Teimei

Hi Peter, maybe some kind of fire damage / corrosion problem in the past?

Hi Mark, that was actually my first "real" tsuba i ever bought.

Hi folks, after the regular semi-annual oiling session (of my nihonto), i decided to invest some time on my day off and revisit every piece of my collection. After observing them using different lightsources (sunlight, LED) i also tried to shoot some good pictures. Which went okay with the tsuba... and horrible with the blades. Especially the photographing part was interesting, because i was able to see a lot of activities in the blades and texture details of the tsuba. I learned a lot of new things about my own collection, even from pieces i owned for over 10 years and my passion for the hobby got quite a boost again. So the morale of the story is, take your time appreciating what interests you, even when life gets in the way a lot. Here are some of the pictures that came out okay:

Mist?

1. Gassan Sadakazu 2. Masamune 3. Koyama Munetsugu

My examples: 3rd generation would be my guess, with a book theme and a very nice executed mei both 1st or 2nd generation with quite worn mei

Hi Jean, in my opinion the cruder the mei, the older the piece. Also older pieces tend to have a coarse or grainy plate (could also be considered as surface damage over time). There were 2-3 generations, working from 1650-1750. regards,

Jurojin Menuki are sold!

So true. Some times they just guess.

Up

Hi Grev, as a librarian, those index card cabinets trigger me extremely. Very nice collection and good luck trying to find out how many are enough ! regards,