My father started this store. I'm the second owner, and we also have the third owner-to be. My father started in the late 1910's, and I started after World War II. (have you guys always worked here?) Our store actually started in the town next to the one we are now. We've been over here for the past eleven years. I was born in Shitaya, Tokyo. Our type of jobs are mostly in Taito-ku from long time ago. Most of the craftsmen were concentrated in this area. Because there were so many of us, the blacksmiths, the "kin-kon,"(from the sound of banging metals) we were called "Sendagi-ha," the Sendagi's.

It's Kitama Seisakujyo.

We have more works using gold than using silver today. Almost 90% of our works are using either gold or platinum. There aren't many orders that use silver. People who come here like gold today. I think many Japanese love gold. The actual price value of gold has dropped, but the status of gold hasn't at all. Something like thatノ (Do you use different techniques for golden crafts?) The technique is the same as the other metals, but I have to be more careful. The work is a little more difficult. But making a silver craft is more fun. If I use gold, the color of the craft will be just gold. On the other hand, I can play around with silver. I can mix it up with other materials. I can do a lot with it. (is the pureness important for gold?) That's why people only get pure gold. 18K is not enough for the people. The Buddhist altar objects are poplar in our store today. We make flower vases, aroma stick stands, etc. The most popular craft is the Buddhist bell. But there aren't many bells using pure gold. Pure gold is too soft for the bell that it won't make any sound. It's hard to make, but we make the bells using pure gold. (is it fun to make the Buddhist altar objects?) We make them because it's our business. As we were making the Buddhist altar objects, someone ordered a Buddhist memorial tablet, and I thought, "please, no!"

(are there strong points depending upon the craftsman?) Yeah, there are. There are box shaped crafts, and there are round shaped crafts in metal crafts; they are very different. The box shaped ones are called "hako-mono," and the round shaped ones are called "maru-mono." There are some craftsmen who say "I make maru-mono, but I don't make hako-mono." The Japanese tobacco box is made out of wood coated with thin silver layer, and it's very fragile. It's very difficult to make the box only using metals. Because the technique is difficult, my father started his training from making metal boxes. Because my father had the hako-mono training, I was able to learn them, too. If you don't try to learn it, you'll never learn it. Then my father thought just doing hako-mono is no fun. He also wanted to do maru-mono, and everything he could think of. And my father's willingness to do everything also made me do everything, too. (he takes out the old box he made) It's so hard to make these boxes with only metals. It's technically difficult. My father told me it's difficult, and then I thought why can't I do it. I made my first box when I was sixteen. Don't you think it's great to still have my very first box? This little old one? It was right after war, using foreign made coping saw. The Japanese made ones couldn't cut the metal well. Imagine how long it took to make this box.

If I try to make a little sake-cup, I'll take a flat sheet of metal, and lift up the parts on the side by making corners. The technique is called "shibori." That's tan-kin. We were once called gin-ki-ya, a silver ware store, so to shape a sheet of silver into craft is called tan-kin. What's good about my job that's it's so much fun. I'm a happy man here. Don't you think so? I just earn money by doing what I want to do. I feel sorry for the people who have jobs they don't really like. (what about the Japanese businessman?) I just feel bad for them.

(when did you start?) Right after the war. When I was fifteen years old. I'm almost seventy years old. I don't want to say it aloud, though. But there were nothing in Japan right after the war. My father was in the military-run factory in Nigata during the war. It's because of the technique he had from tan-kin. What he was doing in the factory was basically the same as what he was doing for his real job. The basics were the same. Then my father became the head of the factory, so our whole family moved to Nigata. Then Tokyo was burned down during the war, and nothing happened in Nigata. We didn't get attacked in Nigata. So we had all our machines, and the factory was huge as hell. People were working for the occupation forces in huge groups. I was watching them because I was still in school. We didn't have our text books. There were 500 students and one teacher, and the teacher just lectured. I didn't feel like studying at all, so I went home for lunch, and worked in the factory in the afternoon. That's how I started, and how I started to love this job. I was never going back to school. The work was also fun back then. It was just that we were using brass and copper because we didn't have gold and silver.

He's already thirty five, six years old. (are you two working together?) Well, but he's doing some different stuff there. Doing what ever they want just to eat is not suit for young people today, I guess. They want to earn more. Because they want their kids to have a better life, and because they want their mother happier or what ever. But my son uses the technique he learned. His crafts are all platinum. I guess platinum is used a lot in factories. Some of our customers tell me to make our techniques and works industrial secret from those factories. (do you think you'll be the last owner?) I don't know. I have no idea about that.

