parfaitelumiere

I will work with a french modern iaito and shinken seller, and I understand your meaning, he visited me, I told him my thoughts, wnat can be made and how, to improve the actual stuff make something decent for decent price, he show me the modern fittings he can get for about 600$ a set( modern Japanese tsuba menuki f/K) these were just horrible, modern cast, undersized for katana, the saya was modern egg shaped chinese stuff with full black painted ray skin, fat, ugly, but really appealing for those who don't know, then I show him some real fittings, easy to see he doesn't know anything about real swords.It's funny it seems there is a kind of two words, the praticers one one side and nihonto collectors on other side.

Looks like some flowers were soft metal zogan, we see the weird design on remaining iron, one on each side.

blade and habaki are ok, fuchi, kashira, menuki, and seppa are terrible modern stuff. Depending on the saya quality, maybe you can keep the tsuba, saya and tsuka, if the quality is ok (wood only) You remove same, fuchi, kashira, menuki and ito. Then,find nice fuchi-kashira-menuki, antique ones, put them on the existing tsuka, if actual tsuka is bad, make a new one. After that you make new seppa from brass sheet, seppa are easy to make, you can also try to find antique seppa, don't use existing modern seppa. What is a shame is I sold some very good fuchi and kashira, katana sized, with water bufflo theme, very good quality antique set, and saw recently a nice water buffalo antique menuki set for sale, you should have built a water buffalo themed koshirae. but just the menuki could be good, and simple design fuchi-kashira, would be ok, adding nice samekawa, a 5000 or 8000 JPY quality from namikawa, with good polish and weathering, and final nice tsukamaki using silk ito.

I put a tsuba some weeks ago in this thread, put it again with a good picture. The size is about 85x3,5mm. Some metal bridges are broken. On two circles on bottom, bridge was complete on seller picture, but was made partially from pure rust in real, was in the parcel, but not on tsuba. Some original patina is remaining, mostly half on one side, and 1/4 of the rim, but what is strange is 2 holes on each side have different on the edge side, like used with chain, or something else, metal part was attached. Is it a missing sword accessory, an earlier use, then turned into a tsuba, or a later use? I bought this tsuba because the weathering is definitely authentic, unlike so many tosho-katsuchi fakes we see these days, and it has no hitsu ana i (try to) collect tsuba without hitsu ana and these are crazy hard to find...

cicada

I put some warnish on copper for partial gold plating, easy to remove, no damage. You can find something thick enough, or even cut a board shape and put in place using nail warnish or so, this way all will be easy to remove. I can make attempt on one blade and let you know.

Put some wax or resin on the mei area, leaving all the characteristics visible except the mei, the material could be removed using solvant or alchool. Then you send to be submitted again, saying not to remove the resin or material you added.

the reason is when you wear the sword the mon is on the right side, not reversed. In all case the kutsuwa is terrible for combat, large, with holes to break your fingers, weak, all are defects, but there was fashion and trends in antique Japanese times.

No idea about period, size is 84x84x3mm

Interesting, as the supposed period in added in description.

I saw these twice for now, this is cast.

first picture, on the middle.

yes it's in my first message, second picture.

Here is the tsuba I received today.

I just saw this one on ebay, size just under 9cm For me it's a modified kutsuwa part.

that tsuba is very nice, dales one. I really like things made from other things.

last reply is interesting I was thinking the same, the "musashi" style tsuba are european influence for me. I don't know why they calll these "musashi" maybe because it's the name used for modern iaito tsuba. I made that one for a kenshin sword replica project, the nakago ana is reversed as the sword is reversed in the movie. The original movie prop is a standart musashi tsuba with some resin fillin to reduce the holes size, probably for safety reasons.

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Hi What are dimensions of that ones? You have better picture of monkeys?

Yeah I know about the tetsugendo Tsuba, it would just be perfect but price is far too high for me...I admit it would have been even better without hitsuana. About the kutsuwa rarity, I don't know, I found almost nothing on google, and found not so much on bing, Japanese langage search helped to find good example of decorated openwork kutsuwa, I mean, good enough to be used, very good pictures are impossible to find. Good tsuba pictures are easier to find. I know there is another thread here, with 2 different kutsuwa tsuba, not very good pictures sadly, an a last thread showing a complete kutsuwa but very small and poor quality...

I have finally been able to purchase a kutsuwa tsuba, made from genuine horse bit. I will put a decent picture once I get it in hand, due to covid 19 there is some delay. Happy to find it, this makes another tsuba made from original item, I hope to find a real kagami tsuba one day. I combined several shots together to make this information picture. I also put together on same picture some front and back.

like the first.

one is occidentally made second picture bottom right, I think many are southeast asia made. I think these are referred as "auriculus" tsuba, based from dutch swords. I try to find a original sword guard like this for collection, I mean, a genuine european one. I would get all the modified items tsuba versions, so southeast asian (already have) european, kagami,kutsuwa and whatever else can be modified to become a tsuba. You can discuss about them one the facebook page "southeast asian sword guards" he will like them.

saw two recently on ebay, one with just snake, and another, more interesting, with snake and monkey