GRC

Steve, re your tsuba that started this thread: the patina seems to have been lost or abraded off at some point in its history, which doesn’t help. But it’s small size, focus on symmetry (I would almost certainly say clouds), and lack of any evidence of hand forging on the plate (no bones or hammer marks), place it squarely in the time in the Edo period when tsuba production was a sort of “free for all”. This was done to meet the demand from the growing merchant class who could openly wear wakizashi or tanto, but not katana and who now had more buying power. So this tsuba could have been made by any blacksmith at the time, who was busy producing tsuba of just about any style imaginable… …and not one of the expensive “jewelry” type machi-bori tsuba… which likely went mostly to the merchant class based on their being mostly wakizashi sized tsuba. Only the large sized ones would have gone to the richer samurai who were basically bureaucrats at that point anyway. Frankly almost everything else that was being made during the mid to late Edo period were just repeats from a “generic” product line to some degree or another… mostly derivative copies of widely accepted patterns, even if it was a higher end piece from Choshu, Bushu, Kinai or Akasaka for example. Tsuba at this point were mostly made by craftsmen rather than “artists” so to speak. Almost a “paint by numbers” kind of situation. Even the high end “art” tsuba of the late Edo period were mostly derivative copies of well known paintings and motifs… just beautifully executed with opulence, by very skilled jeweller-type craftsman.

Hi Steve. Glad you can see the more organic asymmetry of this particular komorebi motif. Looks like it was done in a pretty narrow window of time too… late Momoyama to early Edo. Almost as soon as the Edo period kicked in, with all its regulations that enforced conformity, out of fear of having the unification fall apart due to subversive “thinking outside the box”, and individual expressionism… this type of Momoyama “looseness” was quickly suppressed.

hmmm... anyone notice something unusual to the left of this post?

Oh, and NOT Akasaka... these predate their work for certain. Again, "Akasaka" or "Ko-Akasaka" were just labels of convenience because they didn't know what else to call them. The more I look at the existing papering and labeling system derived from Akiyama, Torigoye, Sasano, Haynes, the NBTHK (all of the same lineage of thought and categorizations), the more it "sheds light" on the tragedy that it is... ...

These two are a Japanese concept called "komorebi" 木漏れ日... dappled sunlight "leaking" through trees. Either looking up through the branches and/or the resulting dancing light and shadows cast on the ground. To my knowledge, it's a motif whose conceptualization in relation to tsuba sukashi, was first realized by Bruce Kirkpatrick. I discovered the correct name for it (komorebi) through some extensive searching on Japanese sites... and some luck. You won't see that motif stated by major papering organizations because it doesn't fall into their narrow set of pre-existing labels. As with all papering institutions, if it doesn't fit into an existing label, make it fit... because it must have a label... Bruce and I have many tsuba from this un-named maker, and hope to put together a paper on his works some day He's been chasing down this rabbit hole for years... I happened to stumble on the same path and am now going down the same rabbit hole. lol The rest of the tsuba on this post (other than the shippo ones) are showing clouds and/or clouds with geese, a much more common motif that was produced by many tsuba makers for centuries.

Sorry to say, but everything about that tsuba is Shoami, not Higo. To my knowledge, there aren't any examples of Higo tsuba with this carved wood bark effect. The nunome on the mimi and the hitsu-ana are definitely not Higo. Yes, there are some late Jingo tsuba with spiders on them, but they look dramatically different to this. If I had to to pick a group, i would suggest Aizu-Shoami. Hope that helps.

Edo period for sure, due to design and rope edge... and has nothing to do with Momoyama-ness

just linking the recent Ono thread to this one because I think the discussion links nicely.

Love the added hitsu-ana on that thick one @Steves87 All these sukashi kiku tsuba are great examples of late Muromachi-early Edo period tsuba. That is clearly the window of time that they came into being, not earlier, and they were very popular throughout that time frame. There's absolutely no evidence to suggest they were made earlier than that... just pie in the sky theory.

