John A Stuart

He was one messed up person, many demons to overcome and didn't. John

It looks just fine the way it is. John

Maybe, 思天邪 'think no evil'. That is if it isn't 矢. John

Pics, pics and more pics. The best proof I can think of. Good luck. John

https://www.rubylane.com/item/1117255-A1846/Japanese-Vintage-Kyo-yaki-Kyoto-Pottery Helpful? John

Haaaa! Right up there with the giant pipe fights. John

Maybe a bad 守 John

Kinpunmei, difficult to suss out. John

That last kanji does seem to be tsugu. 貞次 John

Igami Sadahiro, I believe. It should be 井神 貞弘 however the last kanji is suspect. John

Maybe it is just as simple as being a souvenir, like the wooden nickel of Chicago's world fair. John

Remember Kannon is Guan Yin who was based on Avalokitasvara a male god in this creator deity form. There is some slippage of male and female here, so kind of androgynous often. John

Ken it is conjecture on my part, but, there were no wooden koban used for commercial trade. That it is funeral money seems the only explanation and why they were painted gold. The ritual is still done using faux paper currency and paper cars and houses etc. then burned for use in the afterlife. The only thing that distresses me is the metal fukurin. I could be in error just as easily. John

Koban were gold coins. These look like funeral money, wooden copies of koban, to burn, Koden. John

I am inwardly smiling at 'cheap opinion'. Free is cheap indeed. Haaaa! John

I think to differentiate between his grandfather Sadakazu he is Sadaichi. His father was Sadakatsu. Most of his swords were not even made using Sadaichi anyway. John

Brass was used in the early 5th century BC in China and were widely used in central Asia by the 2nd and 3rd century BCE and the Roman empire circa 200 BCE and was in large supply in China long before distillation smelting of zinc became possible. Copper and zinc ores smelted together were the source of early brasses. The zinc reacted with the copper and was not lost. The fact is the smelting of free metal zinc was discovered long after the smelting technology of brass an alloy of copper and zinc. We know there was a relationship between China and Japan (Han and Yamato) in the1st century CE and much to and fro trade during the Tang, why not brass alloys? John

Nice idea. Are you using glass or polycarbonate? Pine as your secondary wood? Stain and oil finish? John

Both have an odd shaped hitsu; I wonder why. John

Soshu ju Hiromasa 廣正 John

Neat. Solved. John

Morishige? 盛龍 John Could be Moritatsu I guess, you may be right John.

I finally dug out the tsuba pictured above and viewed it under light through a loupe. By golly, very very fine hatching contiguous with the gold applique. It must have been very thin gold leaf pressed as it, (from wear?, intentionally?), has no thickness to it. Another thing I saw was that the hatching was only in the areas where gold appears, no worn, completely bald hatching observed anywhere else. John

I am not sure of the first name, but, maybe 道向兼茂 Michimuko Kaneshige. John

Thank you too. John