kissakai

Learn something every day

This may help

I thought Yagyu style but I expected it to be heavier looking and a bit more squat Now I've just seen Bigs link so fool me once....

This one of the first times I saw Ford and his infamous meeting at his old house. He invited me down as a newbie collector and he liked some of things I’d said and posted on the NMB. Possibly along with his other 'victims' Justin and myself walked back to our digs absolutely hammered, what a night The following year I popped down to see Ford with over a hundred tsuba and he explained their good and bad points. What an experience! He repatinated around 8 of my tsuba and these are a couple of the reworks This was the most challenging. Reworked by Ford Hallam and Kevin Adams This tsuba posed a few interesting questions when it came to us, the first and foremost being the large patches of thick, black material on the front and back. It was almost certainly a fire scale, and it took quite some time to remove – Ford suggested that the piece may have been in house fire, accounting for the thickness and randomness of the coverage. After a test patina, the inlaid elements were found to be more sophisticated than first thought. The monkey's face is a mixture of shibuichi and copper, with shakudo eyes. The implements are shakudo, and after polishing a portion of the rim we discovered that the copper has a lovely grain structure. However, the fire damage that produced the oxide layer affected the surface of the tsuba and created a "gritty" surface texture. We decided that it might be worth our while to polish the surface of the tsuba and apply a tsurikomi finish to the plate. Patinating the piece went more or less as expected, although we had some challenges getting the grey colour to patinate properly – most likely happened is whatever caused that black oxide layer also affected the top layers of the shibuichi and leached out the silver. All in all, a piece with an interesting story behind it. These were a couple he particularly liked This one was his favourite and was the best example of mokume work he had seen and it was used as his screen saver for a few months. I felt so proud! Finally, two of his early tsuba from the Birmingham museum. Who knew that from these early tsuba he would produce such stunning works of art I’ll let this post speak for it’s self Grev

Exactly my thoughts A NMB member will be sending me some images when he gets the time

I have bought 499 over the last 12 years Sold some and I'm just starting to cull the collection

The image is too small for any assessment

I just posted about this book so now I feel gutted. I'll try and deleted it

I use decorative metalwork - works for me

There you go

74 and collecting just over 10 years

I'll look forward to some other opinions More complex than I thought

Jean - I'd forgotten about Mitsuyuki - I blame my age! I still wonder why there is smiths names on both sides

I put this on the NMB a few weeks ago Front mei School: Sekijoken Signature: Sekiryūsai 赤龍哉 - Haynes Index = H11188.0 (Yasumitsu) Front I forgot to ask about this mei on the reverse of the tsuba Also I wonder why it has another smith on the back Rear

I looked for the widest tsuba in my book and it is Myochin = 7.9mm No where near yours but may be of interest

I purchase a daishi tsuba set from Japan and the dealer asked if I wanted to submit it for papers which I did The papers said Owari Daisho so a good result If in doubt do it whilst in Japan, so much cheaper than deciding to do it at a later date

In the Birmingham museum some of the labels/descriptions had got mixed up "All the right notes but not necessarily in the right order"

That is interesting Mine is quite different and quite a bit later but the cross hatching is very similar

I wish my first three tsuba were as good as yours Obviously you have a good eye so keep up the standard you have set yourself

I see it now - a bit like the magic eye pictures

I did think about a court hat but is that a katana and whip in the background. I'd like to see a close up of the 'mask' area and the leaves using two images. This may then suggest a link between all the designs

Obviously keep your eye on the NMB Even better if seller is in the same area as you

I looked at the Nihonto Info page and didn't find it very helpful. A beginners version would be more helpful

So it looks like general supplier

I've shown this one before. It is one of Manuel's tsuba to my specification As always it's better in hand