Soshin

Hi Jean C., I don't think they do a monthly tosogu kantei like they do with swords. I do know other people (no names please) that have submitted tosogu and nihonto multiple times until they got a different result but I digress. If you like the tsuba go ahead any buy it from Aoi-Art. It looks fine to me.

The inside cover of the box reads top to bottom on the left. Maru-gata Tetsu Ji Sukashi Bori The next line moving right to left reads... ????

Hi Jean C., I tend to agree with Marius, not sure what can be gain from a submission to the NBTHK other then a paper with nice Japanese writing on it that might say Shouami (正阿弥), Owari (Edo Jidai) [尾張 (江戸時代)] or maybe even Higo (肥後) if they like the tsuba. I recently acquired for almost free a tsuba with a NBTHK hozon papers where the previous owner though the NBTHK botched the appraisal of the Owari tsuba in 2014. This is coming from a collector with about six more years of experience collecting and a long held respect for the NBTHK. Therefore keep in mind you might not get the result you expect with shinsa and NBTHK often provide little or no information in terms of how they arrive at a particular attribution. In an upcoming project I will be accumulating historical and observational evidence if possible in support of the previous owners claim for this tsuba, organizing the evidence into a thesis, and translating it professionally into Japanese. This written thesis will be sent along with last years NBTHK hozon paper and the tsuba for a resubmission to the NBTHK next year sometime. If I don't find the necessary historical and observational evidence to support the previous owner claim I will just leave the tsuba as is and accept the NBTHK judgment from 2014. I have never done this before and still need work out the details with my Japanese sword broker in Japan. I am hoping that having membership to the NBTHK since 2007 will help with working out the details.

Hi Jean C., Check out the updated NBTHK shinsa standards translated into English at the following link. http://nihontocraft.com/2015_NBTHK_Nionto_Tosogu_Shinsa_Standards.html

The Bonji on the right as you face the omote of the tsuba is the seed syllable for Fudo Myo'o and has nothing to do with war or fire. He is the leader of the Five Wisdom Kings in Esoteric Buddhism. Here is a good website with fair bit of accurate information about the meaning of Fudo Myo'o: http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/fudo.html . The Bonji to the left as you face the omote of the tsuba are the seed syllables for the two childlike god attendants of Fudo Myo'o called collectively as Ryodouji or separately as Douji in Japanese. There specific names are Kongara Douji and Seitaka Douji. I hope you find this information helpful that will allow you to better understand your new tsuba.

Hi Jason, Many people start this hobby with buying things on eBay so don't worry about it. Fred Weissberg is great to deal with and has a nice website (http://www.nihonto.com) but I am sure he is very busy at the San Francisco Japanese sword show this weekend. Grey Doffin has a good website (http://www.japaneseswordbooksandtsuba.com/) for Nihonto and Tosogu books but him like Fred are both busy with the San Franciso Japanese sword show this weekend. My website (www.tsubaotaku.com) has a wealth of free information along with publication quality photos of each piece. Since I am not at the show I am running a "make me a deal sale" for anything on my website for the month of August. I have already made one good deal. Take care and do share with us other pieces you have picked up on eBay if you have time.

This is just a quick general notice about major website update to my website (www.tsubaotaku.com) for August 2015. Here is a link to a newsletter detailing all the changes to my website. Please contact me if you have any questions. http://shoutout.wix.com/so/fKxW6A3S

Hi Ford, Don't worry my legs are just fine. LOL... Putting all joking aside thank you joining back into the discussion. Misumi is a bit of a phantom anyway not sure I agree with Pete's claim that he is a big name. They don't even have a recorded birth or death dates only that he lived more then 70 years old which was signed on one of this works. This is uncommon in Japan as the death dates are often recorded at the family Buddhist temple. My wife says her temple has records of her family extending back to before the Keian Era. Ito in his research even checked the domain's records and didn't find any information about him. This is very uncharacteristic of the other major artists working in Higo Province. My statement of the Keian Era is just that a estimate from reading Ito translated comments. Right now I am going on the notion that Misumi has a very good month making these menuki. From watching your Youtube video making a set of menuki using traditional methods I would say a month but I am really not sure how long it would take. I find this set of menuki also attributed to him of a dried seahorse similar to my set. They are published in Ito's book but I found this image searching Japanese Google with his name written in Kanji along with the term menuki "三角目貫".

I will think about that. Was Misumi a student of Hikozo? I didn't find any inform about that, when I was researching my Hirata article for the JSSUS newsletter.

Very nice!

No disrespect Brian intended. I fixed the typo because of my diagnosed learning disability caused by left hemisphere brain damage. I use a spell checker to help but it doesn't fix that mistake because "brain" is a real word. I had serious seizures as a young child which might have caused the damage. Sometime I just get letters backwards and I have trouble seeing it.

