zanilu

Yes Dale it could be. I had the same feeling. The filling material looks like lead to me. I have a nicer tsuba that I think could be classified as Washida that has a similar hole but not filled. Regards Luca

Thank you Dale. As usual we can trust you will come up with a lot of info! Regard Luca

Thank you Brian This is one of my earliest acquisitions, my dragon period I would say. Since then my interest drifted somewhere else. My knowledge of Tetsugendo school is limited. Regards Luca

FT-0008 Iron tsuba signed ??ken Eiju with kakihan. Dimensions 69.3 mm x 66.4 mm, thickness 4.5 mm at seppa-dai, 3.8 mm at mimi. Considering the quality and comparing the mei with a papered example I provisionally classified it as gimei Tetsugendo. What is your opinion? Regards Luca

Ciao Mauro. I stand corrected for the kanji. I had the same idea about Hizen based on the hitsu Ana as you said I will also consider Higo now that you mention it. Grazie! Luca

Thank you for the clarification Steve,very informative! Regards Luca

Thanks Dale. I used exactly this criteria when deciding the spelling to use. Luca

FT-0004 Dragon in waves (nami ryū zu - 波竜図) Tsuba Jū-mokkogata (木瓜形), tetsu-ji (磨地), sukidashi-bori (鋤出彫), ke-bori (毛彫), kin iroe (金色絵), maru-mimi (丸耳), ryō-hitsuana (両櫃孔). Dimensions: 80.3 mm x 75.4 mm. Thikness 3.9 mm at seppa dai, 3.4 at mimi. Material: Iron Is Jū-mokkogata (木瓜形) is right or it is better kikku-gata (菊花形)? Regards Luca

Dear All I am in the process of revising my collection catalog and I have just realized ho indiscriminate I was at the beginning of my collecting career in acquiring pieces. Initially I bought what I liked with little discerning... I would like to have your help in classifying some of my earlier acquisitions. Following is the first one. I will add later others as going though the collection I have doubts about them. Please feel free to give your guess and comments. If possible please also justify the attribution to make the thread as instructive as possible Regards Luca

Really outstanding Marco! Well done! Regards Luca

Thank you Steve much appreciated! Regards Luca

Dear All I am struggling with the translation of this line on a truba NBTHK paper. 鋤残土手金泥塗耳 The last four kanji should be read 金泥塗耳 Kin Doro Nuri Mimi Gold Painted Edge Dote (土手) is clear the first two (鋤残) are a difficult. Can you help me out? Can you also give me the exact pronunciation of the whole sentence? Google translator gives me something of the kind "Suki zan dote-kin doromami mimi". This is the tsuba paper: Thank you in advance for your help. Regards Luca

I had finally found some time to look properly at the my new tsuba and I have to say that it is a very fine specimen. I have to develop a taste for old iron and this is the first step... Let's see how it goes. Steve was very responsive to my requests. It was a pleasure to deal with him. Regards Luca

Thank you Dale well spotted. I will add these information to the other for the next revision of the paper. Regards Luca

Thank you Richard! Regards Luca

Beautiful tsuba indeed Richard If we are able to locate other tsuba with naturally depicted mukade that are papered or with solid attribution to Myochin we can start considering the hypothesis put forward by Dale. Can you elaborate on the "stack of papers to Myouchin" you mentioned about your tsuba? Can you also share the dimensions? Best regards Luca

Hi Dale, your guess is as good as mine. Doesn't look like Shingen or Mukade since, apart from the twisted brass rope, it does not have much in common with either... From the seppa dai I would have said Hizen, also there is that cross hatching on the hira close to the mimi that looks like the base for nunome zogan. Don't know. Regards Luca

Dale you are a real hound! Well done! Luca

Nice find Dale! As Richard say I have never seen any clue about the origin of the connection of these kind of tsuba with Takeda Shingen. When was Myochin Yasuchika active (and here I am showingmy ignorance )? Any overlapping with the life span of Takeda Shingen? Or later? Is the tsuba legit? Gimei? A lot of questions without an answer but a direction of research worth a deeper look. I have even found a reference connecting Shingen Bukuro to Takeda Shingen wood block prints where those kind of bags were reproduced... Thank you Dale. Regards Luca

Nice one Piers! Regards Luca

Thank you @Curranto put my typing mistake into a linguistic frame, but is just a typo. Thank you for your kind words. You are too kind I would say As for the Dale @Spartancrest comment about Kōshiu .I do agree with you that it should be Kōshū but since it was written like that in the original text and I was citing it I left it untouched. Maybe I will add a footnote to address that. I am following a six day, six hours per day Katori Shinto Ryu stage in Milan with a temperature between 36/38 Celsius so if I am slow in answering you posts you can understand why. Regards to all of you Luca

Thank you Grev and Dale. I will collect comments and new pictures for inclusion in the next revision. As for publishing a booklet from the pdf I have not considered it. Probably most of the of the the picture are under some copyright and I do not have the time nor the desire of dealing with such matters. Regards Luca

@Ford Hallamit would be great to see a tutorial of yours about the construction of Shingen tsuba. Of course you can youse may pdf as you see fit. Glen @GRC if you are able to find the reference you mentioned we could add more information to the Mukade tsuba that I think they deserve their own category. Grev @kissakai your piece is really interesting and unusual say the least, the internal iron core is visible but not the brass wires on the engrqved side. Also there is no brass plate covering the central region on the brass weaving side. Can I ask you if you can post a picture without the highlighted engravings. I would like to add your tsuba to a future revision of the paper. As for a similar paper for on Namban tsuba is not planned at the moment. I like to look into pieces of my collection at the moment do not include Namban tsuba. However I have recently acquired a nice Hizen Yagami tsuba, and stared collecting information about the school, let's see how it goes. @Brian, @Curran thank you for your kind words...

Thank you Dale for the correction! It was the android auto correct function.... Regards Luca

Hello Brian has just posted a small paper I have written about Shingen tsuba. You can find it in the download section I have recently added to my collection some Shingen tsuba and I did some research about them and wanted to share the result with you. If you have any comment, corrections, line of improvement and further information to add please let me know. English is not my mother thong so if you find spelling or gramma mistakes please point them out. I hope you find it an interesting read. Regards Luca