(are you planning to have new apprentices?) That's a big problem we have now. There are more people who want to do this job. We used to have a problem with no one wanting to do this job, and we used to get government's help financially because of it. But we're going to work on the training for young people by ourselves(financially) in our worker's union from next month. Even if we get help from the government, the amount of the money is not enough. We can't do much with that amount of money. So we decided to get a monthly fee from the students to learn the technique. Because we get a monthly teaching fees, we and our students would have to be more serious about our works than before. I think it's great to work and to teach seriously.. But I'm in charge of this training thing, so how should I do this... To teach someone is the hardest. But it's fun! It's more exciting than doing my own work. There aren't many teenager students yet. Most of the students are in their twenties. It's not long of a time to reach twenties after graduating high school. I talked to some of my students, and I realized how motivated they were! They used to be businessmen. There are many students like that. But there are no system to welcome all of them yet. But I think it's better to learn in this warm, home-like environment than to learn in a strictly planned system. We have to set up our insurance and other things for the students. We can't keep being like "come to us, and we'll teach" because we can't be irresponsible of many students. But we'll teach what we need to teach for now. There is one twenty years old student who's going to finish the training course this year or next year, so I might take care of him if he asked for it. If I decide to teach a student, I'll teach thoroughly. Some say I'm overprotective to my students, but I think they need to be taught everything they need. My son didn't like to be taught and told what he should do, though. I think it's too old to say "you to watch your teacher do his work rather than being taught from your teacher." If you're going to teach some technique, you can teach in a positive way so your students can learn more and faster. The teaching system in this world used to be "I'll teach you the basics, so you teach yourself after that." That ideology is still around. It's true that the students will remember what they learned by themselves. My father never taught me anything. But even if I was told to watch the others and learn from them, I might want to ask some questions to them, too. But I ended up learning everything by watching others. (how many craftsmen did your father have?) He used to have 40 craftsmen when he was in Nigata. The work was automated. But he had less craftsmen after coming back to Tokyo, and there were four or five of them when he died in the late 1960's. (are those craftsmen still working around here?) No. They're too old. Some quit when Japanese economy had a recession. I'm glad that some young people are starting to work now.

It takes a long time to make one thing. It takes a long time to acquire the skills needed to make that thing, too. Some crafts take few months to finish, especially when they are large and complicated. You might get board of making it, but that's the way it is.

We also use file and coping saw, but hammer is the most used basic tool. If you learn how to shape the metal with hammer, it's easy to make a squared craft or what ever. So the most important part in learning the technique is how to use the hammer.

We do what ever the customer wants for the custom-made crafts. For example, a tea ceremony tools. Tea ceremony tools don't have any requirements on how they should be made, but they have rules. Tea ceremony is a traditional strict ruled custom. But most customers don't understand that rule to tell you the truth. And the tea ceremony professionals wouldn't use gold or silver for their tools. The professionals use the iron ones, and we're trying the professionals to use the gold or the silver ones. I went to Osaka the other day for this traditional craft exhibition. We had a golden tea cup for the customers to try some tea with it while I was showing my work on the side. As I thought, Japanese people love golden things. There aren't many chances for them to drink tea with a golden cup, so the exhibition was so popular. I made the cup, but I thought, "I'm not having a tea with this cup." It's too heavy, too.

Many customer tell me they don't like silver because silver rust easily. If you go to a spa that has sulfur in it, a silver ring would turn black right away. We sometimes use the characteristic of the silver to rust on our crafts. A trophy or a spoon can't be rusted. But if you use them very often they won't rust. They rust because you put them away and keep them somewhere in your room. Many people also use silverware, don't clean the fingerprints, and put them away. Most silverware that rust in a shape of fingerprints. Some silverware like that are brought to our store for repair once in a while.

We need to use fire to make the craft. To put in to the fire so the metal will soften is called "to namasu." Most metals except lead stiffen when we hammer them. We can't do anything with out fire flame. We can make anything anywhere if we can use fire. But there aren't many department stores or hotels that allow us to use fire on the exhibition. If they let us use fire, many customers would watch me working for a long time. They would come in the morning, and watch until noon, then they would go out to lunch when we go out to lunch, and come back again when we come back again to start our work. If we don't use the fire flame and show all the process, they would be "okay, this is no fun." But if we use the fire flame, we would feel like a monkey in a zoo because the customers would stare at us.

I was really upset when the chaser for our store passed away. (Did he have a successor at all?) No. One of his relatives told him he'll do it, but he told the relative "I don't think you're suit for this job" a year later, and got him a new job. There are some people like that(so are you going to look for someone else?) I'm trying, but it's so difficult to find one. Tan-kin and chasing are like brothers, and it has been in the way that the tan-kin make the basic shape, and the chaser finish it. So the chaser's status was higher. Chasing has a longer history, too. (does the quality of the craft drop when a craftsman pass away with out a successor?) Yeah. Oh, my god. You know what? I don't have a successor either!

