sabi

The side in the first picture reminds me of a dharmachakra; the Buddhist wheel of law. However, that is always rendered with 8 spokes, not 6. The level of detail is stunning. I'm just grasping at straws in regard to the motif. Hopefully someone else knows for sure!

Completely agree. Not junk by any means. It's old-ish and authentic, what more could you ask for $30?? I can't even take my lady out for drinks for $30. This hobby should not and does not take a large amount of disposable income to enjoy.

Definitely a small tsuba but to my eyes it still looks unusually large. Measurements would be nice.

That's one big kogai! Not too much to go by with the pics provided but it's definitely not Muromachi. It appears to be real, the punch marks around the nakago ana look good and they're on the correct side. Doesn't appear to be cast and it has some patina to speak of. I'd guess mid-late Edo from what I can see.

Very interesting read. Thank you so much for posting.

Fantastic work, thanks for sharing. This one is my favorite: Gorgeous sense of movement in this piece, just lovely. The Higo inspired blossom/crescent tsuba is very nice as well.

Nice plate here, David. What's the motif? 1. Momoyama jidai 2. Saotome 3. No idea, very minimal knowledge on provinces so far 4. NTHK Kanteisho Pretty much agreeing with Mauro here. No hot-stamping which leads me to pre-Edo along with the surface texture and patina. Unique kogai ana shape also screams Saotome to me.

Very nice tsuba. Marius, what makes you place it so early? I know very little about dating soft metal pieces and I'd love to hear what clues you see in this one.

Sorry, my friend! I still over every single tsuba you post, both for sale and otherwise, so we'll call it even.

Thanks! Just a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, nothing special. I think it's rated at 8 megapixels. It takes nice photos as long as the lighting is good, once things start to get dim the quality suffers immensely.

This means a lot coming from you, thank you very much, my brother! Doug, i had never seen the amida yasuri done so finely either and it was certainly one of the factors that led me to pulling the trigger. Brian, it doesn't even look easy to do! Can't imagine the skill needed to pull this off. Fantastic work indeed. Glad this is sparking a little bit of discusson!

Thanks Boris and Antti! Perhaps I should have been more specific. By underappreciated I didn't mean here, I just meant that for the most part, ko kino seem to be overlooked in favor of iron pieces. This is also reflected in the price that they exchange hands, it seems. I'm with you! I much prefer how it looks now, you can't beat that kind of patina!

Hello all! I recently picked up my first ko kinko plate from our own resident vending machine, Marius. It arrived yesterday from it's journey overseas, the sun finally came out today and I was able to get some pictures of it. I would like to publicly thank Marius for being a wonderful person to deal with. All of my questions were quickly and thoroughly answered, the tsuba couldn't have arrived any quicker and was expertly packaged. He is a true asset to this forum and I would not hesitate for a second to buy from him again. Thank you, my friend! The sales thread was rightly removed and I wanted this piece to have a permanent spot in our library. I have to admit, before seeing this one I had never considered expanding my focus of study to soft metal. The tsuba you see here just spoke to me, plain and simple. It's hard to explain and I'm sure we've all had those moments. It seems that old soft metal is somewhat under-appreciated and I hope that this thread might inspire some to explore the simplistic beauty that these tsuba have to offer. This strong and elegant shinchu example measures 7.8 cm concentric, is .3 cm at the mimi and thickens slightly toward the center of the plate. The amida yasuri is very finely and artistically carved and it very pleasing. I have seen this motif executed in a rather rigid fashion but this take is well composed and lively. The thinning of the plate towards the mimi adds to this. A fair amount of gilding remains in both the radiating lines and the carved inner circle, this must have been an impressive sight when it was first made. However, the 500 years (give or take) that has passed since have given us a truly remarkable palette of colors to admire; a wabi sabi mosaic of warm tones and contrasting dark areas. The pictures are the best I can do being limited to a cell phone. This piece is best viewed in direct light so that is how I chose to display it. What you see is exactly how it looks in hand. Enjoy!

I had no idea about the stripes/spots thing either until I found that thread. Glad to link that and I'm happy it helped. The set that Darcy posted is my favorite pair of menuki, they're stunning in every way.

From what I understand, spots were used to designate a female tiger and males were given stripes. Could be wrong, but that's what I've read. Wish I could remember where so I could provide a link! Edit: found the thread... viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17552&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=15

Thanks for your reply! Certainly not a bad guess, there as definitely some similarities there. As far as the workmanship is concerned, I know its not a masterpiece but I think it's very well executed. The flow of the bamboo over the tiger is nice and elegant and I quite enjoy the overall posture and style of the cat. It has that distinctively Japanese look that I love. I'm guessing this would be late Edo, but again I don't know quite enough about menuki yet to be sure.

Bump, maybe someone who knows will see it this time around.

Hard to tell from these pics but it looks like the nakago and hitsu ana are trimmed with silver. I also go with the shoami grab bag without knowing the dimensions. I would have gone Akasaka but I agree with arnold about the rim. The way the top sukashi design doesn't sit flush with the rim also makes me think it's not Akasaka.

I would agree and tilt towards late. Is that a shakudo mimi i see?

Generally, ubu designates an older tsuba, but of course that is not always the case and there are tons of exceptions. Regarding the early ko-tosho and ko-katchushi plates that do have hitsu ana, it is widely believed that many were added later on. While having or not having hitsu ana cannot be used solely to determine age, it can certainly help if there are other indications that it may be an older piece.

I agree. One of my knifemaking buddies told me that he would see tsuba fitted as belt buckles all the time in Cali back in the 80's. Can't imagine what else that plug could be used for.

I agree completely with Barry. Your last pic confirms its a real tsuba, but is in rather poor condition. The patina and seppa dai holes that have been addressed, but there is also a chunk of missing sukashi at 11 o clock. Shame this wasn't taken care of. The workmanship looks solid. Could have been a nice piece...

Do you have any other pics?? Specifically of the rim... The patina is way off in these photos, but that could easily be flash/lighting induced. If this were an authentic early Edo piece in good condition, $390 would be a steal, IMO.

Agreed, surface and patina look lovely from here.

Dimensions? I'm familiar with the "pines in the distance" sukashi seen on this design. My question is, did yagyu smiths make solid plate tsuba?