@KungFooey Dee, your Akao tsuba is obviously legit and has a correct mei. There's absolutely no reason to doubt that your tsuba was made by that group of smiths. Do not waste your money on Shinsa for this tsuba. The money you'll you spend on papers for this will NEVER get recouped. You may as well just throw the, what is it now $250USD?, in the toilet and be done with it. Better still, give it to a charity of your choice so that your hard earned money is put to good use rather than giving it to some kind of flawed, predatory tosogu appraisal society. You're free to spend your money however you see fit of course, but that's just my advice. And welcome aboard by the way... don't let the dipshits dissuade you @Shugyosha, that's a great idea about disallowing people on someone's block list from using the anonymous emoji icons on that person's posts. If they choose to make a comment, they should post in words and have their profile name attached to it... at least there's some accountability that way.

Re: anchor tsuba ...and any unsigned, thick iron tsuba, with a rope pattern edge Somehow, somewhere, someone planted the idea that roped edged tsuba can be Ohno tsuba. I have no idea where that idea came from, but there's absolutely no evidence or justification to support that connection. They are far more likely to be Edo period "Tochibata" tsuba, like this one that was posted in the "maritime tsuba thread" ... which incidentally has the exact same round tegane punch marks on the nakago-ana as the Ohno one posted above, albeit in a different positional placement, plus the same kozuka hitsu-ana, and overall nakago-ana shape. Clearly these were made in the same time frame and from the same group of tsubako... whoever they were. But the community at large, as well as the NBTHK is happy to basically flip a coin and attribute it to either school, on any given day. https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/36547-maritime-tsuba/

Interestingly enough, as is often the case with ChatGPT summaries, it is so broadly "distilled" as to be virtually unusable. It sounds good upon first reading, but seriously lacks detail. You could use that very same set of criteria that it listed for Ohno, to describe almost any of the school constructs that are grouped in with "Owari-Momoyama-ness": ie. Owari, Kanayama, and Yagyu tsuba (although Yagyu tsuba were later than the rest)... ,but it definitely does not describe Yamakichibei tsuba (where round shapes are the exception rather than the more typical mokko or lobed shapes, and irregular asymmetry in the sukashi pattern and execution is nearly always the norm). Note: I have tried ChatGPT many times in the past, and even made some past NMB posts using its results, only to discover multiple flaws and limitations of using ChatGPT ) Oh and, Happy new year by the way

Thanks for the correction Curran Clearly not getting enough sleep these days, and should have double checked that before posting lol

I recall reading that the original lineage of Ohno smiths gave up making tsuba and became ship builders sometime around the mid-Edo period. So if that mokko tsuba is from that area and late Edo, then it has no connection to the original group, other than that it was made in the same area. It really does look remarkably different from all the other type of tsuba that have been labeled as "Ohno" so far. It's an interesting thing to dig into though... wonder if that smith's name comes in in a meikan? ...hopefully with a date and lineage

Curran, congrats on completing your daisho. That's always so satisfying. There's some nice tsuba in this thread, but... collectively, these are fine examples of how no one has any clue what an Ohno tsuba might actually be. It's just another "catch all" category for thick, unsigned, somewhat lumpy surfaced, sukashi tsuba (ranging from simple geometric symmetry to more elaborate but still simple "scenes") that don't fit nicely into any other bins. Oddly enough, there are some real out of character smooth ones posted on here as well... There's quite a few tsuba posted here that I would quickly disregard as being "Ohno", but that's based on my own preconceived notion of what fits in this mythical category. We know that these tsuba makers actually existed, but we don't know for certain what specific types of tsuba they produced (again no period documentation to tell us what they made). @Curran, where do you see Ohno 大野 in the squared mokko shaped tsuba with the waves and the mei? Here's one of those more elaborate scenes of chidori (plover birds) flying above waves that gets binned and papered as "Ohno"

