Ozawa Masatoshi Kogatana

[BOB COLEMAN]

As requested by several in another thread, I will dig out the kaiken made by Ozawa Masatoshi and put it on another thread. In the meantime, I thought you might have interest in seeing a kogatana made for me by Ozawa Masatoshi in 1980. My wife and I visited his kaji in the countryside. When the train arrived, we disembarked and were met by Ozawa Sensei and walked up the country road to his house. He kept his son home that day to work as a hammer man and he gave me a personal sword forging demonstration. Following the demonstration, we went to his house where his wife had prepared a nice meal of home made soba and of course there was also beer! At the end of the day, Ozawa Sensei presented me with this kogatana for which I will always treasure I believe that I was Ozawa Sensei's first American friend. We met in 1979 when he was brought to Chicago for Token Taikai 79. This featured shinsa by Yoshikawa Kentaro Sensei and demonstrations by various craftsmen in the sword arts. Ozawa Sensei related that at the end of the war, he was on an island in the Japanese Army and suffering from malaria. An American medic treated him and saved his life. From that day forward, he always wanted to come to the USA and teach sword making to Americans in gratitude. Ozawa Sensei had been a swordsmith before and during the early war years until he was inducted. He was an independent personality. When visiting the annual convention for Yoshikawa's club, the NTHK, he wore a membership pin for the NBTHK in his lapel. At the NBTHK annual meeting, he wore his NTHK pin! There was a lot of rivalry between the two groups at the time.
Enogh of the history and the kogatana. As anyone knows, getting good pictures of temper is very difficult. This is tempered in large notare with a very long kaeri. For those of you who are not familiar with Japanese sword terms, a kogatana is a small blade fitted in to a metal handle known as a kodzuka and mounted in a pocket of the scabbard of wakizashi and tanto.

[Alan M]

Great memories Bob and a wonderful keepsake !

[SteveR]

Damn Bob. That is outstanding.

[BOB COLEMAN]

The caligraphy on the outside of the box says "kogatana" at the top and Masatoshi saku(Masatoshi made this). Inside the box is my name in Katakana and then Ozawa Masatoshi.

[ghp95134]

...Inside the box is my name in Katakana and then Ozawa Masatoshi.

ロバート。A。コールマン君
Robaato. A. Kooruman Kun

This is why I really REALLY hate reading foreign names/terms in Japanese. At least Bob's name is fairly easy to decypher ... But ... if I didn't know Bob from this forum, I would have been tempted to decyper it as Korman [like Harvy Korman] ... but Korman would most likely be コルマン.... without the "ー" [that symbol, the "bo" -- staff -- extends the preceding vowel]. The most difficult for me are the techinical terms -- rendered in katakana -- because Japanese use Portuguese, French, German [medical & mountaineering], and English. Often, for me, it is hard to tell what the foreign word is.

Arrrggggghhhhhhh

By the way .... WAY NICE kogatana, Bob. (...he uttered in extremely GREEN jealousy....)