b.hennick

Yesterday, at our sword club meeting, another collector and I put out mokume tsuba. One tsuba that he had was basically the same as my tsuba. The only significant difference was that mine was signed and his was not. Synchronicity???

Yes, I  have placed a tsuka on a tsuba to get the feel for how it would look. It can be transformative.  

Thanks, Mal!

Enjoy the dharuma as well as the triptych.

I too am enjoying this thread. Keep it going. 

The ivory from old piano keys work well. 

Great!

Amazing!

I've never heard of a blade being rejected by the USA.

Welcome Jonathan!

Pm sent 

The wait list for fully trained polishers in North America is long. Sending to Japan could be quicker especially if you will be sending the blade to shinsa. 

Your sword would not be confiscated. They do not do that.  100 years for a sword is quite young. You would need an agent to take care of importing the sword into Japan and arranging for export of the blade after the work is done. Usually when  sword is polished it also probably needs a new habaki and a shirasaya. Many are submitted for papers before the blade is returned to you. Every part of the process costs money. The yen has gone down considerably so now is probably a great time to get work done.

Yes! It is gimei. You can not find a good Hizento for that price.

Halloween continues.... 

Welcome J you will find quite a few martial arts guys here. Tom who just replied to your post is one of them - me too. There is a lot to learn; the search function will help you find information on many topics.

All three are worth a read. I paid much more for them years ago. These prices are very very low.

Thanks for the link Ray. It is a great video.

There is a PhD thesis on Nanban tsuba. So they're is a nanban tsubaologist

Good name ology means study of.

👎

Do you mean 1.8cm? I have never seen a sori of 18 cm (over 7 inches)!

Use Google images put Kano Natsuo in a search for images. Check the papered images.

I communicated with a friend who is a Kano Natsuo collector who confirmed what I  thought. Just look at confirmed work of Natsuo.

That habaki is no where close to the skill level of Kano Natsuo. Look at his authenticated work and compare.