Like a Virgin
Hi everybody! CIAO! Here is Marco. I have to say…I’m not a blogger…mainly because I really don’t have the time being always somewhere in the world doing bonsai, doing bonsai, designing new bonsai tools, doing bonsai or chasing blondes. Lots of Bonsai. So I’m like a virgin here, this is my very first post on a bonsai blog and I have to apologize first of all for my poor English and for the length of this post, BUT I readed carefully everything you wrote about my ICHIBAN, Masakuni and myself and I want to answer to all of you because I really care about everybody’s opinion and I really appreciate the time you put in your arguments.
For all the ones who wrote something against ICHIBAN I already have your name and address and my Mafia and Yakuza Connections will make you change your mind soon don’t worry!!!!
Seriously, ICHIBAN is the result of a long term big investment of everything I know and I’m. I could have stay “quite” just being Marco and doing what I do best but the people that know me know very well that I like challenges and I like to make things better and make people feel better.
No one else before in BONSAI HISTORY ever designed a new bonsai tool and most of all a bonsai tool that everyone can use quite simply which will make the work of everybody much easier.
No one. So now you have the number one. The ICHIBAN.
To Jason G: I already hired a very well known italian video producer who will shoot and edit with me a very interesting series of videos in which I show what is ICHIBAN, how to use at their best all its amazing features and how to use it specificly to do certain job on certain tree. The videos are not meant to be only to be used as promotion but as a valid source of information about how to work on trees. Thank you for your support my friend, I hope I’ll see you later this year, please keep in touch with Jim.
To Flor 1: I really didn’t like your comment about Harry. I’m sure you realized by yourself how unfair you were because Harry is really one of the best person I ever met in the bonsai world and not for the quality of his collection or for the depth of his wallet but for the size of his heart …..and because he got married with the World Champion brownies baker!! Simply the Best!
ICHIBAN has the SAME retail price all over the world and it will keep the same price unless the exchange rate will see Yen getting ever stronger against Euro and US dollar, in that case ICHIBAN wont be no longer produced waiting for the exchange rate to become more affordable for us.
To Tachigi: The box is a very special feature of ICHIBAN. It’s an hand made by the same great artisan who makes the wooden box in which are treasured the Art Collections of the Emperor of Japan. But, believe or not, the wood box is not the reason why ICHIBAN doesn’t cost as some other tools. Don’t forget that ICHIBAN comes also with a high quality polisher. So far 99% of the bonsaist I met in the last 18 years totally underestimate how important is to keep the blades of the bonsai tools clean and not just sharp. Plus ICHIBAN is made with the very best Japanese Carbon Steel on the market and the blades are so long that they really don’t need to be sharpened. Maybe that’s one of the reason why ICHIBAN doesn’t cost as the others tool.
Mr.Masakuni the 3rd NEVER gets out of Japan. NEVER. He always works and when he doesn’t work he thinks about stuff like how to improve the quality of one little detail that for most of the people may not mean anything but at the end, one little detail after another, they all makes the difference between good quality and excellency. I use the same appriach with my trees because I have been trained by Masahiko Kimura for 4 years to be like that so this is the reason why I chose Masakuni to developed the tool I designed. So Masakuni wanted to be with me in Puerto Rico and I thought it was nice for him to sign the first 100 pieces of ICHIBAN. Isn’t USA the country crazy for memorabilia??????? It was just a special edition for the people who took the trouble to come from all corners of the world to celebrate this new joint-venture between me and Masakuni
To Treebeard: Yes the chisel are to be used when the blades are close and ICHIBAN is up side down. ICHIBAN helps everyone to mark the bark very precisly having the best control and the most confortable body position so your wrist and elbow wont stay up and in tension and so they wont get tired.
To Klytus: ICHIBAN due to the carbon steel, the long body, the ergonomic handle, the wirecutter concavity, and most of all, the huge PIN which is 4 times bigger than a normal one, is able to cut copper wire up to 2.5 with the wirecutter and 3.5 with the crossing point of the blades beyond the concavity and so closer to the PIN . The tips of the blades can cut wire under the 1mm diameter but I would recommend to use ICHIBAN to unwire your trees because the tips are so strong that they grab and hold wire very easily and bend it so you don’t have to be forced to put your hands in the tree.
ICHIBAN if used properly is anti-rust. Seriously. The metal is treated and coated. Maybe another reason why it doesn’t cost as other tools.
To Rockm: Beautiful Bonsai have been created for hundreds of years without ICHIBAN and more Beautiful Bonsai will still be created without ICHIBAN.
One of the reasons why I hope everybody will use ICHIBAN is that it helps to get and to keep the user’s body in a much healthier position. Since I worked in Kimura’s nursery I suffered from lower back problem: because I had to lift and move by myself bonsai as big as trees and mostly because I had to work on my knees for hours and hours straight. Then I also realized than the average age of the bonsaist around the world is raising quite quicky. So I notice that, year after year, lots of my students have arthritis and they have problem holding heavy tools in their hand and keep bending their wrist. Please don’t forget that while you use a normal tool often your hand and the tool are in the middle between you and what you are suppose to work on when instead ICHIBAN always approach the branch from the side so you always keep visual contact with the target of your work.
