15.5x13x4.5 Inch Yamaaki Oval Bonsai Pot #70 – Worm Eaten Texture, Unglazed, Chop & Nail Signed

The rim is the thing to look at here. Yamaaki called the technique mushikui, or worm-eaten, and it describes exactly what it looks like: a rough, irregular pattern worked along the rim and body as though something had been eating away at the clay for years. The unpredictability is the point. The potters were not simulating damage, they were simulating age. A bonsai is meant to read as old and weathered, and a brand new pot with a perfectly smooth rim works against that illusion. A rim that already looks like it has lived a long life lets the pot disappear into the story the tree is telling.

This piece carries both a chop and a hand-carved nail signature, and the difference between them is worth knowing. Every Yamaaki pot has a chop, a stamped mark that is identical across the kiln's output and tells you only that the pot came from Yamaaki. The nail signature is the other thing. It was scratched into the clay by hand with a pointed tool while the pot was still leather-hard, which means a specific artisan finished this pot personally rather than it simply coming off the line. Hand-signed pieces turn up across all three Kataoka generations, and they are the ones collectors actively seek out.

At 15.5 by 13 inches and 4.5 inches deep, this is a large oval with real soil volume behind it. Unglazed Tokoname clay is the convention for pines, junipers and trees with bark worth seeing, because the surface recedes rather than answering the foliage. The Kataokas also mixed sawdust into their clay body, which improved breathability and cut the weight. That detail matters more to the tree than to the person buying it, but it is the kind of decision that separates a Yamaaki piece from a mass-produced import.