Hi John, the situation is actually worse, given that there were far more tsuba made than there were swords (at least 6:1, which was the recorded average number of sets of fittings associated with each sword when swords were being registered). I suppose I wish the NBTHK would just say "genuine tsuba, unknown maker".... but they certainly shouldn't be trying to shoehorn these tsuba into a fixed set of "schools" that are largely fictitious to begin with. More honesty and transparency, and less reinforcement of constructs that have been misrepresented over time to become "factual". With regard to having a better sense of kantei points by having "access to the books", I think that's a myth that also needs to be set aside. I think the references cited in all these threads have pointed out how the books are also inconsistent, and different authors will give different attributions to the same type of tsuba, simply by virtue of the fact that many of the categories are merely theoretical constructs to begin with, so they don't have a reliably solid foundation to support their attributions. I suppose I'd like to see a broader set of "groupings" of tsuba, that aren't as limited in scope as they currently are. I'd like to see the unsigned tsuba grouped more closely by "type", using narrower margins, with perhaps statements like: "tsuba of group X but has similar features to group Y and some with Z..." etc. Maybe with an accumulation of enough examples of each of these "types" or "sub-types", then we might start to think about assigning a name or number to that group that is based on some of their features, rather than a supposition about the area they were produced. I think non-invasive analysis of steel composition will help group tsuba together by area of production (or at the very least , area from which their sand iron was sourced). I think that will start to reveal how spread out or how localized certain tsuba styles were. Beside requiring the complete destruction of a whole tsuba, Carbon dating simply cannot be used to date tsuba in any kind of reliable fashion, given that the steel will have carbon from the charcoal that used to produce it... which could have any number of different ages depending on the time period that the trees grew. The data could range by 100s of years, so would basically be as good as saying "it's an old tsuba".

I'm also glad to see these threads are getting a lot of reads, and that there are more like-minded people out there As @MauroP pointed out, we are unlikely to have an impact on the NBTHK"s kantei points (whatever those may be on whatever shinsa day...), but at least by having these threads posted, we can help "shed some light" on those collectors who find themselves adrift in an ocean of dark and murky inconsistencies.

By the way, I should point out that the "Shoami" attribution has been used as a dumping ground for unsigned Edo period tsuba for many years now. So, it makes sense that "Ko-Shoami" would follow in its footsteps. ...or does it precede it because it's "ko"? lol Two other "garbage dumps" for unsigned pieces are "Ohno" and "Hoan". And don't get me wrong, I'm not dumping on the tsuba themselves, not in the least! I'm merely dumping on the existing system, with all its flaws...

For the most part, categorizations of unsigned pieces and dates of production are indeed rife with theology Mauro @MauroP. That's abundantly evident once you start gathering multiple papered examples to try to glean some sort of insight into possible kantei points for specific "schools". Well, I was hoping people would actually give the twelve tsuba I posted an honest attempt... with no fear of judgement. But it seems that everyone is either too busy at this point in time of the year (speaking of theology ) or just don't even have an idea where to begin trying to group together such seemingly disparate examples I'll spare you all the angst of trying to figure it out. It turns out ALL twelve of these tsuba were papered as Ko-Shoami, which is a purely fictitious attribution that really gained a foothold with Sasano's publications. It seems to me like the only kantei points the NBTHK is using for this attribution are: -must be unsigned (so there's no way to check) -pre-Edo period or Edo period (it really doesn't seem to matter, even though the "ko" in Ko-shoami is supposed to mean "pre-Edo period") -steel plate (which can be solid or have just about any type of sukashi you can think of) -and most importantly, it must be difficult to place in any of the other limited number of "schools" that have been pronounced and established over the last 100 years. ...so pretty much any steel tsuba that you can't stick into an existing category. It's kind of like the "Island of Misfit Toys" (a seasonal reference for those of you who know it...) Actually, "ko-shoami" is a very handy category to have for an organization that needs to label things for money. It's like a "get out of jail for free" card for those troublesome tsuba

OK, I just want to see if we could "crowd source" a grouping of twelve tsuba, and look for opinions on the following: 1- which tsuba might "belong together as a group" 2- maybe even dare to offer a suggestion as to "pre or post Edo period" These all have papers by the way... that's the fun part

Dale, solid post as a reminder to everyone I'll second the idea from Peter, but with a twist... Please don't buy any Hozon papers for unsigned, and not uncommon tsuba from the Edo period ... because those would then qualify as "hosing" instead of "hozon" papers? or maybe even straight up "fleecing papers"