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Showing content with the highest reputation on 12/27/2021 in all areas

  1. Wow! There are some really great tsuba in this thread. Scrolled up and down, up and down trying to pick a favorite. Can't settle on just one. I only picked up a few this year, a nice Soten, an Akasaka Tadashige made at age 73 and a Tokuho Kanayama.
    4 points
  2. Here are a few I picked up (all from Yahoo.jp), in no particular order. These three are Higo, Satsuma koshirae and Umetada.
    3 points
  3. Our fifth Katchū is on the road for our members. Enjoy!
    3 points
  4. A couple of pieces amongst this years acquisitions , due to be posted on the long running thread ' A Series of fittings ' towards the end of next year - I should add that 2021 has been a very busy year , purchase wise , by my standards . Seem to have got hold of a number of reasonable quality fittings , but more by luck than judgement. First Tsuba Iron sukashi - Akasaka 5th generation NBTHK papered - subject Hikiryo Mon & Kiri
    3 points
  5. G'day Guys, Here is an early type 98 with an unusually long tsuka and dome head hanger. The beautiful shinshinto blade is by the Nidai Bizen Yokoyama Sukenaga and has a nagasa of 68.3cm. Cheers, Bryce
    2 points
  6. Calimero, these all appear to be fine tsuba and most of us would gladly have them in our collections. You have done very well. I presume that you have had some guidance, some luck or both in getting these great pieces!
    2 points
  7. Second Tsuba - in Shakudo , Ishiyama Mototada , NBTHK papered , subject of Male and Female tigers
    2 points
  8. My father past away 18moths ago. I have his Sword which he has had since I can remember as a little boy 40+ years ago. I just want to get as much information about it as possible. Thank you all in advance for your help Regards Matt
    1 point
  9. Thank you very much Thomas @Iekatsu. You've answered all the major questions I had. I was especially dubious of the menpo attribution and I thought the kamon looked to be a later addition. I too was surprised by the lack of contemporary origami. With your advice in mind, I'll not jump on this suit and instead take a few months to explore.
    1 point
  10. Mark, The armour itself appears to be complete matching set, the finishes and fittings are decent, but not the highest quality and the condition of the various components is pretty good overall. I would treat the kamon as later additions, always buy the armour not the story. If you have any specific questions feel free to ask. I would not trust the attribution papers, the Myochin are well known for making inaccurate attributions and stretching the truth, both the kabuto and Menpo do not reflect their attributions in my opinion. All that being said, the papers were respected and taken very seriously at the time they were issued, they appear to be inline with period of manufacture and add credible provenance to the armour. If the armour was submitted for papers it would likely pass without any issues, at the price point I am a little surprised it is not already papered. 10,000,000 JPY is a lot of money and there are a lot of options at this price point, it might be worth shopping around and reaching out to some other dealers to see what is available. I hope this helps.
    1 point
  11. I'm going to hazard a guess, looking at beautiful swords from this smith, that whatever original sword that once was in this saya, is long gone and replaced with the one pictured.
    1 point
  12. Hi @Kiipu thank you--fascinating! Here are the photos.
    1 point
  13. I gave that Gunto to my brother as a gift. He collects everything from The French and Indian war thru WW2. That was his first Gunto. He then ups me up by giving me a Harpers Ferry model 1855 percussion musket and a Rare Hitler Youth knife along with some French and Indian war stuff. He now is hooked on Nihonto ☺️
    1 point
  14. If you haven't read the article on these, it can be found here: I have one because I feel they are the "book-end" to Japanese war swords, meaning, the last swords made by Japan for war. There is a chance that some of the blades were surplus, made for war but never used. So, in that regard, some of them likely carry the last blades made for WWII. I think most of them were made after the war, but that's speculation. They usually have nice, stainless steel blades. The fittings, in hand, are fairly light-weight, and while they look good, are somewhat cheaply made compared to the war fittings. All in all, I'm glad I own one. They tend to sell in the $400-500 USD range. Any sold higher than that are due to the buyers (and sellers) thinking they are kaigunto.
