Steves87

Nice owl guard Dan! You don't see many owls'. Here is my example:

I love that Geraint, very different! I have a similar style Namban/Hizen guard which is not quite as interesting as yours, but I still love. The tendrils are different to the usual Namban style, and I note that they are most often seen on guards classified as Hizen.

Another horse!

Lesser Cuckoo

Have we had a wind chime yet? https://www.ebay.com...r=artemis&media=COPY

This is all very interesting. For Australia, you don't really have any troubles in any state (except Victoria) for swords or sword related things, until the value exceeds 1000aud. Once that limit is exceeded, automatic GST is not taken out, and it has to go through a customs evaluation. Where the tricky stuff comes in, is in what the item is described as. Weapons, antiques, art, furniture, fittings, and "parts" all have different meanings to different assesors, AND importantly, different rates of tax! I still have not looked into it 100% but it seems that antiques are exempt or have lower tariffs, but art does not.... so, "antique art" then causes an issue for the assessor. I have spent considerable time on the phone to customs regarding the items and their classifications. One time they asked me to provide referenced evidence for a package of three Tsuba, I did and I paid the lower fees (very helpful assessor), but also, I worked out it would have been cheaper to pay three lots of postage than the combined postage and customs/tax/quarantine fees!!

I thought it looked familiar! Dale is every bit the grandmaster when it comes to this stuff! Here is a screen shot of the likely similar original Tsuba style from Dale's linked thread (for ease of viewing)

This guard has likely been cut down from within a mimi-rim. I would bet @Spartancrest has an example of a non-cut down guard.

Yes this is true, there are a few techniques that go for a wrist strike (that i know about). We used to do full contact sparring with shinai (kenjutsu, not Kendo), and one trick was swapping the tsuba out for extra large Tsuba (3d printed) incase these moves were done. It worked, but the solid plastic Tsuba only lasted a couple of hits before it snapped on mis-judged strikes/blocks. The wrist hits generally were not heavy enough to break the guard, but they did stop the shinai.

There are quite a lot of thick guards out there, this one is not as thick as the example you have, but it is able to stand upright on the face of the mimi. I believe this represents a Mon, but I couldn't tell you which one, off the top of my head.

I agree with Jay, I have a feeling only steel is 3d printed at this point; however, wax can be 3d printed for casting brass (lost wax casting), so this is very possible in this case https://www.zeal3dprinting.com.au/brass-3d-printing/#:~:text=The lost-wax casting method,in the final product design.

On a slight bend of the topic, that first yoshiro mon Tsuba is the first I have seen where a mon has a (Kiri?) Stalk.

Thanks Geraint (and Chris), believe it or not, but that is actually still very helpful. It is good to know that the re-patination is basically un-aided and relatively speaking, quite fast... When you consider that this also happens in what I would call a "stored" state, it bodes well for other examples in a state of despair.

Great post Geraint, Can you please shed some light on the storage conditions you had this guard in? Maybe something like: (Almost) exact timeframe. In/out box. If out of box, mounted or display. If out of box (mounted or display), location in house... eg, near living/kitchen/bathroom/laundry rooms (for light/humidity/temps)... cupboard/drawer with approx frequency of opening. It would be good to get an indication of these also for preventative conservations sake.

And another with "straight" hair

Good one Dale! I think the finger pointing confirms that the most. Most depictions of Kanzan and Jittoku that I come across have both with the knotted hair, or one with knots and the other with straight hair.... I found it strange that one has a hat in this case. Here is a couple of Tsuba with two different hair depictions, one has both figures with knotted hair, and the other has both straight (possibly one is a hat).

Someone may know for sure. However, based on the smaller figure's hair style and the text scroll, I would say it is likely to be a Rin Nasei (Lin Hejing) theme. This is a Tsuba example of the theme.

Good memory George, I vaguely remember that thread. Whenever I refer to this guy from now on, I'll be using "Handaka (possibly Chinnan) Sennin".... Great to see Stevenk's posts again, too. He was the first guy to reach out to me on here.

Yep, you have convinced me, after some more searching I definitely agree Handaka (the bamboo cutter?)... it explains the cane too

Handaka Sennin it seems. I have read that Tekkai Sennin can also change into a dragon or a human figure though. I have this one with both Gamma Sennin, Tekkai Sennin, and Handaka Sennin, which shows the dragon form at the 12 o'clock.

Love it! Well done!

I quite like that, congratulations! The flow of the grain is very nice, and I think it may also be the first time I have seen samegawa ategane too!

Like Mauro says, who (really) knows? I try not to get caught up in exact dates, the important thing in my eye is the work which went into making something such as this, and then relating it to the costs and effort of someone making it in modern times (by traditional methods).... In any case, and like Okan believes, I feel that your example is more likely to be of Japanese origin because of the design elements (eg. fan, clove, shippo mon?), but I'm just guessing.

It looks like the hitsu ana is a modification with a shakudo fukerin bordering the ana. I have a similar example with an added hitsu-ana/shakudo fukerin.

The clear stands are optimal for sure. A while back you could get a transparent white filament for printing, but it wasn't transparent at all once printed. I'd love to have a perspex plate (with a small peg) so that the whole face of the Tsuba is unobstructed, and, if a mirror behind, the whole face of the reverse side would be unobstructed too. I have looked for something proprietary that would meet this want, but it seems there is nothing readily available, and id have to construct them myself, one by one.