jason_mazzy

I quite like the tsubas. My friend found it at an estate. was curious about it. is it possible to translate the papers behind the tsuba?

Does this look real?

oh my. here are the other pics.

What does it translate to?

What is this signature? Edit* back to original post.

I found some nihonto I am very interested in but the fellow won't ship. so I am looking to see if someone lives nearby who will ship to me for a fee.

please put your name in the signature line per the rules. And welcome.

hitendo posts nice stuff also. most is out of my price range.

Here is a link to 30+ pictures of this tsuba http://s262.photobucket.com/albums/ii82 ... /Japanese/ and a few pages of other fittings I have

the nakago is why I was thinking reshaped naginata. so much like the blade.

Can we get more pictures of the blade? different angles and any activity you see please. reshaped tachi or very large naginata?

Thank you. It does indeed appear to be a sanmai tsuba.

To explain better I mean a solid plate of one metal covered with a different metal on top (kind of wrapped or fused) that is carved and inlayed, with a rim of an entirely different metal. So in this case 3 different metals. 1 as the core plate, 1 as a outershell to decorate, and 1 as a rim.

yes I think a stiff horse hair painting brush would probably be best. I have found that the nylon in toothbrushes seems to harm the gold if it is gilted.

I think he does ebay also.

I seen a tsuba very close to that one recently and many swords that shape. perhaps they were 2 different auctions. I did not remember the tsuba looking as good as yours either. Maybe just a coincidence. the blade does look in those pictures like it would shine with a polish. what have you been able to learn from that one?

yes distilled water.

Was this on Ebay a lil while back? I was looking at one almost identical to this, with the same tsuba. I am just not a big fan of that shape of wak. but I remember finding this one very interesting.

I'm just nervous about the brush as I have had it remove gold and scratch patina before

The only way around this type of bid is to place your first and final price bid (just 1 bid) in the last 2 seconds. The hard part is inevitibly some other person will probably bid before you allowing the proxy automated bidder to bid first.

And in person they are 10 times better than these pictures: ' My question is what is the best way to clean these? I do not want to disturb the soft medal or patina, but I do not like this discolored (greenish yellow film) places around the birds. Boiling in distilled water seems to be pretty safe for removing grime without hurting patina. But since there are some experts here I thought I would ask.

Are you telling the story of the samurai? or are you telling the story of the transendence of the samurai to the mythical god like people they are portrayed as today?

I would love to see the swords.

Thank you jean and I agree. I have been looking carefully at the nakago, and have noticed even on Japanese made blades you will see a wavier nakago, the blade is usually less quality. This nakago I had seen is on a blade 3 hours from me, which is surprisingly closer than most blades I get to see lol. There was alot of signature so I was quite curious to what it said, because The blade pictures were bad I didn't want to drive up all that way for a cheap poorly made gunto, hence I asked here. Then when I got the translation I was curious because he was a ranked chu saku I believe ww2 nihonto smith. I found that interesting. And though gunto and gendai are not my thing, a rated smith for the time could be historical, and I always love history. Chris. The nakago work looked pretty nice to me. from the low quality pictures I noticed that it was very straight and had nice shape. Unfortunately the guy who has it decided that removing the rust on one side so you could see the signature in the pics was a good thing. Now if this blade had been signed by some great shinto smith, I would have snatched it up for the $200 and hoped a polisher could restore it. At the end of the day $200 isn't alot but I am not sure I want to drive 3.5 hours to look at it if it is just gunto, but then again if it is forged by a traditional smith $200 wouldn't be bad either.

Thank you Koichi Moriyama san. I googled this name and pulled up nothing. edit: I did find takeyama yoshinao (without the noshu ju part) referenced in a list of traditional smiths: the following swordsmiths are listed in either the Nihonto Meikan, Tosho Zenshu or John Slough's An Oshigata Book of Modern Japanese Swordsmiths 1868-1945 and a ranking chart of ww2 smith's