Vermithrax16

Super fun! Thanks for sharing.

Boshi are the "face" of the sword and love looking at them, nice start. Hakikake is my favorite:

Whether it's swords or tosogu, my answer is easy: What excites or moves you? If one can only assign a monetary value to a collection, then you better have a LOT of money to devote to nihonto as the accepted "best pieces" are going to be expensive. Wildly so. But what value does YOUR collection mean to you? This is a better question IMO.

One point of clarification: Are you thinking of mounting to an actual sword? If so, if the tsuba you like does not fit, it's going to be an issue. If just compiling a koshirae, the wooden tsunagi can be trimmed to fit easy, so no issue. "Fit Well" is a qualitative thing; to have a real set of koshirae made for an antique sword will require real craftsmen and modification of pieces, then wear as you mount it, unmount, swing etc. Corrosion depending on materials is a concern. If you have just the tosogu I would suggest getting the set of pieces you like put together and mounted on a tsunagi. Keep the blade, if you have one, in shirasaya. No one (I hope) will be cutting or riding off to battle anytime soon anyway

Agree Stephen, been trying to buy them for days now

Just to make clear, I saw political crap on page 2 and I come HERE to get away from all that stuff. Nihonto is my escape. Your summary seems correct, but I don't really follow/know about that area is all about.

Couldn't get past the dumbness of it, can you summarize?

What price range? What era? What style? Besides that, I watch auctions, etc all the time, my general observations.......... From NMB seems military swords are all the rage and pursuit. This is newish as perhaps people see a possible arbitrage gap in knowledge. From online sales: Fittings: Goto, and then general stuff that's hard to characterize other than has gold accents and is not pricey or old looking iron Swords: Soshu and Bizen; anything Muromachi so one can say Koto era, any sword in most any condition that has koshirae even though that's not the proper way to store it Just my 2 cents, not worth a bus ride.

Should have something in a few weeks to share, will be a lot of fun.

After the outage here on NMB, a bunch of comments for this thread were lost. As Ford Hallam was kind enough to allow us a look at an episode of his Patreon video collection in regards to this tsuba, here it is again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvnRoOgsOaM&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR0BsR2ADYoK0jIPj3CB9cXGeZw_ImNskxM_mCmgIfI3JhIHm3QrGETJYmA The Tomohide is finished cleaning and repair now. When I have it back in hand will do a proper reveal of the restoration. I can assure Ford is a magician, and you should have zero concerns if you want to work with him.

I like it Robert!

The NEXT one

Over the past week I got an eye opener how nunome zogan was done. Ford Hallam has a great video here to illustrate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50oOSd_RDw0

Hozon to Shoami, hare motif. The iron looks irredescent in hand:

A couple links; NMB member had a nice write up: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/13652-taira-shigeyuki/ Some writing on the Shinto line, but yours is earlier: https://www.nihonto.com/bungo-takada/

Near the end he talks about old swords vs new swords; Yoshindo is a master of the old way of sword making, found that illuminating.

Well you are pressing the limits! LOL

Nice StevenK! A picture I saved a long time ago for that waves/rabbit theme:

Rabbits and waves is a folklore legend, goes back a long way. Variants of story: https://www.japanpowered.com/folklore-and-urban-legends/white-hare-inaba http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/3509-my-final-question-and-one-about-a-tsuba/

Revive! I posted these in another thread a while ago, but the rabbit thread must go on! Silver Kaga rabbit menuki:

Great work Kelly! Glad it worked out Robert. Is that a fact about the 200,000 YEN? I think the most expensive thing I bought on buyee was 180,000 so not sure. Sucks if that's the case.

Rare birds are Taima swords, so wanted to make sure people took a look. Our own Paul Bowman wrote an article with more information on the school. Here you go: http://www.militaria.co.za/articles/A%20Katana%20attributed%20to%20Yamato%20Taima.pdf The suguha hamon on this one is sublime, and in hand I can't imagine the beauty of the hada and the texture of the steel. Clearly I am a Yamato fan, so biased, but without regard to buying, I think this one is worth some study: https://www.nihonto.com/1-2-19-2/

StevenK covered it; I think the mei is good (did a quick compare using Sesko, Wakayama, Haynes, online) but I am no shinsa team. The work is addressed above as I don't know this maker really and his work.

Hey Piers, I had a tsuba I had been waiting a while on come back Horyu and it was just as annoying a feeling. Agree with your above points, it's an "oh well" situation.

Congrats Danny! Can't wait to get it!