PietroParis

Indeed, I was referring to whether the tsuba was meant to ever be mounted on a sword. Apart from the lost decoration, I was wondering if the relief of the hand would prevent the seppa from properly adhering to the surface. But from a closer look at the third picture it seems that the hand is not significantly raised with respect to the background. Cheers, Pietro [apologies in advance if I am not using the correct terminology!]

No seppa-dai on the front side. Does that make sense?

In the first, second and last picture the shadow of the blade can trick the eye.

Not my kind of stuff, but they might be interesting for somebody here: https://www.ebay.fr/itm/Arami-Meizukushi-1721-Guidebooks-of-Swordsmiths-Woodblock-print-Katana-Antique/274278898959 https://www.ebay.fr/itm/Koto-Meizukushi-taizen-1792-Guidebooks-of-Swordsmiths-Woodblock-print-Katana/402106907981 Cheers, Pietro

Thanks a lot Steve and Evan for your detailed explanations, which I would summarize as "too cheap and too new" That website has been something of a mystery to me for a while: they have a seemingly endless stream of suspiciously cheap "big name" bowls that are snapped up within hours after they go on sale. I too had noticed the one by Chojiro and thought that it was absurd. I did however buy a shino bowl from them, supposedly made by a 20th-century potter, Kato Kageaki (more details in this post): Incidentally, the decoration recalls the famous Unohanagaki in Steve's post above. I cannot swear on the authenticity, but I've been using it every weekend to drink tea and I am quite pleased with it Cheers, Pietro

Thanks a lot, this puts my mind at ease! Then I must assume that the appraisal too is only inspired by Toyozo... I understand that he had a major role in the revival of shino ware, so it's unlikely that he would have been fooled. When you have time, would you mind explaining to a beginner what details in the cup point away from the Momoyama period? Thanks again for your help, Pietro

Anyway, here it is:

Thanks for dropping by! If you follow the link in the first line of my original post you’ll find many more pictures, including the foot.

Have you checked out this one in the sales section of the forum?

This small shino cup was briefly on sale today: More pictures are available following the link above. Somebody snapped it up while I was busy trying to decipher the calligraphy on the box and on the appraisal paper. The latter does look like Arakawa Toyozo's writing, judging by some of his boxes that were sold on the same site. A question to the local experts: was the dating realistic? I guess I missed a bargain in that case... Cheers, Pietro

I get 14 items.

In that case it was a waste of the seller's time, as the tsuba sold for a mere 17$ on eBay (the price I had mentioned a few posts above included shipping). Scratching with the broken edge of the button helped remove a bit more red rust, but not all of it. Anyway, I'll give it a rest now. It was a valuable experience to me, and I thank you all for comments and guidance. Cheers, Pietro

Thank you all for your comments! I'll try breaking the button, although I would say that even the rounded edge has already removed quite a lot of rust. As for brushing the whitish area, unfortunately it has no effect. I suspect that the patina is really affected, and I am wondering if I've done something wrong or if it was an inevitable outcome. Cheers, Pietro

I gave it another try, with repeated cycles of dabbing with camellia oil, letting rest for a few hours, scratching with a bone button and wiping with a cloth. However, I am not too pleased with the result: The "before" and "after" pictures show that quite a lot of red rust came off, but the patina appears to be damaged in one area (see the whitish spots on the left of the nakago ana). Did I scratch too hard? A more-charitable interpretation could be that the red rust had already eaten through the patina: indeed, the whitish spots showed up quite early in the process, and other areas that I scratched just as hard were not damaged. Anyway, it's just as well that I tried this procedure on a low-quality tsuba that I had bought for 26 EUR on eBay. I don't think I'll dare to try it on my "good" tsuba, I guess I'll stick to oiling and wiping... BTW, is there anything I can do now to reduce the damage to the patina, apart from waiting a few decades? Cheers, Pietro

In fact, I've seen examples of this "sliding deadline" even in online sales from French auction houses, and I am told that Catawiki works the same way. It makes sense to me, I'm not a fan of eBay-style snipe bidding. It is also closer to the way regular brick-and-mortar auctions work.

Could it be Mitsutama 光玉 ? In that case, it is a signature that appears to be associated to rather dodgy 20th-century carvings, see e.g. here, here and here. The pictures in your other post do not suggest particularly high quality to me (but I get why the sword-making subject might appeal this forum's members). Cheers, Pietro

For those too lazy to copy the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng04KxAT0ek

Thanks for all the suggestions! For Koop-Inada, I also found this: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/22476-Japanese-names-and-how-to-read-them-koop-inada/ Cheers, Pietro

Hi All, "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime" Suppose that I want to learn the minimal amount of written Japanese that is necessary to decipher signatures, NBTHK certificates, and so on. Is there a magic book that I should buy to get started? Thanks in advance for any input, Pietro

I don't know much about this kind of prints, but a google search does yield artists, such as e.g. Kono Bairei, whose coloring was similarly sparse. Greg, do you know who the author of the print is?

Would there be colors on the paper in that case?

Do the small holes on the two sides on the nakago ana suggest that it was once mounted on a lock? Cheers, Pietro P.S. following up on Stephen's suggestion above: what happens if you just flip the central plate? Do you still get a meaningful (but different) decoration?

Thank you all for your comments. My bone button (combined with wd40) doesn’t seem to be effective in scratching away the rust, maybe I should try to break it to get a sharper edge.

From a total noob: are we looking at thin scratches?

OK, thanks for the tip! I am not a gun person but I can use wd40 as suggested by Alex above. Cheers, Pietro