    1 point
  15. 1 point
  16. Can’t make out from your photo but my Masatsugu had small, tightly packed choji hamon. A really nice sword. (My oshigata attached). Mal Cox, forum member here, wrote a great article about this smith which you can access from the archives here. https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/files/file/51-taguchi-kiichi-masatsugu-hakuryushi-tadataka/?do=download&csrfKey=ebdaa3536536cc1f901337c962aae165
    1 point
  17. Two more, from the same Koshirae maker. Both early Type 94 pattern:
    1 point
  18. You were right that the mei didn't match the Mantetsu, good call! You've got, what is likely to be, a really nice traditionally made blade by an RJT smith. I only have 3 star-stamped blades on file dated earlier than this, so it's cool to own one made so early in the RJT program. The stamps are the "Na" of Nagoya Army Aresenal and the "Ho" of Kokura Army Arsenal's 1st Factory inspector. Here's the page on him from Slough:
    1 point
  19. Yes has uchizori. Btw additional note: I had habaki verified because I thought it looked solid gold. The scratches had gold all the way thru and inside habaki was gold with no copper showing thru. I did a water displacement test to verify density- jeweler verified it for me. At least someone thought it was worth the expense to fit it with a decent habaki. Seems like the consensus for many here is it’s a muromachi or late made blade. At least the habaki is worth more than the blade I would guess
    1 point
  20. Like others, I'm guessing it might read KINAI SAKU?? BaZZa.
    1 point
  21. 1 point
  22. This appears to be a WWII era blade in type 3 koshirae signed Kaneyoshi. http://ohmura-study.net/952.html
    1 point
  23. Victor, just guessing, it is a hand made sword from 75-300 years old. The problem of course is that it has fatal flaws and there is no value or reason to spend money to restore it. The cutting edge has been damaged so badly that the entire hamon is likely lost in those places. In addition, the pits are so deep in many places that a polisher would have to polish it down to the size of a toothpick to get a natural shape out of it. If this is your first sword, don't spend any money on it and save it as an example of how far you will go in sword collecting in the future.
    1 point
  24. Looks very nice ....great score. From what I know the star stamp indicates it is a traditionally made blade. Hizen Kuni Masa ....... not sure about the last character ....Yuki ? When Bruce see's this he will have a way better idea.
    1 point
  25. Mid Muromachi tanto. Regarding the school, it would difficult to be precise. For example, Ryokai. Nobukuni. Bungo. etc. etc.
    1 point
  26. Here are two of the tsuba added to my collection this year, both depict shishi and peonies. The two tsuba were probably made about 200 years apart and show differing aspects of the subject. Shishi are mythical guardian animals in both China and Japan and the peony is regarded in Japan as the king of flowers and symbolises bravery, honour and good fortune. Consequently the two are often depicted on tsuba together. The first is a shakudo tsuba, signed Masanaga, plus kao, with a pair of shishi on the omote and a peony on the ura. The tsuba was catalogued as Haynes Index no. H 04250, which identifies the artist as Chosuke Masanaga (d. ca 1700), who was a student of Nara Toshinaga (Markus Sesko) or Ito Masatsugu (Haynes). However, there were two generations of Masanaga in the Nara School and both used the same kanji for their signatures. The first generation, Seiroku, was a student of Toshinaga (either the 3rd generation master of the Nara School or a student of the same name). His (adopted?) son was Gihachi Masachika, who signed Masanaga for a while after his father’s death and was from the Kawakatsu family and a nephew of Sugiura Joi. The Nara tsuba artist Gohachi Masachika may have been an alternative name used by either of the other two Masanaga (see gen chart). Consequently, there is some uncertainty as to the identity of the artist who made this tsuba (assuming, as always, the signature is genuine). Specification: Height: 7.6 cm, Width: 7.4 cm, Thickness (rim): 0.4 cm, Weight: 216 g This tsuba was purchased by Edward Wrangham from the Roland Hartman Collection of Japanese Metalwork (Christies, 30 June 1976, Lot 130). I was told by the late collector and friend, Sidney Divers, in about 1976 ‘Start collecting tsuba. They will soar in price.’ In 45 years this one barely doubled. The second, a copper tsuba, is a radically different interpretation of the same theme and was made by a modern artist, Yanagawa Morihira (1899-1971). Apparently Ichiyushi/Shinryuseki/Shinryoso) Morihira was a Tokyo artist. From the age of 14 he studied with Yoshioka Mitsushige (who died 14 September, 1923, in the Great Kanto Earthquake). He then studied with Toyokawa Mitsunaga (second generation) and took the name Mitsuo until he established himself. The front (omote) of the tsuba shows both a shishi and peonies, whereas the reverse (ura) only shows the shishi. Interestingly, the shishi on the omote has a silver body and a golden mane and tail, whereas the combination of silver and gold is reversed on the ura. The heads on both animals is copper. Shishi are often represented as playful creatures, but these two are muscular with a fearsome pose and the silver shishi has a head which looks rather like Hannya, the Japanese female demon. The engraved peonies on the omote are coloured with silver and gold gilding and the petals are in a darker shade of silver. The gold and silver seem to be painted on, i.e. amalgam. The outlines are defined in katakiribori (half cut carving) and kebori (hair carving) and, particularly the silver, darkened to add extra tonality to the design. The nagako ana has four 32(?)