The history of silverware started from daimyo's (Japanese feudal lord) tools. Don't you think most of the things start from weapon? Chasing started from making weapons. There are tons of great things. But the history of them are not so long, and there aren't many tools that's more than 1000years old. The oldest thing made from tan-kin is about 1000years old, and it was an armor. That one with two holes for the eyes. It was made of iron, and it's told to be the first thing made in tan-kin.

When were they made? Couple thousand years ago? The gold dust is a gold. If you melt the gold dust, and harden them, tutankhamun is there. Because there were lots of gold there, they were able to make the tutankhamun. You need to smelt if you're making things in silver, so making silverware is difficult. (do you get moved by tutankhamun?) Well, technically not that great And the design looks to me like there were no other design that the people could come up with. Oh, if I talk too much like this, the professionals on this field would be angry.

You might ask, how do you put the flower in here? This is made of silver. The technique used is called "kin-keshi," and this technique was also used to make the Daibutsu in Nara. The people who made the Daibutsu in Nara painted mercury on the statue, then burned them. The kin-keshi technique used to use mercury, but we can't now because of the law. (what is the design on this vase?) It's a pattern of an eddying current. It was my idea. Isn't the design dynamic? I made this only using the hammer. This side, and that side, all with different hammers. The flower vase is about 2kilograms. (about 4pounds) The thickness is what's important. The thickness and the weight. This flower vase is not for decorating flowers. It's more made for an ornament than for actually a flower vase, people who want to decorate flowers wouldn't buy this. It's not easy to use. It's said that the silver flower vase has this ion that preserves the flower well or something, though.

We color them. And you see these dots all over? They should be lined up. We used to motif the turban shell, and if we look at the shell, it's pretty, but if we make it, it's ugly. The pattern should flow. We draw horizontal and vertical lines when we draw the design, then we can see the diagonal line from there. So if we make the interval between the vertical line wider or horizontal line wider make a lot of difference on the design. And the design also depends on the curve on the pot. It's fun, and interesting. (can you tell how the thing you're making would look like?) Yeah, for the ones I make very often. If the shape of the pot is different, the same design could look different. If I draw the same design on a sphere, the design would look totally different. I'm saying that's the fun part. I've been doing this job for a long time, but I can't always tell how they're going to look like at the end.

Do you see these little bumps? This is interesting. How could these bumps come right out when I hammered the bumps from the outside? There are only 3,4 people in Tokyo who do that. I know all of them, but no one show their technique to anyone. (do you think the others are making the same thing in a different way?) May be. I think everyone is making in a different way. They don't teach anyone how to do it. (what's the thing on the top?) It's a small version of stone statue of guardian dogs in a shinto shrine. I ordered it to a sculptor. I told him to make the dog look like my face, and he brought me an interesting one. I was the model for this dog

We use both gold and silver to make this just like making rings. This thing is so tiny. Ko-do(incense ceremony) is popular today. There is this one man who specializes in making tools for ko-do. He make his crafts almost without using the hammer. He makes some interesting things. The ko-do tools are so small that there are some things I can't even hold. Ko-do is interesting if you do it. But the problem for me is that the ink stone and the brush would come out for me to write. I'm not good at it, so that's was quite a problem for me.

Gui-nomi(a sake cup):

This thing is tiny, but we can do a lot with this. It's just like the flower vase. There aren't any rules on how it should be made. If you can put the sake in the cup and drink it, it's fine. If you can put the flower into the flower vase, it's fine. No other rules. If I'm making the tea pot, they should look like tea pot, and there are rules, so it's fun to make something that doesn't have any rules.

(What is the holding part made of?) That part is the problem, too. We use a cane for that part. It's just like the kettle. We wrap them with canes, right? We would wrap a thin Japanese paper on the bottom, then the cane over it. It's to absorb the heat. (so it's not only for the looks) No. But to make the part needed for the craft beautiful is the craftsmen's work. Unfortunately, there aren't many people left who can do that. If there's less craftsmen doing it, there's less materials that would be around, and the quality wouldn't be as good. There was a 90years old lady who did a great job on this wrapping technique, but she quit. I asked her why, and she told me there aren't any good materials she can use. What we're doing here don't have any problems with materials because we use gold and silver, but the ones using natural wooden materials seem to have problems. The cane crafts are popular today, you know. There are tons of materials for the cane crafts, but there are no materials for cane wrapping. The cane wrapping wouldn't make much money, so no one do it. The traditional crafts that decline have a tendency like that. The tendency that wouldn't make money despite of the time and the work that takes to make it.