kissakai

Any chance of seeing these items?

Hi I have seen a couple of posts 'Show us your best ........ Looking at a post about an eBay purchase a couple of days ago I wondered if members were willing to: Show us your best Nihonto eBay purchase? Years ago there were good bargains to be purchased on eBay but now you have to be so careful Bearing this in mind would you only show items bought in the last five years I'll start with these two tsuba I've added as much info as I know including the price Other members may not wish to display the price so it need not be shown None of us are looking for favourable comments it's just that I like to see good Nihonto items Fist shape: bougnt in 2015 by Kunisaku (Aizu in Iwasiro) ref: H03648 from Hintendo. Cost £282/$350 Karigane: bought in 2013 school is Umetada or Owari, dated around 1750 also from Hintendo. Cost £82/$105 As an aside by friend was very excited about buying a katana on eBay as he was into martial arts I asked to see it when it arrived but he kept putting me off - strange One night after a few beers he embarrassing told me it was a small letter opener - he hadn't noticed the size!!!!!!!!! Grev UK

Oops Just notice I cut and pasted the image used on the last line so that's why it is missing from the example sheet

]Hi I was thinking about what Grey said about using written rather than printed kanji This image shows the differences betwen the two and using the Jisho web page as it shows the correct method to write the various kanji I will do about ten cards using the most common kanji - I can try to memorise them but also using the above web page also practice the method of writing them With only concentrating on a few kanji I will look into using Markus's book to learn the mysterious Sosho script at the same time One day I may even remember some!!!!!!!

Oops Must wait until I have my first coffee before I answer Sorry for the misdirection

Hi I have one of these for sale on this message board If you have a look it will give you some more on this smith info and you can check the mei etc If I remember correctly I have some how manage to 'mirror' the mei http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/20811-not-a-massive-sword-sale/

Hi Grey I think your cards are great but when I previously tried to buy a set you didn't have any stock left and I agree using written kanji is better than being printed I would recommend buying your kanji set but unless I'm looking at your listing incorrectly they are out of stock In reply to probability I only showed the top of the list (most common) as it 410 lines long This is the bottom of the list of the 410 kanji 頭 0.2% 鳳 0.2% 鶴 0.2% 鹿 0.2% There are well over 100 kanji that only appear once in any mei Probability just means that I could learn 100 kanji that will be in 97% of every mei or I could learn 100 kanji that only appear in 1% of the mei I just wanted to learn the most common As some of you know I've only been collecting for around three years whereas there are loads of NMB members with many years of looking at kanji For me this becomes a learning aid

Hi There are radicals in my first spreadsheet http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/15259-the-haynes-index-transcribed/?hl=haynes&do=findComment&comment=184082 When I originally saw the kanji flash cards they had sold out I think the big help (to me anyway) is the use of probability This is the start of the probability list of a kanji appearing in a mei: Kanji % 光 77.8% 一 62.7% 乗 59.3% 寿 44.1% 正 42.4% 政 31.5% 長 22.9% 宗 22.0% 義 22.0% 友 20.7% 直 20.2% 随 19.5% 常 18.5% 山 17.1% 忠 17.1% 清 17.1% 重 16.8% 次 16.6%

Hi In a previous post someone said his magic power was reading Japanese and I’m sure there were many jealous of this ability As I can not read Japanese my target was to put any translations on to a spreadsheet so it would help as I didn'y have this magic power. Last year I made available the Haynes and Wakayama in spreadsheet form and I am just about make Haynes, Wakayama and the Kinko Meikan also available in a spreadsheet but with additional functions but more about that in another post Last week I visited Bletchley Park which was home to the ‘code breakers’ during WWII I realised that it was not just a number crunching exercise but more about reducing the possible variations to probable variations. In one of the cabinets was a card index showing individual kanji cards as the code breakers had to deal with many languages I tried to apply some of this logic to translating mei and creating my own Index Using the Wakayama spreadsheet I can create index cards with the kanji and their translations. I intend to have two indexed sets: The first set in the number of strokes The second set in order of the probability of a kanji appearing in a mei Assuming my image is clear enough to read you can see where I am going and I welcome your comments.

Thanks for the replies Can anyone give me a translation (the main parts) on the papered tsuba in the link?

WOW Nice reply So I wonder what they actually are and if they are two symbols or intentionally linked

Hi Bazza Maybe Turbo gets lucky

Hi Has anyone seen this shape on a tsuba? I thought it may be like the 'wobbly' toys but they tend to be ore like a gourd A few months ago Marius had what I called a micky mouse tsuba that had a single shape that was similar

Many thanks Steve I thought it to be a copy - When I google the mei it only showed tsuba much better than this one In Haynes Tamagawa Yoshihisa (H11642 - H11646) has multiple entries with the same kanji I've also looked in the Kinko Meikan and Wakayama and can not find a match Is there any information on Steve's link that may help pin it down to a particular maker? Grev

Hi Thierry That looks right to me - thanks I sure this is a basic tsuba that someone has 'added' a mei Is this the general consensus? The colour is a bit better than shown in the images

Hi I was trying to find this mei but it seems very vague The first kanju may be Tama but them the second one looks like Shu so that doesn't make sense Edit - I've just found the kanji for Tamagawa which may fit The last three kanji are too vague for me to guess at Any help would be appreciated

Oshigata would be nice but as an active OAP my hands are just not steady enough

Thanks for the help I have a DSLR but it is the lighting that is the kiler I'm sure I would need at least 4 lamps and some sort of diffusers and as I only have one sword to photograph it is not worth buying extra equipment

Yes T202 is a nice tsuba

Hi Many thanks to the NMB and its members who have made this post memorable Sorry to say it will be deleted next week I will bring everything up to date with some additional tsuba For anyone who wants a last look see the link below: http://www.militaria..._Grev_Cooke.pdf Before it goes if there is anything that interests I can come down on the price just a little

Hi Stephen It would be nice to see your image Just an enlarged section of the image to show the activity will be a great indicator After I posted I remembered that it was stated that a scanned image was better than a photo

Hi Is there anyone in the UK that can take full sized images of a katana or an oshigata? With having children about I don't have my katana on display so it would be nice to have a framed image I could display instead I do not want to ship my katana out of the UK

Hi On your third image in the first post I'm intreged about the tsuba Is it in two halves?

Hi Peter, It raises so many queries The interaction between the basket weave and keyfret patern Then the differing colours and the way the zig zag has been created I hope someone can put me out of my misery with some answers/ideas I hate to just drop it into the Shoami bucket It maybe just a very late tsuba created by someone who could!

Have you tried contacting the Ashmolian Museum?