Brian

Welcome, glad to have you aboard

@Peter Bleed

Here's what you tend to do Dan. You throw out some vague theory on a random tsuba, you make some unwarranted claim. Then when people dispute it and don't agree, you go "Well, prove I'm wrong. Unless we send it for testing, I guess we'll never know" and claim the "mystery" is unsolved. Except there is no mystery, aside from your throwing out a theory on that particular tsuba. No-one sees a cast tsuba there. But because you make a claim, it's up to us to prove it wrong? Simple fact...anything that can be done, will have been done at some point by someone. That's why you find swords with bizarre shapes and styles sometimes. There are always smiths who want to play with something new. No doubt there is someone or some small group out there that wanted to see if they could cast tsuba way back. However, using that as proof that cast tsuba were routinely done way back hundreds of years, and that the Japanese just mysteriously forgot to document it in their thousands of books is naive at best. We have books and manuscripts and documents from hundreds of years ago. You think they all got together to invent a conspiracy and hide the info? But you've gone beyond simply trying to find proof of cast tsuba. Now you just take random items posted by people, see what you want, and start a discussion around how that proves your theory. Forgetting that the item itself hasn't been determined to be cast, you act like it has been, and then proceed to use it as proof of your theory. The West isn't going to make some brand new discovery around Nihonto that the Japanese themselves haven't already investigated decades ago. But I think you're determined to somehow "leave your mark" and make some revelation that no-one else thought of. Throwing out theories about posted pics isn't going to do that. And it confuses the heck out of newcomers who come here to learn established facts.

Has the nakago been cleaned?

Check it now, should be sorted?

Agree with everything Ray said. Odd and consistent how they get these flat, lifeless hamon (acid enhanced) with zero activity or anything else showing.

Soren, gratefully received, along with Justyn's generous donation/purchase. Soren, that really is kind of you. Thanks again to the 3 of you. Thanks for this Marius. Have also extended your Gold membership

Welcome. I think you'll find the NYTK has some great and advanced members, and they would welcome the chance to assist the new generation coming into this hobby. We have quite a few NY members, and you are lucky to have Markus at the Met, as well as some awesome collections. Enjoy the ride!

Yeah, you are completely wrong. It's very obvious. Also, you need to learn the difference between hammer marks and "casting pits" which are not present on this tsuba. You also seem to think that designs of tsuba weren't spread across multiple traditions, schools and eras. How are you going to compare a tsuba with a completely different one, like they are supposed to be the same? You also don't seem to know much about tagane and semigane.

Just go with it....the usual throwing out some wild theory and then saying "prove it isn't"

Thank you both Marius and Jesta! Greatly appreciated. And a nice tsuba to boot.

Nihontomessageboard.com redirects to militaria.co.za There were some dns changes last week, Monday is a public holiday so I'll get it sorted on Tuesday and see why the redirect stopped working.

Think this could easily be Ainu. In fact, based on your link https://www.proantic.com/en/994063-rare-japanese-ainu-sword.html I think it is highly likely.

This is not cast, and your "discrepancies" are nothing to do with casting. Just looking at it carefully will show there are no signs of casting.

Signature of the polisher. Not very common, but not too unusual.

Hada and hamon, and a smith signature. I would be pretty confident in it being from tamahagane

https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/ Make sure there is nothing after that...it will be cookies etc etc etc. Delete anything after the /nmb

It's a Chinese fake unfortunately. The signatures are going to be pretty meaningless

Because they are selling the fittings only, and that is how fitting are displayed, with a wooden dummy blade called a tsunagi.

Even without the icon (there are a bunch that can be added, but don't want the toolbar to be too cluttered) you can still use standard forum code to use functions https://forums.freebsd.org/help/bb-codes/

From my side, I'll also give the winner a year Gold membership as another bonus. If the winner is already a Gold member, will extend that membership by another year.

Marius, a lot of thanks go to you too. A firm NMB supporter for many, many years.

I own many very good quality Keris. They are hardly termed "fighting knives" although they could be used as such. But the hilts on them were not designed to be free rotating. The rotation comes from a loose fit, or incorrect fitting. They are usually fairly firmly fitted. Not sure why you think the asymmetrical grind is so relevant here. It's not made to any traditional pattern, and I still see a tourist market product here. The handle is small industrial production, on a lathe. Likely a small operation. None of this points to anything aside from small scale production in a small factory shop. I am not sure if you know the huge knife market coming out of Japan in the 70's onwards. Literally tens of thousands of knives being made for the Western market. Boot knives and fighting knives were prevalent. This could have been made at any time, except wartime. I think you're overthinking cultural and political influences on this. As you well know, collecting African and Eastern edged weapons, the market is flooded with various designs that are not 100% traditional, for the ever growing tourist market. The fact that no similar knives are known to militaria collectors anywhere, shows that this was small scale or tiny factory production not made for combat use. I still suspect this is a reshaped blade from a larger piece, that has been repurposed into something tactical. But likely we will never know. Perhaps post it on Viking Swords or Bladeforums and ask Bernard Levine too.

The "Shangahi Dagger" was the precursor to the FS, and is entirely unlike this item. The 'X-Dagger' is well researched and completely different. There is no relation between them. I see no reason to assume this is wartime production for many reasons. There is no record of any Japanese factories making fighting knives for anyone during that time. I come across boxes of assorted knives with various shapes, sizes and non-standard features in my knife dealings. The country of origin markings don't apply to any of them, since they were never commercial imports, but picked up in native markets and brought back by people visiting the East. I suspect you'll find stuff like this in the markets of many countries if you had visited way back. The hilt is a simple turned one, easy to make, and likely done in a small factory turning out souvenirs. No serious fighting knife would have the handle able to turn in the hand. And a wartime made item is unlikely to have had a factory stamp, and to supply whom? Philippines production is possible. So is Thailand, Malaysia etc. Why it has a Japanese stamp, I do not know. As mentioned, could easily be a 1950's Japanese made knife for small scale distribution to tourists or visitors. Or a repurposed blade for something reshaped and fitted with that hilt. Another possibility is Brazilian manufacture...it resembles some of the hilts on knives from there made locally, and since there was a huge Japanese population, that could explain the markings.