-petalled chrysanthemum punch marks on each side, purely for decoration. There is also a single kozuka hitsu ana, filled with a gilt cat scratched plug. Shishi is also the name given to a group of political activists (Ishin Shishi 維新志士) in the late Edo period who opposed the westernisation of Japan. I think that it is likely that this tsuba was made in the 1930’s when Japanese militarism was at its peak, which is probably why I got it below estimate. Specification: Height: 8.75 cm, Width: 8.4 cm, Thickness (rim): 0.7 cm; Nakago: 0.4 cm, Weight: 254 g A very similar tsuba to this, in terms of technique, by Morihira is currently for sale by Aoi-Art (https://www.aoijapan.com/tsuba-morihira-sinryuseki/). I bought this tsuba in memory of my nephew, Gary, who died a few weeks before this tsuba originally came up for sale in 2020. It was unsold and came up again at the next auction (2021) when I decided to buy it. I would not normally have purchased this tsuba but Gary was an extrovert party guy whose group of girlfriends gave him the nickname Simba. This over the top depiction of shishi will always remind me of Gary. All the best for 2022, John
    1 point
  27. Didn't really get much in 2021 generally speaking it has been a hard year. Here is my only memorable purchase from 2021 per Richard's request. A middle Edo Period Yagyū Tsuba. More information can be found on my website about this tsuba: Tsuba Gallery #4 | Tsuba Otaku. It is the second tsuba from the top on the webpage.
    1 point
  28. Looks like Masahisa saku
    1 point
  29. 宗近 or possibly 宝近 for starts.
    1 point
  30. Calimero, nice tsuba, I like them all. If one pictures oneself at the bottom of a very, very deep well in Germany and one looks up to the sky and cannot see it, the study of sword fittings is as deep as this metaphor. It is hardly possible to 'surface skim' as your perceptive questions suggest. But do keep at it for it might become attractive enough for you to transfer allegiance from your other very time consuming interest!! BTW, Germany has some very famous tsuba collectors in past history. Best regards, Barry Thomas. (Melbourne, Australia)
    1 point
  31. KANEMICHI? Tachimei. Need more photos to be helpful. BaZZa.
    1 point
  32. It was a busy year with not much time for Tosogu, but I came away with 3 or 4 things that I will enjoy for a while. I do not currently have photos of the ko-goto kogai, but it came from a friend... as most of my pieces seem to do these days.
    1 point
  33. continuing.... 6. Really Nice Kyou sukashi: 7. Mokume and made by a swordsmith: 8.sadahiro 9. old kagamishi 10. I don't know what it is (probably myouchin I'd guess), but I like it: rkg (Richard George)
    1 point
  34. Thought I would consolidate some mon being discussed on 2 or 3 other threads, having to do with stars. And please correct me if one or more of these are something else, but there are some mon having to do with 5 stars, 7 stars, etc on habaki and even a kaigunto tsuba. Here they are: This one posted by Gareth, @Butch: This one posted by Rob, @robinalexander: And this one by David, @m4l700:
    1 point
  35. Personal opinion. Grip bindings, "tsuka Ito" were often done by teen schoolgirls in a factory. I suspect markings to help with the job, for untrained lasses working to a deadline.... or even a post war repair. (I am not an expert, I am a geek). I will make a post with all my trashed tsuka at some time if requested.
    1 point
  36. I definitely like the second one! Please make sure to inform him to avoid handling the blades with bare skin! Use some kind of soft soft for a few reasons: less risk of being cut and no skin oils on the metal (it destroys the metal). Could we get some pictures of the nakago of this second one?
    1 point
  37. The first piece, with the dragon, is signed ‘Sunagawa Masayoshi’ (砂川正吉), who was active during the late Edo period. The second tsuba is signed ‘Kōshū Hikone-jū Sōheishi Nyūdō Sōten sei ’ (江刕彦根住藻柄子入道宗典製), which was used by a group of artist from mid to late Edo.
    1 point
  38. Not Kamakura .......middle to late Muromachi period......just my two Cent.
    1 point
  39. Brian is correct. If you buy a legally registered blade or a gun, you see written on the back of the registration card a set of conditions among which it states clearly that you must send off notice of ownership to the Education Authority in your area ‘within 20 days’. (Just checked) PS It is true that many do not follow this rule, but the penalties are there in principle and under the invisible threat most people feel slightly pressured to comply.
    1 point
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