Curran

Very interesting menuki. Signature isn't correct for shodai or the rokudai. I don't have references for the other generations online. Maybe someone can check Wakayama for you.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254830659390?ul_noapp=true IN full disclosure, these belong to a friend. I think he started the auction a bit too low, but -bills to pay- sort of thing. It might be a bargain for someone in the UK or Europe.

The tsuba looks cooked or slagged.

I narrow my search to North America and Europe. That takes it from 5000 items to about 500. Too many arbitragers and dealer posts from Japan listing large amounts of rusty junk, or cross posting things from Yahoo!Japan.

When it comes to sword fittings, there was a time when good bargains could be found on Yahoo!Japan. Now it has gotten quite dangerous and too many bidders that bid on anything looking half decent. The last year or two, eBay has been interesting. People have been so burned by it that there is very little competition for when a good tsuba comes up. I'm not saying they come up that often, but I've been a bit stunned. An extremely good Hoan tsuba, another tsuba from one of the Big Collections, etc.. not obvious bling ones, but good ones. I was stunned to pick a Yagyu off there recently. Sort of a plain jane one, and I doubted it until it came out of its packaging, but there it was.

Azuma-san, ah yes.... Haguro tsuba are a bit too easy to copy. I went through a Haguro phase, but passed through it and sold mine at Bonhams. Every time I think of buying another, I remind myself how good the copies can be.

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/p821071012 Currently just shy of $1000. I'm curious how much someone will pay for this cow-pie. As a much missed ex-NMB member would say, "It has been stepped on" [stepped in : if you have dogs or cows, you will know what I mean]

Spatially a very very strong visual memory, though *not* photographic. Photographic visual memory would be a curse, not a blessing. To make space for that visual memory, the creator or creators made me near tonedeaf. My idea of hell involves karaoke or listening to myself play any musical instrument. This was probably 60% memory and knowing what is "Mino", and then 40% dumb luck finding it in the first of 3 Mino books I was considering plucking off the shelf. On to the next one?

I could have explained "Why Mino, not Nagoyamono", but I figured it would just be easier to pull one of the Mino books and point at a page. Why type all that when a picture is worth at least a few hundred words? I didn't expect that easy of a match. It being late at night and I being weary as an old dog, I didn't bother confirming whether it was the same. Scanner top really is busted (by me), or I would have scanned it in this morning. Thank you Dirk for doing so. Have a good XMas all. One more week until 2021. Bring it.

Luis: your tsuba or its twin is on page 39 of Kinko Mino Bori Book. https://www.japaneseswordbooksandtsuba.com/store/books/b1033-kinko-mino-bori-kokubo-kenichi Our scanner top is busted and waiting replacement. If you don't have the book, maybe Dr. Bob or another NMB member can scan it in for you

Edo Mino.

Yes, that is quite the tease. Exactly the sort of thing I hoped to see. I read yesterday that Goto f/k began around gen 13, but there is no reason the fuchi wasn't an earlier conversion piece. Thank you Tom. Please, please, if you have a photo- may we see the backside of the menuki? Usually helpfull with the early Goto and the Ko-Mino.

State of preservation of that Joshin set is off the charts incredible. I remember studying in before. I didn't know what I was seeing back then, and I am only now beginning to feel I have a clue. I too am late to Goto, it being a deep sea requiring lots of books and insight from those studying longer than I have. Dr. Klein made some great insights and recently I have been reading some informative personal blog Japanese sites that do a great job of leading one into seeing differences. I definitely feel I begin to grasp things I did not comprehend before. Yet certain designs are hit or miss for me. I'm very partial to a lot of Tokujo's work and find the story of his life is practically a drama in and of itself. Know his life and suddenly I feel I understand his works more.

If it looks like a Yagyu (sandy Owari area iron) and a Kanayama (tekkotsu) had sex and produced offspring with varying degrees of yakite, then likely Ono. Temple bell tsuba attached. In Nihonto Koza opening pages as Kanayama, but it had Ono papers when I owned it. Tokugawa Ono has tekkotsu so large that it would damage the shock absorbers on your car. [Steve, that Akasaka: yes 2014 shinsa when things suddenly drove off a cliff and still haven't quite recovered].

Not Ono. Crappy attribution by NBTHK. Sanmai construction on that one. That one is Akasaka. Probably late 3rd generation or 4th generation work. It was once mine, long ago. I've been tempted to buy it back, despite the chromosome deficient attribution by the NBTHK. I'm very fond of Ono. This is Ono: http://nihonto.us/ONO TSUBA CC.htm Nothing else in this thread looks Ono.

Thanks guys. I am looking for certain themes, and I was curious to hear from fellow collectors in order to see what else was here stateside. There is also this site in Japan: https://asahitoken.jp/contents/02_tosogu/product/tosogu.html --Kozuka: https://asahitoken.jp/contents/02_tosogu/product/tosogu-KZ.html --Kogai: https://asahitoken.jp/contents/02_tosogu/product/tosogu-KG.html

Got anything NBTHK papered to Ko-Goto, or specifically to any of the first 5 generations including Tokujo? If so, I'd love to see it and learn a bit. I am interested in buying too, as my focus shifts a bit from Higo and Owari to more Momoyama or earlier kinko works. Thxs. Curran

Yes George. The same thought here. At a glance, I would have thought the waves were by the same hand. I didn't know what to make of the two types of nanako. From the nanako alone, I would have thought one piece older than another. I am also surprised to find the fuchi is solid gold. Double check that with basics: weight vs volume displaced in a beaker of water? I thought it would be gold wash over a copper base. Without someone like Ford to offer an opinion, I wondered if part of the reason for an Owari kinko attribution might be the sort of gold (flashing?). To be told it is solid gold sort of sinks that theory. Owari and Owari kinko are suppose to be one of my stronger areas of interest and study, but I could not have confidently said "Owari Kinko" on this one. The NBTHK isn't exactly beating my door down to be a shinsa judge.

Have you any more pictures of the construction of these? Pictures of the insides might be helpful.

Rear view of someone kneeling? ie. View from the back row of the temple.

+1 with Bazza

Signed one with the wave form, roman alphabet characters, and papers: 2k isn't a bad price. If one of the rare round ones with the larger more dramatic waves, then more. I've only seen 3 in many years. Two brass, or "sentoku" if you prefer, example and one shakudo example.

Mark, Here in Florida, just leave it under an overhang on the porch. Don't try to accelerate it. I had a lot of scrap copper over here from various house and art projects. You can do all sorts of things. I advise you don't. Florida atmosphere chemistry does 'real good' all on its own.

I was trying to avoid spoon feeding it to him, but there is already a good old thread on the topic:

Signed Tada-tsugu. I'm not 100% sure about the second character being tsugu.