Henry Wilson makes a really good point Brian does send at lot of time on this website and I acknowledge via donations and thank him for that. I just don't find posting anything new from my collection on this website fun or productive for my hobby. Yes my attack on Brain might have been a little over the top but his smart ass response in the first place to my basic question wasn't at all necessary and clearly provoked my attach in the first place. I don't post any new topics and will never again post any new topics about tosogu to this website period. James Lawson you really need to read and understand all of my comments better in that topic you linked to. I was just hopping to add a quick update to this topic nothing more which based upon the shinsa results validate what Ford and Kevin were saying in the first place about the set of menuki and goes against Roman's claim that the menuki were fake. I question why does anyone ever bother doing anything other then sending PM and checking Japanese sword show dates on this website...

LOL Brain... People who post here on NMB shouldn't be bullied or belittled because they are not your best buddy or a professional tsuba maker. Here is updated information. I missed Mike Yamasaki at the Tampa Show this year. I had a table and was busy with that the whole show and he left early on Sunday so I couldn't talk to him about the tadpole menuki after the show. Therefore I needed a broker to submit them for shinsa in Japan. My friend Peter Farrar suggested I contact Paul Martin (http://www.thejapanesesword.com/) to act as a broker for me in Japan for shinsa. I shipped the menuki to him in Japan and had them submitted to the NTHK-NPO (The Society for the Preservation of the Japanese Sword) for shinsa (examination). I decided to do this based in part to Curran's own research about the NBTHK and their lack in the appistial of Higo tosogu as of late. Please refer to this topic for more information: (http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/16383-nbthk-papering-of-higo-tsuba/?hl=higo). The other part is my personal experience with the NTHK-NPO in the past but I digress. The menuki came back with a direct attribution to (Mitsumi Harunobu 三角春信) circa the middle Edo Period (江戸時代中期) circa the Keian Era. They scored so high in fact that they had to be submitted to the yearly (Yuushu shinsa 優秀審査) in December. The menuki are now safely with Paul Martin in Japan until this December because we decided this would be the safest approach without risking multiple international shipments to and from Japan and the USA. Regardless of the results of the upcoming Yuushu Shinsa I am very happy with these menuki and plan to keep them in my collection a very long time. Things of such high quality don't come along often.

Hi Pete, Is that your tsuba? I really like it.

Hi Everyone, Just wanted to post and revive this dead topic a little bit with an important update of information. Brian hates when someone posts on a old long dead topic. Brain are you are aright with hearing a update?

No problem we all have limited funds and need to focus on specific areas to collect. I hope you find the shinsa educational and helpful.

Hi, I really think you should just wait until you get the shinsa results from the NBTHK if you want to know more about these menuki. I personally don't find them attractive at all but they are outside of my area of collecting. The NTK has a very bad reputation in my book which is only amplified recently by the number of fraudulent auctions on eBay and other sites claiming that these NTK papers are in fact NBTHK papers or NBTHK chairman papers. I was meaning to start a warring topic about these fraudulent auctions but never gotten around to it until I read your post which gave me extra motivation. Example #1 http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=400955154680&globalID=EBAY-US Example #2 http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=271926797287&globalID=EBAY-US Example #3 http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=271919468499&globalID=EBAY-US

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=271910508699&globalID=EBAY-US

"We're up to 20 TH now, so a good grouping." Hi Curran, Who is the we in the statement? I have speculating that you are one person and not a artificial intelligence trying to build a consensus because I have met a biological entity claiming to be you. I have long speculated that Guido is one such entity likely design by Google to watch Russian accident videos on YouTube and argue on the internet. The chances of one person with multiple personalities having the same specific hobby isn't likely but if true is likely worthy of doctoral dissertation in psychology. (Waring the above statement is intended as a joke only.) I really don't have any other TH examples to share. Everyone else has already listed everything I was going to list. I have been in the position to purchase a TH tosogu but never have because I have found more interesting prices with old TK papers, NTHK papers, or had no papers. That might quickly change at some point in the future.

Hi Ray, Nice website! ????

To be honest I saw the lot of Chinese fakes tsuba as I am registered with the auction house via email and I just rolled my eyes was thinking "buyer beware on and off eBay now". I don't deal much with them and don't have a contact by name. I am glad James stepped up and contacted someone at the auction house to let them know all the tsuba of that lot are fake.

Hi, I am thinking one of the Choshu Schools as well circa the late Edo Period.

Jidai Ko-Kinko tsuba as a birthday gift from a friend who also collects tsuba. The base metal is refined copper. The photo was taken with my new iPhone 6+ which does nice photos. Enjoy it or not I could really careless because it was a gift not often given...

Hi Marcello, Check out my website link below. It is also free and it has many photos and information. http://www.tsubaotaku.com You will notice a little overlap between my website and Grey's website because I have purchase and traded some tsuba with Grey. Contact me via my website or PM if you have any questions.

Hi BaZZa, Dandyism is a translation of the Japanese world "iki" which was for the most part the esthetics of the rich merchant class in Edo. I think you see this esthetic in many of the works of the machi-bori tosogu artists. I think other Japanese esthetics in general such as wabi-sabi and shibui are in play with Higo tsuba the topic of the thread you linked to.