OceanoNox

It may be of interest to know that the French National Library (BNF) has several scans of the Bulletin de la Societe Franco-Japonaise de Paris. There, I found one article by Henri L. Joly (Introduction to the study of sabre fittings, 1909) and by the Comte de Tressan (Evolution of Japanese handguards from origins to the 15th century, 1910). The links are below. There is some discussion about a Mr. Hayashi's tendency to date tsuba as older than they were, and another trend about making them newer than they were. Interestingly, the Comte de Tressan separates tsuba in three categories: 1- From the 12th century onwards, primitive iron guards with limited decoration; 2- From the 15th century, tsuba with sukashi-bori; 3- From the end of the 15th century, tsuba with taka-bori. From my observation of examples extant in various collections, I would have thought the categories would be Tosho / Kacchushi / Sukashi (in general), as the measurements of those three groups are quite marked (and the structure of the tsuba also). https://gallica.bnf....4.r=tsuba?rk=42918;4 https://gallica.bnf....z.r=tsuba?rk=64378;0 Following this, I was reading Mrs. Gunsaulus' book on the Field museum fittings (1923), where she cites Joly a lot (to the point that it seems to be her main source). There, I found a comment that I did not expect (but I am a novice): According to the Comte de Tressan, katana tsuba never had the two hitsu ana. Would this mean that hitsu ana on katana tsuba were added to match the wakizashi tsuba, or for esthetics? By the way, Joly writes in this article the story about kogai used to mark one's kills, and comments (sarcastically?) "how many kogai did warriors carry?". He qualifies many theories about the use of kogai as "limping" and "doubtful". He also remarks that the end of the kogai handle (the mimi-kaki) resembles a European ear scratcher (called "escurette" in France apparently).

Oh, it's 下! I could not make any sense of the kanji below 木. I think it's 南紀 on the right. The reading could be Kinoshita Tessei zou and Nanki?

It looks like: 南紀 (Nanki) on the right 木(?)鐵齋造 on the left. It looks like 一 and い between 木 and 鐵, but I do not know what it could be. Since 造 means "made", it ought to be the name of the person or workshop that produced it.

I am sorry, I could not see the name Bushu on the photos. If I am correct, the tsuba would be signed "武州住" (Bushuu juu, living in Bushuu).

I do not have the book, but if you can send a photo of the table of contents, I could try to tell you which page.

It looks like both sides of the broken area have the same notch. This looks more like design. There is no info on the auction page, and the price is a steep 6000 yen, so I do not believe it was broken. I agree with @rematron, it was either designed this way, or there was another piece attached that fell off.

In this case, I think it might be beneficial to do it "once and for all" (so for about 50 years in terms of science), so that other people do not "waste" their time on it. By the way, @Steve Waszak, I am still not sure what is the intrinsic value of tsuba over cast ones. Is it craftsmanship? Cost of production?

We are getting off topic here, but about primary sources, there is an example of a research group that tried to find the truth about Hayashizaki Jinsuke Shigenobu, the man said to have invented iai techniques. They basically tried to find densho and documents going back to the 16th century. It seems a lot of the work was also based on personal connections, knowing who was collecting documents, and knowing the genealogy to try to get papers that might have been passed down the generations. So this is a possible work to do, get info about where the objects were made, and dig, dig dig in local archives. Again, knowing the right people, and being able to decipher the documents... Aaand to get really off topic, there is a "samurai picture journal" written during the Bakumatsu. The main guy Sekijo was under house arrest, but even then, as seen with his friends, they had very little to do, and seem to be mostly visiting one another and drinking/eating and preparing for festivals. https://kmj.flet.keio.ac.jp/exhibition/2013/04.html#know

For use of such weapons, yari is still taught in the hozoin and the owari kan ryu. Naginata is taught in modern naginata, similarly to kendo, but is taught in tendo ryu and also tenshin shoden katori shinto ryu. Tendo is interesting, because they teach the naginata with a tanto in the belt, so when the distance is too close, they drop the naginata and fight with the tanto.

I really disagree: because WE cannot find immediate value in a pursuit, does not mean it is devoid of any value. Just like unpublished research about negative results or neutral results can lead people to do the whole thing again, when they could have build up on some preexisting results, or put their efforts towards something else. At the same time, the starting point (here believing that cast tsuba were commonly made) is not necessarily a bad thing IF honesty and integrity in the research is maintained: it should translate to "Were cast tsuba produced?" with a whole study on whether the casting technology was available. N.B.: I have been on the "objective" side of this in research, where researchers who had discovered a specific mechanisms were trying to fit all results into their own theory, disparaging other theories to the point of dishonesty, while I tried to find what mechanism best explained my own results. Otherwise I agree that we should look for primary sources as much as possible. Again, this is possibly a lifetime endeavor, as many documents are almost inaccessible (either destroyed, unreadable, or simply stored and forgotten somewhere).

