Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Looks like "Unshin" (雲森). Maybe this guy?

http://homepage3.nifty.com/mimi-ken/sub01.html

He has a photo of a slightly different hanko on this page though:

http://homepage3.nifty.com/mimi-ken/index.html

Last edited by No-sword (2008-08-02 18:14:32)

Oh, okay. My bad. The characters are the same, but that second cross-stroke from the top looked too different to me to be the same design. I guess it's an artifact of the application process, about which I know jack.

No-sword wrote:

Oh, okay. My bad. The characters are the same, but that second cross-stroke from the top looked too different to me to be the same design. I guess it's an artifact of the application process, about which I know jack.

Usually, it's done with a small positive metal casting of the hanko, which is afixed to a heating element (or heated with a torch, or similar). The heated hanko is then applied to the bamboo surface. Thus, there can be quite a bit of variation in how 'bold' the character comes out.

I had a quite diminutive 1.6 of his, bought through a third party. I paid $160 for it two years ago. The tone was bright and had no real depth but it was tuned well. The thumbhole was positioned far to the left, so he probably sold it as a second. It had only one hanko. Perhaps the flutes he likes and sells as first quality have two hanko. (Many times two hanko only means that the maker himself was impressed with the flute. It also improves sales.)

The bore had obvious concentric circles of ji. Almost "wormy" to look at. One of his stylistic trademarks is to position his utaguchi inlay very low. It looks like an error, but he seems to do this with all of this flutes.

The bamboo of the one I had had lovely coloration. the bamboo was very hard and of medium thickness but it was very light making it feel ultra-fragile, like a porcelain tea cup. The tone was uninteresting, bright, flute-like, an almost pvc quality to the sound, though not quite that harsh. But it was well tuned and played all the tricky notes.

I have no idea what he would have valued the flute as if it were a first quality. Seemed like a good beginner flute and it was.  I liked the urushi-washed birch bark or cherry bark nagatasuke binding. I would probably have a flute from him professionally bound to insure against cracks.

Nice hanko. Cloud Forest.

Other inexpensive (under $1000) Japanese made shakuhachi can be gotten from http://www.chikuyu.com (Shakuhachi master Andrew MacGregor is an endorsor) and Mejiro at http://www.mejiro-japan.com/system/index_e.php.  In the USA David Sawyer http://www.japanshakuhachi.com/newshakuhachi.html will have one or two under the thousand dollar range He knows his stuff.

I believe Perry has repaired some of Unshin's flutes.

Last edited by Chris Moran (2008-08-03 12:28:22)