Hey, got back late last night and I'm unpacking/cleaning swords this morning. Warning -- long post ahead... You asked for it.
Great show. The San Francisco Token Kai is IMHO the best show outside of Japan. The vendors are always great, the venue is nice, and there's a fantastic sushi bar fairly close by that also has some really good sake'. Hole in the wall kind of place and the head guy is a fountain of good information about what's fresh and good. But I'm getting off track, neh...
This year was a bit sad, however. Ralph Bell had long been one of the motivating forces behind the show. Truly a character and a really good, plain spoken man. Unfortunately he passed away recently in a car accident. So there was a pause where we all remembered him and Terry McCarthy played amazing grace on the pipes. Everyone raised a glass to Ralph this year.
I drove up with my wife and daughter since the kid loves to swim in their indoor pool. So we made it a sort of long weekend vacation away for them while I was at the show. Got in around noon on Friday after a 6-hour drive for me. Got the table started and my good friend and partner Ted Tenold arrive soon afterwards. I brought up a really nice art shinsakuto (newly made art sword) by Komiya Yasumitsu. The Komiya smiths in Japan today are known for both their art swords and their swords made for martial arts practice. The arts swords are just gorgeous and their swords made for martial arts practice are renouned for excellent handling, balance and durability. Not to mention they're also traditionally made and gorgeous when fully polished. Here's a pic showing the activity in the Yasumitsu piece.
We also had two unpolished shinsakuto by the Komiya smiths -- one by Kotoken and the other by Kunimitsu II. I'm right now polishing a Kunimitsu II and the depth and richness of the nioi-guchi as well as the deep ashi are really nice. It will make a really gorgeous sword for the owner if I can ever finish the polish. (More on that later.) We have two unpolished blades with the idea that some entry-level martial artist might be interested in going a bit more upscale and traditional. Today top quality unpolished blades from smiths like Howard Clark go for well over 4 thousand (and they are worth it IMHO). So we decided to bring in a few high end martial arts level swords from Japan unpolished to see if we could generate some interest in some more traditional style blades for a bit more. We'll see -- the jury is still out on that one. Lots of people love them, but it is an investment...
Ted brought up a ton of sword fittings from his
http://legacyswords.com site. I almost walked out with a set of horse menuki he had that match up well with a horse fuchi kashira set I have... I don't think they sold at the show so I might still have to buy them. Lots of cool stuff.
We also had two swords on our table on consignment for a good friend. Both Juyo Token (which essentially means the NBTHK in Japan has judged them as being important art works). One was a Rai Kunimitsu daito with a spectacular koshirae. The blade was really healthy (meaning it hasn't been overly polished over the years). So we're talking about a blade that is roughly 780 years old. Absolutely gorgeous and very much textbook Rai work. Value is probably the over 60K range. If you want to see that sword and some really well done photos please hit this link -- don't skip it just becaue it is really expensive -- go see it because it is absolutely stunning...
http://www.nihonto.ca/rai-kunitoshi-2/index.html
The other Juyo we had on the table was a Bizen Unji piece. If you're learning about swords one thing people often have trouble with is the concept of Utsuri. Utsuri is a sort of misty "reflection" of the hamon in the softer ji of the sword. Is it a subtle effect and remarkably difficult to photograph and explain. This sword had intense utsuri (a major evaluation point for Koto Bizen work). So I showed this sword to a lot of people as they asked questions. Many are way too nervous at these shows to ask to look at top notch blades. My opinion is that's why you go in the first place -- look at the best things you can look at! I showed one kid probably no more than 15 years old the Unji. I spent some time teaching him how to properly hold the blade, what not to do (don't touch the blade, don't breath on it (moisture), don't talk over it (tiny bits of spittle will ruin an art polish), etc.). Then I showed him that blade and helped him "learn to see" the utsuri. It was great watching his eyes light up as he made it out. Then I watched him turn white when he asked me what it cost -- closer to $40,000.
Unfortunately I don't have any photos of this piece. But gorgeous...
But enough of our stuff... I saw all sorts of incredible blades. Rai pieces, Awataguchi, Bizen, Soshu, tons of Mino (which I just can't seem to enjoy)... The highlight for me, however, was the breakout session the NBTHK put on Saturday. Ted was the guy moderating so we had to cover up our table because there wasn't a snowball's chance in Hades I'd miss it. It was a "craft" presentation. Jimmy Hayashi, Brian Tscernega, Mike Yamazaki, and David McDonald all gave talkes. Hayashi-san is considered one of the best polishers around, certainly in the top echelons. He set up a polishing area and proceeded to explain aspects of polishing as he worked a small window in a blade from nagura through uchigumori. That was worth every cost of the trip for me. Jimmy Hayashi was traditionally trained in Japan for almost a decade before he went out on his own. Few people today even in Japan can do that any longer due to economic pressures. Imagine being an uchi-deshi for 10 years...
Brian is *the* top habakishi (habaki maker) outside of Japan. Brian did a presentation on habaki, how they're made, and touched on some of the often overlooked and very subtle details of size, dimension, flow and style.