If you can keep enough to do what you planned, and others would not be usable for new tsuba, I would welcome them.

Oh, that's really cool! I do not want to prevent you from doing your own project.

Those results are certainly impressive. I am a bit concerned about the citations, because so far I have not been able to find some of them via a quick Google search. Did ChatGPT provide actual links?

Are the points listed not ways to tell the difference? I don't think the software could tell the difference between pictures of antique sword and modern reproduction, but that was not what was asked.

Like Rokujuro said, sanmai is three layers or three plates, so your friend is wrong. Sanmai is usually two softer steel plates surrounding a hard steel plate. When it's finished, the hard steel plate should peek out and is the edge. What your friend described is called kobuse, where one steel wraps around another (a bit like a taco). I would say that a sanmai would look closer to suguha than what you have. Very rapid cooling (in water or oil) to harden the steel is "quenching". This forms the martensite that is wanted to have a very hard edge. The tempering is a low temperature heating to remove some of the brittleness of the as-quenched steel.

Thank you for the link. It worked fine. I had forgotten about this paper by Mr. Kawami. It might be the paper where he mentions tsuba made from recycled hoes. I need to study about fluorescent X-rays, but he mentions one limitation: penetration depth of the X-ray. I use Cu-Kα and we assume generally a penetration of about 20 μm. In this paper, it is not clear how deep the X-rays go. It is possible that only the patina layer is measured (according to 金工の着色技法, by Nagano and Io, 1998, https://www.amazon.co.jp/金工の着色技法-長野-裕/dp/4844585754), solutions used for rusting iron tsuba include some kind of clay, and can include copper sulphate, as well as many other elements (rokusho, etc.). Another point to be careful is the detection of carbon. This is very difficult, and even spark measurement of elements cannot detect interstitials readily (carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen), so dedicated devices are usually required: I have used Horiba machines that simply melt a few grams of sample and measure those few elements only. May I ask about those tsuba? Preparations for the measurements I am considering involve cutting, polishing, and etching, so there would be nothing salvageable.

Ah, I replied just after your post. Yes, I have read this paper. There are two others from an Italian team (led by Dr. Zoppi [1, 2]), using neutron diffraction for non-destructive analysis of tsuba. However, neither shows the diffraction profiles. Those are the only three scientific papers I know on material analysis of tsuba, I have not seen any other yet. While I do appreciate the good tsuba, I do not want to select data, and I am interested in getting as much data as possible, to see trends, if there are any. Analyzing the good high-grade tsuba would be invaluable, but we fall again in the issue of what is representative (and is it even possible or meaningful to aim for that). An advisor at work told me this would be the work of a lifetime, because it would also mean trying to dig up (and decipher) any primary source concerning tsuba use or manufacture. [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00339-013-7832-y [2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00216-009-3048-6

Thank you for the link! I have had a hard time finding, but it is mostly because of my poor choice of words while searching. As to what I want to analyze, I don't think I can access any dating measurements (and as far as I know, while carbon dating seems possible, it appeared unreliable). But I really would like to do the following: Chemical composition (especially carbon content), X-ray diffraction to identify various phases, and some polishing and etching to see the grain size(s) and the phase distribution (basic metal characterization).

Following a video of Ford Hallam where he showed a very crumbly tsuba, I have been wondering if there are places where one could find damaged tsuba. By this I mean damaged beyond repair. I really would like to conduct destructive analysis if possible, but I cannot morally endorse destroying perfectly good artifacts. If they were deeply damaged, however... Even if there is no sure way of getting such items, I welcome your thoughts on this idea: destructive analysis on heavily damaged tsuba: yes or no?

Thank you! It reminds me of the nozarashi theme.

What I seem to read is (top to bottom, right to left): 生者必誠 (living - person - certainty - sincerity) but I am not sure of the last two.

It feels like a plant to me, too. It also reminds me of the coiled insect repellent incense sold in Japan (katorisenkou), but that would be anachronistic.

Those look like the sharingan from Naruto, an early manga aficionado?

Thank you for posting the link to the document. I will read it when time allows. Do you know why the design involves both this implement and the crab? It seems like an unlikely association.

It is called 五徳 (gotoku), with the circle in the ash, and the "claws" supporting the kettle.