Steves87

Sorry to hear it confirmed Barry, Do you know who is in control of the ebay store? I had contact with them probably early January this year, but have not been able to get a reply from them this last week.

hello, I have been trying to contact seller finearts29mv on eBay who I have had good dealings with in the past. I have sent a few messages and have had no replies. does anyone know the status of the seller? I understand it was run by a late Mr Chaffe (sp) who passed away a couple of years ago and is now being run by the estate?? cheers

Just to add to the Utsushi list of examples, I have a similar guard to show

if there are any west Australian collectors out there, there is an auction tomorrow night with a few Kozuka that may go cheap Welcome - Todd's Auctions

You know what, now that I think about it, the menuki is positioned correctly, but on the wrong side, perhaps the Tsuka has been forced on "upsidedown" which would account for the odd shape. If you put on the other way, the Tsuka shape would match the curve and the menuki would be placed in the "correct" position. If true, that is a worry

Jean is right, the Tsuka does look off. The kashira end does not continue the curve. This could mean a damaged core, or not as likely, could be a botched job at a Tsuka core?

Wow, that is interesting to me for two reasons, the first being I have never seen the "one sided" shingen before, and the other being I had never seen a shingen weave without a lacquer binding? Was this usual? I would have thought the wire would be susceptible to bending and breaking without the binding material. Coming from an actual use point of view here

Hello! From what I can gather there, it seems your scabbard saya is a military Gunto of sorts as it looks like its has a leather skin and the gold fitting to me, seems to be a mass produced military issue (original or not I have no idea). As for the Tsuba, it looks far too big to be for Tanto and as far as I am aware, a Katana Tsuba can have 1, 2 or no hitsu ana. I would have thought size is more of a deciding factor when it comes to classing a Tsuba to be for a Kat, Wak or Tanto? Tanto and Wakizashi can also have Kogai and Kozuka in their scabbard. Even having said that, a smaller Tsuba on a larger blade is not unheard of and can look pretty good in my opinion. I don't mind being corrected for those that know infinitely more!?

Here is another Dale, you probably haven't seen this from me as I no longer own it

I cant read it either, but from memory there is some typical Soten Kanji in it

some very nice guards, congratulations! I actually thought 2020 was pretty darn good, maybe it just shows how bad my 2019 was?!

Never end sure, but think of the countless volumes you could publish afterwards!!

Book has just arrived, well worth the wait and then some! My wife is looking through it right now. Believe me when I say that this is unusual and special. Yes, I have sold some framed prints of selected images, I wouldn't recommend flooding the market, but at auction they got what I would call top dollar (there is every chance someone just wanted the frames), at local markets they have also proved popular. Bazza, the site is also linked on the Facebook Tsuba collectors page, so maybe there is a bit of traffic from there at the moment?

Being familiar with both this book in it's original state and a lot of Dale's previous work, I'm truly excited to get this in the mail! Without throwing Dale "under the bus" I know he has photo examples of pieces that very faithfully have these designs executed upon them. He may have posted these examples here previously?