Mike Yamazaki (
http://ricecracker.com ) did a presentation on restoration of koshirae. And how important it is to have someone who knows what they're doing do the work on important swords. He had some really nice examples of restored lacquer work and koshirae on the table.
And David McDonald (
http://www.montanairon.com/ ) gave a presentation on tsukamaki. David does really great work and he showed his collection of disassembled tsuka cores demonstrating the variety of ways things were done from the ground up.
Once we finished up in the breakout sessions I hustled back to the showroom to answer questions at the table. I got to see old friends and put some faces to names for some new ones. All good. And I have to give a special thanks to the folk from the Senpokan dojo who brought me and Ted a bag with a couple In-n-Out burgers... That was great as neither of had eaten in about 10 hours we had been so busy with everything else. Meetings with the NBTHK, the breakout sessions, then answering questions on the floor. The bad part was about 20 minutes later I was ready to crawl under the table for a nap...
Ted and I finally cried uncle and took off for a while at around 7pm to get sushi with my family and another friend. That was good. I'm sure we probably missed some people who would have dropped by the table but we were both totally fatigued at that point. It was also a bit of a celebration as Ted was voted onto the board of directors of the NBTHK-American Branch -- quite an accomplishment. So that's all good.
We made it back to the show, answered a few more questions until it finally closed out at 10pm. At that point Ted and I ended up spending another 3 hours at a small table in the corner of the lounge with Jimmy Hayashi. That was incredible for me being able to chat, tell stories, ask questions, talk about the future of polishing, talk about how many essential natural polishing stones have been mined out, etc. It was interesting as we talked about the parallels between swords crafts and martial arts. We talked about things like shu/ha/ri, the relationship between student and teacher, the devotion and focus required to *really* learn these things, etc. It was also great for me in that I had been struggling with finishing a blade by Komiya Kunimitsu, a lovely shinsakuto I'm doing for a client. There were two remarkable things Jimmy conveyed to me on that topic. One was a purely technical thing about the jizuya stage in polishing especially when dealing with a very hard gendaito with fine, tight hada. The second was a reminder about the bigger picture of polishing -- every sword should be your absolutely best work. It doesn't matter what the customer wants, it doesn't matter if the sword is a national treasure or a Bungo blade made somewhat as a mass produced sword. Every polish must be your best polish. A good reminder and something I needed to hear as I had been struggling with the finish. My struggle was that it is very late in terms of deadlines, I had promised to be finished by now, but I have something I needed to fix that would mean me being even later and literally destroying about 40 hours of work already accomplished. It popped up as I was trying to match up the jizuya and I managed to create some scratches that I couldn't get out. I solved my problem on the jizuya selection for this blade, but... I needed to take it back to koma nagura and redo the entire shiage to do it right. And that's 40 hours lost and another 40 hours to spend. But that's what I need to do... I must say I knew that deep down inside, but sometimes you need someone else to say something like that to make you truly comes to grip with it.
Anyway, next Brian Tscernega dropped in and the four of us talked swords and life for a while longer. Mike Yamazaki came by and needled us about still talking swords late at night in the bar, but hey, I'm happy to admit to my sword geekiness.
I probably one too many martinis for me given the sake' I drank at dinner... So we all eventually gave up as it was last call and wandered up to our rooms.
I had promised my daughter to take her swimming in the morning before breakfast. It felt like had just closed my eyes when the kid was standing there with a gigantic grin on her face informing me that the pool would be open soon since it opens at 7 am. Great...
I managed to convince her that I should sit in the hot jacuzzi for the first 15 minutes with my eyes closed while the advil kicked in...
The show opened up again at nine. I walked the floor a few more times and finally ended up buying a wakizashi I had been watching. Signed Bizen Sukesada I think. The very tip had been snapped but not beyond repair. Obviously the sword had been repaired sometime in the past (repaied quite well, however) as the yakiba was a bit more narrow than you'd expect given the overall look. And lots of surface gunk and rust. But I could see some nice utsuri and I think it has some potential. Besides it came in a broken down koshirae that had complete and rather nice looking handachi fittings. Smaller, but nice. So it'll be a labor of love for me getting the fittings off and having those restored just a bit. And I want to study the blade just a bit more...
Anyway, great time, tremendous educational opportunities, and tons of *really* nice swords.
Oh, forgot to mention. One friend managed to pick up a really remarkable yari. Shinshinto era Yokoyama school piece that looks like it has a huge amount of potential. I wish I'd seen it first as I've had another Yokoyama school piece that was just stunning. He showed it to me and the I instantly recognized the work. And it looked like it might have a hagiri (crack in the edge -- something yari are very prone too) but Jimmy Hayashi put it on the stones at the demo briefly since they were out. It turned out it wasn't a crack and it also looks like the signature is righteous. So he scored a great piece.
Enough typing for me. I need to go unpack my stuff, oil swords, and then sit down and write down some remaining notes for myself... and then it's out to my polishing workshop to work on that sword with Jimmy Hayashi's words fresh in my head. I don't work on antiques but the lessons are the same... Slap on forehead time for me. Domo arigato gozaimasu Hayashi-san!