Marius

One of our members has a rather interesting omi-yari to sell. I am not making any comments on the asking price, it may be very low or very high, you can't tell with the photos. But the nagasa is awesome. And so is the broom http://www.ebay.com/itm/Japanese-sword- ... 586wt_1398

Sorry Gents, I miss a conclusion regarding storage of urushi coated items in paulownia boxes... Forgive me if I am too insistent, but I have a beautiful tanto koshirae and a paulownia box (scroll box) and the two fit ideally.

and what about the koshigatana?

Gents, do you think one could store urushi koshirae in a paulownia box?

Yes. Chinese?

I go with Thierry. It is sanmai. Not the best quality, to put it mildly... The topic? Hard to say.... Waves, leaping man, three unidentified objects...

This "signature" was in the mold, it is cast, too. Sorry.

Kim, sorry to say that - looks "made in China, yesterday". Cast piece, and a very bad casting, too.

Henry, excellent examples, thank you :-) I rest my case. It could be well Momoyama/early Edo.

OK, let us adopt a more leisurely approach to tekkotsu - "iron bones" are lumps or streaks of iron projecting from the rim and the plate (of a tsuba), and while we do not know exactly what they are made of (high carbon or low carbon iron) some of us like them a lot. Christian, I love this pic This little guy looks like he could know what tekkotsu is

Ford, thanks for this critical comments on Andy's article - it surely contributes to my learning But I fear, that we might have strayed somewhat from the topic, even though the tekkotsu discussion is relevant to some degree....

Why not? There is an intersting article by Andy M. on tekkotsu (among other things) in Momoyama armour and tsuba: * link dead * I am sure most of you have read it already, if not, here it is

Henry, I beg to differ... This tsuba depicts a utensil needed for infusing tea (most likely sencha). As the sencha ceremony was really introduced in the 18th century, I can hardly believe that this tsuba is earlier than that. The Yamabusiantiques.com tsuba that you refer to, is indeed Momoyama and depicts a glazed mizusashi, quite essential for chanoyu.

Dimitri, this effect is due to different angles and the reflection of light from them. As to the re-tempering of a part of a sword, read here (it is called yaki-tsugi): http://www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/flaws.html Determining if the sword is a koto or shinto with boshi as one of the criteria: boshi on koto follows the hamon, ie. if the hamon is irregular, so will be the boshi. In the case of sugu hamon the boshi will have no irregularities (except hakikake etc. in some cases). But this is just one of quite a few rules of the thumb. Do you have Nagayama's book?

If you have only pictures, it might be a purely optical effect. Look at the attached picture - it seems we have a reverse situation here, but that is just an illusion - in reality the boshi is a continuation of the hamon.

Are you sure you see the boshi, not the effects of a lousy kesho polish?

John, thanks :-) This tsuba has tiny remnants of red lacquer also on the other side, so would this here be the signature of the person making an attribution?

Well, John's post on shumei has reminded me, that I also have a tsuba with shumei. Can anyone make something of it? Thanks for your time

Ed, good tsuba are quite rare on assembled mountings I have recently bought a Tadahiro wakizashi and the "tsuba" was cast iron, despite the koshirae being quite decent.

Weird hamon, possibly amateur quenching work on spring steel.

I had the same feeling, I just didin't want to say this dreaded word

Ed, Q68 looks like a shiiremono. Q65 I would look into Choshu, but this is not quality work, either, I am afraid.

Dear Ed, thanks for this explanation. Keep them coming :-)

Dear Ed, having posted your umpieth blade/kodogu, I think it is about time you make clear what the purpose of this exercise is. Are you a collector who has found a treasure trove of nihonto and needs help to get attributions for his newly acquired pieces, a museum curator, or are you a newbie dealer who wants to make money? Please forgive me this somewhat undiplomatic question, but you will surely understand that you owe some explanation to those members who generously spend their time to share their knowledge (I am not talking about myself here). No offence intended.

I think we just...