posted by SgtB View Post
        All of the history of that sword has been erased IMO. Now it looks like any other brand-spanking new sword one would find on ebay.

        And what's the real reason anyway. Let's face it; human greed. Just another attempt to glean one more buck out of an object for resale. And why? It's not like it's ever going to be used again. It's going to remain a display piece, and IMO it looked better as it was. Sure, re-wrap the grip and polish the blade, but don't remove its whole life's history from it.

        Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic that the art of the ancient sword-maker has not completely died out. But I was totally shocked and disappointed to see the sword returned looking nothing like it did before. Just my opinion.
        Let’s separate out two issues here: polishing the blade and restoring/replacing/swapping the koshirae.

        First of all, as I emphasized before, the history of this sword and its value was and is in the blade. The mounts just happened to be the most recent in a line of bits and pieces that have gone on and come off this blade. It is really not much more legitimate than if the previous owner had put on a mickey mouse tsuba.

        If the koshirae had been original to the blade (i.e. from the early 1700s), it would be a different story, and the value of the package would have been significantly enhanced as a result. Or if the koshirae had been in salvageable condition (e.g. the saya hadn’t lost its koiguchi and the tsuka core didn’t have a huge hole in it) then it would have been best to simply re-wrap the core and keep the koshirae together in a tsunagi (never returning the blade to that saya).

        As I am said, I am sympathetic to the idea of preserving rather than wanton redesign on an aesthetic whim. But this koshirae was already “lost” in the eyes of the nihontō community; the thing which made it functional koshirae (being able to secure the blade in the saya, being able to secure the nakago in the tsuka core) had been lost forever by the negligent previous owner who allowed it to become fatally damaged.

        Let’s leave that aside as a cultural divide; we agree to disagree (and I am more on your side in this particular matter than you may think from this post).

        Now, when it comes to polishing the blade… here I will maintain that you are completely wrong.

        The value that is perceived in nihontō, the reason some blades are worth $450,000 and some are worth $450, the reason the Hon’ami family have been appraising swords since the 1600s and Daimyo would trade swords as gifts worth entire villages, the reason it has been preserved and treasured and written about… is because of the ARTISTRY.

        To be fair, a very large portion is also wrapped up in age, rarity (correlated with age), condition, and reputation for performance as a weapon.

        But above all else, it is the artistic quality of a given blade (and the associated reputation of the specific smith) that is the number one reason people prize nihontō now and through the last 750 years.

        To that end, a sword that is out of polish like this one is simply isn’t *complete* or “whole” in the eyes of a nihontō collector. It is “asleep,” or masked, or waiting for its debut. Its primary function as a weapon will never be valid again, and its secondary function (and far more valuable function) as a work of art is currently buried under surface oxidation. If you cannot see the brilliant hataraki (activity) in the surface – the ji-nie, the chikei, the hada, utsuri etc. in the ji, or the sunagashi, kinsuji, inazuma, nie, habuchi etc. in the yakiba, or the sharply-defined geometry and burnished surfaces of the shinogi-ji, mune, kissaki etc.… then it is more like a statue wrapped in cloth than a statue proper. Or it is like a painting hidden under centuries of smoke and grime and yellowed varnish. Or maybe a bicycle that is covered in rust and, with judicious and conservative restoration, could be made into an actual bicycle again.

        This is the reason that togishi (professional Japanese polishers) have to commit to a longer and more strenuous apprenticeship than swordsmiths – 5 years minimum, 10 years in most cases. It is why they have to be bona fide experts in nihontō from all eras and all provinces; to know that Hizen-tō have thin jacket steels, that certain Shintō have hazy ji no matter how much work is done with finishing stones, that kotō Bizen-tō should show utsuri, that such-and-such blades have harder or softer steel etc.

        Swords have been polished at least once a century to allow for appreciation of their metallurgical details. You must understand that true togi is a craft that has been refined for over 700 years, and it has been drastically improved and elevated to an art form in the last 150 years. Not only does it reveal the artistic qualities in the steel through complex and laborious multi-material methods, but it does so by removing the absolute barest amount of steel each time. When a sword finally becomes “tired” it is understood that it can no longer be polished, but until then it is approached with the absolute greatest effort to conserving steel so as to extend the life of the blade. We have swords from almost 1000 years ago that are still healthy and in excellent polish today thanks to Japanese standards of continual care.

        This is also why when an amateur attempts to “sharpen,” “clean,” “polish,” buff, sand, file, hone, or otherwise mangle a sword, the nihontō community as a whole gives a collective scream of frustration. THAT is when a true crime against history is committed, as not only are the lines usually ruined, but simply horrific quantities of steel are often lost in the process, horribly shortening that blade’s life.

        In the case of this specific Yasutsugu, it has gone from being a sleeper that was known to be valuable and made by a smith with great artistic skill, to a fully-realized work of art that actually embodies the state the smith intended it to be in (the state it was originally in; actually, slightly better, since the art of togi has been improved since the 1700s). It becomes an artifact that is valuable in the abstract only to an object which actually fulfills, if not its primary function as a weapon, at least its secondary purpose as a work of art.

        In this respect, it has not lost its history; it has REGAINED its history, as per a cycle of regular polishes that it has already gone through several times in the last 300 years. In fact, during its history in Japan it would NEVER have been allowed to get so bad as it was when it was brought in; it would have been carefully maintained and periodically refreshed. So looking at it another way, by polishing the blade they have undone the crime of severe neglect that only happens to nihontō outside of Japan. That surface oxidation wasn’t part of its history as a samurai sword; it was part of its history as a lost object that was not valued and cared for the way it was supposed to. And now it is back to being the way it was always supposed to be.