Sir, I didn’t sponsor the tool, I personally and totally designed. I may be just the only western except Ryan Niel who is currently in Japan, to have studied with Masahiko Kimura ( unless you wanna count the 6 days Liporace spent with my master and I know it because I was there the all time)….but I also got a Master Degree in Design from the 2nd Best European Design University, a Degree which I got in 3 years at age 21, so 2 years earlier than my classmates. So I really, seriously put my mind down in countless hours of projects, tests, sketchs so to improve the tools that I have been using in the last 18 years. Do you know that all the bonsai tools made in Japan are coming out pretty much from the same factory? Do you honestly see much differences between Yoshiaki and Kiku? Between Joshua Roth and Fujiyama? Maybe not…..and maybe the reason it’s so simple than everybody should understand that in an heartbeat.
Masakuni has its own factory and it’s in Kawaguchi near Tokyo when instead the other one is in Niigata, some 300 miles away.
Sir, I do care a lot about who buys my tool because the owner is invited to join the ICHIBAN CLUB and to be part of a very special group which will enjoy special informations, contents, videos and much more in a special designed area of the ICHIBAN website which will be online as soon as I can keep working on it.
Sir, it’s overpriced if you consider ICHIBAN just one tool, but they are 7 and they all help you having a much healthier approach to work with your tree. ICHIBAN doesn’t break, doesn’t rust, doesn’t really need to be sharpened but it’s true: it doesn’t walk your dog and clean your workshop, I apologize for that but I’m working on it okay?!??!
To Rick Mouquin: the design has been registred but in order to afford a world patent you guys should buy thousands and thousands of tools within the next 3 months, but ICHIBAN being hand made, Masakuni cannot produce that many, nevertheless I can sell that many.
To Mac in Oak Ridge: I understand your skepticism but first of all if a company with a 3 generations world’s leading tool manufacture background was asked to make a tool that doesn’t work or doesn’t make much sense….. do you think it would accepts to produce this strange new tool and put its own name on it? Maybe not right?
Second…I can tell you that actually then chisel works pretty well because the thumb gets nicely between the hammer and the pin, the index grab the pin from behind and the handle has been designed so to fit in valley between the muscle of the thumb and the palm of the hand. So bottom line the tool doesn’t move and carves very precisely and in doing it the elbow is kept down, isn’t up in the air. Your shoulder and lower back will always be grateful, I guarantee.
To Victrinia Ensor: When I was in Japan I had the great privilege to work on trees worth as much as a new Ferrari or a house. One after another, day after day, years after years. In 8 years of doing this job I did work for the best collection in the West and it’s because I work every day on so many bonsai that I need the best possible tool. I come from a very poor working class family so for years my grandma cutted my hair with the same scissor she would cuts lots of other things in the house, but I’m sure darling that if you ask to your hairstylist how much are the scissors with which he/she cuts your hair…..don’t be surprised to find out they cost 2-3 times more than ICHIBAN.
Why? Ask your hairstylist!
I place ICHIBAN in my tool roll every day and here there is no doubt that I’m the one who opens and close that damn tool roll more than anyone else…and I never had a problem. So let’s rethink of that statement would you? Thank you darling.
To Ang3lfir3: ICHIBAN wont make you in Kimura…thanks god because you would have to dress with his terrible collection of blue shirts to which you don’t really want get even close to…but apart from that…ICHIBAN will help you, like all the gadgets in your car, in your kitchen, in your Iphone…..IN YOUR MODERN LIFE.
I believe it’s called evolution.
Yoshiaki is a brand of tools, there is no YOSHIAKI factory or YOSHIAKI lab. Everybody can come up with a brand and put on bonsai tools…..Larry Leone did it when he used to have DreamsGardens. He use to have the Dreamsgarden tools, so what?
Please don’t take me wrong, Yoshiaki tools are very good and Mr.Yoshi is a very nice gentleman and I wish him all the best for his business. But it’s not the same league me and Masakuni the 3rd wants to play in.
To Smoke: nobody copies ICHIBAN, my Master doesn’t use Yoshiaki ( I guess even Tiger Woods underwear aren’t always Nike’s) and 3 different kind of carbon steels in one toll will make the cost of it way more than $50. Hopefully soon my Master will start to use ICHIBAN, I saved the N.1 for him and before the end of the year I will present him the real N.1 . So far Omachi, Suzuki, Iiura and Takashi are using ICHIBAN….
Some of the pots did lose their patina after a while, I know, but that’s maybe the reason why NEW Chinese pots are so cheap. I’m pretty sure it wont happen with a Tokoname. I could get ICHIBAN made in china BUT……….
To Shoin Kid: I heard someone complain about a Masakuni tool, his name is Marco Invernizzi, he was about 20 years old and he tried to cut a very thick piece of copper wire with the medium size wirecutter and it simply split the head in 2 pieces. Marco was very angry……but then Marco realized that the abused the tool. So he finally shoot his big trap once for all.
ICHIBAN is not a bonsai tool, is an instrument which comes with instruction. If someone want to use it and get all the benefit from it, then they have to learn how to use it, that’s all. It’s like another millions things in everybody’s life, it’s just that it’s never been for bonsai tools…ops! Instruments!
To Attila Soos: Thank you very much for supporting my dear friend and good manager Jim Gremel and thank you soo much for buying the pots that I found in China for him. Aren’t they amazing? God bless Jim Gremel, I miss him soo much!
To Will Heath: tante grazie!! Respect!
Jason G: bro show everybody how good your girls look with an ICHIBAN HAT on!!! That's fashion!
Thank you for reading my very first post in a bonsai blog. I promise the next one will be not as Italian as this one. Happy Summer Everybody
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