zanilu

Dear Brian You are probably already working on it, but the button "mark this forum as read" have disappeared. We all appreciate your work Best regards Luca

Dear Bazza. Here is a larger picture of the menuki. I do not know if they are solid gold. Luca

Hello Mark In my early days of my collector career I have put toghter this set. It is made purely by my western taste. I put together what are probably Mito fittings coming from different sources. I think of it as my Frankenstein set. Any comment is of course welcome Best regards Luca

The tsuba just arrived. Well packaged and all as Didier said. The tsuba is far better in hand than in picture. Dealing with Christian was pleasant and smooth. Luca

I would say Hieanjo for Both. Left one early. Right one late. Luca

From: Mori Yuzan, Hamonshu: A Japanese Book of Wave and Ripple Designs Volume I, page 5: Volume I, page 15 Volume III, page 17 Regards Luca

Grazie Mauro. I will look into it! If they are indeed waves then the decoration can be regarded as an extremely stylized kukusui mon? Or I am letting my imagination running too wild? Regards Luca

Thank you Curran. Do you mean this one? In the mean tine I have found another Onin tsuba with a similar desing: From Gemmel, Tosogu: Treasure of The Samurai, Sarzi-Amade Limited, 1991 pag 142 number 17 described as "Onin iron tsaba of star design with cast brass strip inlay. Early Muromachi period". Regards Luca

Dear All This is one of my most recent acquisitions. It is a nice mokko gata iron tsuba with brass inlay. Dimensions 86.3 mm x 85.5 mm, 3.8 mm thick at seppa dai. The brass inlay is almost the same on the omote and ura sides. The only difference is in the positioning of the ten-zogan away from the seppa dai. My first idea was of course Heianjo, but the practically symmetrical design between front and back leave me with some measure of doubt. Any of you have a different attribution? Aside of the four kiku mon (菊文) the chevron like decorations are a little puzzling in their meaning. If I do a search on Jisho (https://jisho.org/search/chevron) I get as a result "Yamagata" (山形) i.e. "mountain shape; chevron; cone". Is this a fitting description for the triangular shapes surrounding the chrysanthemums? I am missing something? Do you have/see a different interpretation? Or the combined design chrysanthemum-chevron have a meaning by itself? Your comments are greatly appreciated. Best Regards Luca

2012 Yoshihara Yoshindo se sei in Novara, Italy Unfortunately it's in Italian. Enjoy. Luca

Grev you mean the Koto? Luca

Dear all Thank all of you for your comments. Dale thank you for the table. Ford I know your point about the brass introduction and when I wrote Azuchi/Momoyama I was really thinking about the end of the period. Thus I am ok with your assessment of early 1600. I had also the impression that the nunome zogan was a later addition but I had no points about it so I kept silent on this point. Coming from you has an altogether different weight Being no botanist I said grape vines only due to the small circles. If any of the other member has a better attribution I will not dispute it. Best Regards Luca

Dear All This is one of my recent acquisitions: Size 94.4 mm x 94.2 mm, thickness; at seppa dai 4.5 mm at mimi 3.9 mm. The motif I think ois Grapes and vines (budo tsuru kusa-zu) and sukashi is Genji-mon. What is your opinion? The iron look similar to other Heianjo Zogan tsuba with a nice chocolate brown color and prone to corrosion as in many examples of this "school" (if Heianjo can be considered a school and not a style). The tsuba is thin but not too thin with it 4 mm uniform thickness. So looking just at the iron, its conditions and thickness I would put it around Azuchi/Momoyama. Looking at the inlay I see some missing parts, as expected given the age, and some oddities. I took some pictures of the tsuba with a USB microscope. In a couple of points there is an overlapping of the inlays that I have never seen before on Heianjo Zogan tsuba. Maybe there have been some repairs? Also there are zones of cross hatching on the base iron that look like the preparation for nunome zogan. In these regions there are ghost-like circles of the same dimensions of the grapes inlaid in hira zogan on other areas . I have the impression that some of the grapes have been rendered in nunome zogan that was then lost but protected the underlying material from corrosion since the ghost circles in the hatched regions are somewhat raised over the cross hatched areas. Since I have never seen papered Heianjo zogan tsuba with nunome zogan I am for discarding this attribution. Maybe we can consider Shoami? These are my first, chaotic impressions, I could be utterly wrong of course. Comments are more than welcome... Best regards Luca

Heinaho tsuba received a couple of days ago. I have to repeat Grev statement; "the pictures don't do it justice" It was a pleasure dealing with Kyle Luca

Probably you already know it https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/hamonshu It is a three volume book about waves design. Regards Luca