        I am interested to know your thoughts on this. This is very much the way nihontō is viewed and treated and I recognize it is quite different from western preservation, but in this case I am 100% in the traditionalist camp (as opposed to the koshirae issue, where I lean more towards preservation and light restoration than significant restoration or replacement).

        Regards,

        —G.
        Last edited by gabedamien; 11-17-2013, 06:18 PM.

        Comment


          #19
          Originally posted by gabedamien View Post
          ....

          Adrian seems to have ceded command of SFI and hasn’t posted there as much. Funny you mention Nakamura Ryu, I took it for a short two years once upon a time. I didn’t know Adrian was involved in it?
          Hi Gabe,

          Adrian didn't formally study battodo. He visited my dojo at Moffett Field and I explained the combat-effective techniques to him; then, I gave him the opportunity to do some tameshigiri [test cutting] on properly prepared tatami-omote. We met two or three times but corresponded more frequently. He also brought some Western swords to play with ... I don't recall trying any cutting with them, though that was around 1998~2000.

          Adrian generously bought dinner for me -- curry, I believe.

          Regards,
          --Guy

          Comment


            #20
            Thanks for resurrecting an interesting thread.

            In the before pics, does anyone feel the habacki does not seem to match the blade's profile very well? That large a gap normally indicates a swap out.

            Regards

            Comment


              #21
              Originally posted by drdata View Post
              Thanks for resurrecting an interesting thread.

              In the before pics, does anyone feel the habacki does not seem to match the blade's profile very well? That large a gap normally indicates a swap out.

              Regards
              If you look at the edge, it seems it might have actually been *split.* That would have been repaired during restoration, though it’s certainly not common. The whole state of the tsuka etc. makes me think that someone who didn’t know what they were doing tried to tear it apart.

              Ultimately it’s very hard to tell though, it’s a low-res video feed with limited angles and closeups. Those were practically all the best images I could glean from the feed.

              I suppose if we really wanted to know what was going on, we could just ask Mike directly. I wouldn’t want to seem rude though.

              Comment


                #22
                UPDATE

                Hello everyone. I wanted to let you know that (unbidden by me, and in response to a separate discussion about the two Japanese swords that have now appeared on Pawn Stars) Mr. Yamasaki posted a brief explanation of the restoration work:

                http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/viewt...156871#p156871

                I encourage you all to check out that whole thread just for interest’s sake, but to quote Mike’s recent reply:

                Just for fun , and so there is no misunderstanding that happens at times, here are some facts about the Yasutsugu episode that I did for Pawn Stars. The blade is in my opinion a genuine 5 th generation Yasutsugu. It was in need of a professional polish. I had a slot coming up with our very own Shigekazu (Jimmy ) Hayashi and used it for this blade. As you all should well know, Jimmy is a genuine Uchi deshi polisher trained in Japan and he always does an excellent job. The tsuka was in need of a complete re wrap, and it was also sent out to another friend of mine for a rewrap as close as possible to what was the original tsukaito. We were on a bit of a deadline as I was just about to go to Japan for a slight length of time, so it all had to be done in a very tightly coordinated fashion. Now , as far as the tsuba went, the tsuba that was originally on the blade was NOT the original one, it was probably changed a long time ago, as it was basically swimming in between the 2 seppa. It was replaced with a Signed Kishu Teimei tsuba that was genuine. The new owner of the blade also received the old tsuba as well. The seppa however, were of good quality and most likely original as they fit the nakago perfectly. The habaki was severely damaged, and had to be replaced, as well as the old saya. After polish I decided it was better to have a new scabbard made to keep the polish in good condition. I do consulting work for them for quite a few years now, our episode wasn’t scripted (Im not an actor and I definitely cannot remember lines) so we kept it simple. The goal for me was to show and educate the uneducated in regards to Japanese Swords. I cannot spend time to answer any questions (Not to be stuck up, but my son is ill and I am taking care of him), so I hope I brought some light to any previous questions. Happy Holidays.
                I am glad to see that most (albeit not quite all) of my deductions were spot-on. The saya core were too damaged and had to be replaced, especially for the sake of the new polish. It was polished by Jimmy Hayashi who is the most knowledgeable polisher in the western hemisphere and completed traditional training in Japan (so it never even went to Japan in this case). The old tsuba was confirmed to be a low-quality later addition which did not fit, and was replaced with an honest (if lacking refinement) signed antique iron tsuba which matched the rest of the koshirae better. But the old tsuba was returned as well, as I suggested it would be.

                In fact, pretty much the only thing I got wrong was concluding that the split habaki (which damage I did detect in my last post) was repaired, when in reality it was replaced. That’s a shame, but the habaki was presumably not repairable in that case. Since the habaki has an extremely important functional role, this is understandable.

                Thanks for your attention in this matter. I hope the thread has been engaging if nothing else. Regards,

                —G.

                Comment


                  #23
                  It was not unusual that a surrendered sword had the tsuba replaced. Knowing that the blade would likely be gone forever, a good quality tsuba could be kept as a remembrance. It appears that the replacement was a low end Soten School work. I have come across this situation a few times over the years. In some cases, the tsuba was gone and never replaced. The work Mike had done is reasonable when doing a proper restoration.

                  Comment


                    #24
                    Thanks Bob.

                    Just to clarify for anyone who may be confused by the chronology of replacement tsuba on this sword, when you say “replacement” you are talking about the first tsuba we as an audience see on this sword (which was in turn replaced again by Mike). So it goes:

                    Original tsuba (removed before episode, probably at time of surrender) -> Soten tsuba (low-end addition, first tsuba seen in episode) -> Kishu Teimei tsuba (added by Mike for better fit and aesthetics).

                    Sorry, I just wanted to head off any possible misinterpretation.

                    Comment

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