Posts: 96 Location: Tampere, Finland
Sun 16 Nov, 2014 1:08 pm
Very nice sword Craig.
As a private collector I think that private collecting gives very much back to the community, and people actually have good chances to see the swords. Yes it's amazing that we have swords in museums around the world but only a fraction of the museums collections are on display.
I think that Japanese sword collecting has much tighter knit community than European sword collecting in general. Being a part of one of the groups I might be too much involved to see things clearly but that is how I feel. Countries have sword collecting clubs & organizations and people are very welcoming. For Example NBTHK is a Japanese organization but it has branches in Europe and US. I have been to few Scandinavian NBTHK meetings and I got to see and handle some great stuff there. And I will travel to more NBTHK branch meetings in the future. You get to view impressive antique weaponry in your own hands.
We also have our own collector group here in Finland where we have couple of us nihonto collectors grouped together over the counrty. We are trying to get people to see real Japanese swords here in Finland. But one example about Museum storage comes right here. We had a Samurai exhibition visiting Finland and it was on display at our National museum. On theme day people from our group were giving lectures about the Japanese sword and some were doing martial arts demonstrations. As the travelling exhibition did not have any actual swords, only koshirae, we made an enquiry if the National museum might get couple Japanese swords from their warehouses to display in the museums weapon room (they couldn't be added to exhibition as it was total package). However byrocracy goes slow and there were never Japanese swords on display in the weapon room... I have been told that National museum has maybe 20-30 Japanese swords and they were last documented sometime in the 80's before I was even born. They are just kept in the warehouse and nobody can see them... Our group has asked if it would be possible to see some of the swords, but byrocracy seems to be very slow... This is just the fate of the Japanese swords in the collection, there are much more European swords stored in various museum storages here in Finland.
We held our own collectors meeting in National museum during the time exhibition was on display. Unfortunately due to having many live antique blades around we couldn't have it open to public (safety concerns etc.) but our own members got to see and handle the stuff.
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For example this was our main theme of the meeting and these are tanto from the late 1500's
left to right
Kanemoto, Shimada Sukemune, den Shimada Sukemune, Kanefusa - and kantei blade which was Osafune Kiyomitsu
And last year we held our own Samurai exhibition in Jyväskylä on the dojo of one of the members. That was open to the public over the weekend and people could see pretty impressive stuff there (swords, spears, samurai armor etc.). After lectures and demonstrations on the opening day there was kantei that was open to anyone. So anyone from the public could hold an antique sword in his hands and got guidance to what to look for. Couple attendees took this opportunity, unfortunately not that many were keen on it. If I remember correctly it was a Yamato blade from Nambokucho period (1333-1392), I guessed it to be little later so I missed the period slightly. :) A pic from the event.
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And we are having another event in this January where authentic swords can be seen alongside with amazing lineup of koryu demonstrations. :)
This is medieval too: Made by Kuninobu, most likely an unknown smith as province or details apart from Nambokucho Period are not mentioned. Sword is machi-okuri which means the shoulders of the blade have been moved forward. That is not desirable and it has some flaws but this is a signed tachi from Nambokucho period, and my treasure.
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So while this post might seem a bit like off-topic rambling my idea is to encourage Craig to make that long term vision a reality in the future. It's an awesome idea in my opinion. For example you might get to meet another collector who has also an
Oakeshott XI with Brazil nut, but swords might end up being totally different when you get to compare them side by side. :) Getting likeminded folk to gather up and share thoughts about swords is always great fun. I'm keeping my thumbs up you antique European sword collectors will get together more.