MEDIA
Biannual dealers Tokio auction
Although invitations to foreigners are very limited (we were only three foreigners out of more than 150 people) we were invited to the event held in central Tokyo twice a year, which was a great pleasure and honour.
The auction is held among dealers with Daisuke Hataya at the head. One of the biggest dealers in Japan and well known among the other suppliers and sellers in the country.
The event lasts almost the whole day and a lot of armour, helmets, rifles (teppo) and some swords are auctioned. Although it is an exclusive event for dealers in the country we were honoured to be invited not only to watch the auction but also to bid for the items, which involves years of reputable work among Tokyo dealers to ensure payment for the items.
Fortunately and despite the language barriers in an auction with so many people and so fast we were able to get a lot of pieces and we were one of the biggest buyers, getting a good amount of armour and helmets, some of museum quality that we will receive over the next few months due to the difficulty of such a large export. An experience that we will certainly not forget and that we will continue to do in the future.
Visit to Fusahiro Shimojima's forge
We visited the workshop and forge of the reputed Japanese sword forger Fusahiro Shimojima 房宙 to commission a sword and see first hand the forging process.
It was a pleasure to have him show us from the ground up the whole process first hand and let me participate in the heated process in the furnace, an experience that as he rightly says brings you closer to God. Despite the relationship that people normally have, for him it is something very different, it is a pure union between earth and heaven, seeking the perfection of his swords thanks to the blessing of the gods and that can be seen in his immaculate white clothes and in the amulets and strings that surround the forge, the furnace and the altar dedicated to the gods.
A true artist who showed us some of his works and they are very little different from some ancient masterpieces. The process can take more than a year and the forgers have limited the forging of swords to about 6 or 8 per year, which makes this expensive process translates into the price, in addition to being involved other craftsmen selected by him of great renown for polishing or making the sackcloth to measure. There are about three hundred smiths in Japan today, but as he explains, many like his master have been retired for some years, so the number of active smiths is only about half that number.
Geishas and samurais exhibition: Memories of Japan
This time we had the honor to present some of our weapons, armor and other pieces of Japanese art from the Edo and Meiji period such as inros, netsukes and Noh masks.
Thanks to the collaboration of the city council of Barcelona, associations for the preservation of relations between Japan and Spain and the guild of antique dealers we have been able to celebrate an exhibition dedicated to samurai art and the history of the geisha through different works such as masks, weapons, armor, ukiyo e or netsukes among others.
Thanks to our long friendship with Ferran Lopez, president of the Spanish association of antique dealers and a great reputation in the sector for having participated in major events and companies, we were invited to lend some pieces for the exhibition to be held at the Palau Martorell, a beautiful neoclassical building of the nineteenth century that houses some exquisite architectural elements and is the perfect setting for the exhibition of pieces. The building is located in the heart of the city, a few meters from the sea and will exhibit the pieces from March 10 to September 8, 2024.
We had the pleasure of attending the inauguration along with several personalities from the world of art and politics and with some Japanese ambassadors and cultural associations established in the country that were frankly satisfied with the exhibition.
As a representative of Supein Nihonto I was able to bring a good part of the exhibits dedicated to the samurai, among them, half of the armor and most of the swords and helmets that are exhibited there. In addition to some objects such as inros or netsukes. No doubt you will recognize some of the items in the photographs as they are on the website and will be offered for sale again when they are released from the exhibition, giving them a much higher investment value thanks to having been displayed in an exhibition of such caliber. As a representative and CEO of Supein Nihonto I am very proud to participate in this type of event and to be able to provide pieces for people to enjoy and learn more about the precious Japanese culture.
The exhibition has been very well received by the country’s media and has been praised on various television and press channels.