cluckdaddy76

I am much better with fittings but am studying swords too. This is a pic of a wakazashi boshi, other side is same basic pattern. It runs close to cutting edge, comes back down from top of kissak and makes a small "V" before heading back up. Is there a name for this specific style of boshi? I was not confident in a match from the drawn examples I could find. I have a handful of blades in the collection I inherited, and instead of just posting them, I want to try to identify small items as I study so when I am more confident, I will ask all the right questions after taking a guess myself at the school/smith/era etc. All help is greatly appreciated. Jason

I believe Hotei are another legend, I have this mostly iron base example in my collection with this subject.

I have seen a couple iron catfish tsuba, bit only soft metal with the entire theme.

Put a little bit of white on the bottom modern pair and it would look more like an orca than a catfish, some reproductions are just awful

I would suggest not getting a cheap one off a site like Amazon, my experience is that they are very unreliable. You don't need to break the bank either unless you are looking for precise weights on menuki. My suggestion is a decent Ohaus that meets your needs. I have an Ohaus that was maybe $50 and it is going strong at 10+ years old. Jason

I have been keeping an eye out for a tsuba with the same theme but have not seen one that I felt was good enough quality. I came into the majority of my collection all at once and now that I have studied a bit, I am ready to make purchases. One of my goals is to make themed sets from pieces I really like, and this is one I would love to complete. I have seen kozuka with this theme but have not seen a fuchi/kashira set with it, but I am sure some must exist. Jason

I have a very similar pair that must be from the same school. I have always liked this set. Sorry my lighting isn't the best. Only differences I see are that my gourds are a different color and your catfish have a slightly red tone while mine are very close to black. Jason

This is a smaller wakazashi sized tsuba that seems a little bit different than many openwork crane tsuba that I have seen. It looks as though the crane is dipping his beak into the water. There is sekigane visible on the other side, so it appears as if was set at least once. I find these are some of the harder tsuba to attribute to a school, and I have been happily surprised with the results of some other sukashi tsuba in the collection I inherited. Just looking on opinions from anyone who may have the knowledge. Jason

Geraint, thanks for the feedback. I was leaning that way myself. I have seen a couple listed as Higi/Jingo school that looked similar, but none had the square Hitsu-Ana. Jason

I have one example in my collection of this tsuba with a plugged rectangle hitsu-ana, I have not identified the school but perhaps somone else can. Jason

Too bad auction sites don't have a commentary section while bidding occurs, we could help people from buying these items. There is no way any auction site will add that feature in my opinion, they are there to make money and let the buyer beware!!!

With taxes, fees, and shipping, winner paid close to $700 USD for this gem.

Sorry for the pic quality, best i can do in this case

Part of how I study is to follow questionable pieces at auctions and see the outcome. This one stood out to me because of the same color sekigane. Sorry for the poor circling in the pic, but people with knowledge clearly do not need me to point this out. Am I missing something or is this a reproduction piece as I am guessing? I have noticed recently when it comes to auctions that there seem to be newer collectors with some money possibly making very bad choices. Thought this might be an interesting discussion, I would love to hear feedback from a few of the tsuba collectors with much more knowledge than me. Jason

The tsuka wrap looks not well done to my eyes but sometimes pics are hard to judge. I feel I see warning signs with this one with more than one concern, but there are far more knowledgeable people here who can help you out more. Jason

Just went through this entire thread. Thank you so much and everyone else who commented. This is an amazing collection, and you helped me track down some attributions to a tsuba in my collection which I now realize is a bit better of a piece than what I thought. I think you should change the name of the thread to "How to build a collection" as yours is pretty darn special. Jason

I thought this one was a steal at $122, this was unsigned , if anyone has a thought on school I am curious. There were a couple others too that went for $150 or so that also looked of decent quality.

This one went for $290, guessing Bushu or Choshu

I am going to post a few more from this same auction that were no where near the quality of the one first posted, but still seemed to be decent tsuba. Believe this was a Choshu that ended up at $270

I was curious on this one too, I often use Ebay as one of my study tools. I believe this came from an antique dealer in the US and not someone who only deals in swords and sword fittings. There were a few decent pieces that this seller had that went for what I felt were decent prices by the end, this one was a couple levels ahead in terms of quality. This is why I keep studying, someone with knowledge knew exactly what this was and was not afraid to pay money for it.

Thanks Brian, just renewed through PayPal and should be setup for automatic renewals from now on. I am very happy to help support, I do not post all that much as I have been studying away since coming into a larger collection all at once. I have just started to purchase a few items on my own, fittings so far. This site is amazing with the collective knowledge here. Thank you for all you do to keep this going. Jason

I am just wondering if anyone can tell me if my subscription will renew automatically or do I need to purchase a year subscription once it expires? I also have changed debit cards since my last subscription, any help would be greatly appreciated. Jason

I believe it is coming up for auction soon, I have seen it somewhere during my poking this week. I am unsure on this one and being a smaller size, it took away most of my interest. It looks like it is not cast and fairly well made, but really not sure on school or age. Also curious on anyone's thoughts on motif aside from possible school/time period, my guess on that right now might be silkworms. Jason

I am a newer collector, and I can tell you the approach I took before purchasing any on my own. I will say that my first pieces came to me all at once in the form of a lifelong debt repayment, so I did have something in hand to study at first. But in my opinion if buying online, having some in hand only helps a bit. If yopu were alwyas shopping live for tsuba, then some in hand would help more. First thing that was actually useful was I came on here and listened to many people simply say, study first. So I did, starting with a couple books suggested here. Reach out to Grey Doffin on his website, he usually has a huge selection. Then I made sure to have a large enough screen and high-resolution monitor and went online. I started first with the links and dealer section located here and would actually look at them all. Next step was to go to the auctions online and start looking at activity there, especially items people were actually bidding on at the time. But I would also take time to look at everything online, because in the beginning it is just as important to learn what the reproductions and junk/fakes look like too. For me, once I had been doing this regularly for a number of months (mind you I did not buy my own tsuba until close to two years of looking/studying) I realized I had definitely learned a lot. Once you see enough nice authentic tsuba many fakes will jump right out. The really bad one's with minimal studying are pretty easy to pick out once you know what to look for such as casting lines, injection molding sites, a seam in the middle of the tsuba etc. Then the reproductions start to get better. With softer metal tsuba, study the colors of the various metals used on legitimate antiques first. Then go look at some Ebay reproductions (or auction site of your choice, Jauce may be even better than Ebay) and look at theirs. Continue this practice and I think you will be happy with the results. I am guessing from your original post you do plan on using auction sites, so here are a couple tips just for auction sites once you have some knowledge and can at least differentiate many of the fakes. If you find a tsuba for sale from a seller you are not sure about as there are one's very tough to tell, go look at what else this seller has to offer. If you go to their page and realize it looks like all of their other pieces are modern repro's , get the piece you were looking from them out of your thoughts. The probability of them having one real piece while the rest is garbage is very low in my opinion. This can be tricky if the seller only has one tsuba, but if they had other items take a look at those and decide what type of seller this person appears to be. Next piece of advice is this, just because multiple people are bidding on an item, it does not mean it is good. The site Liveauctioneers.com have many auction houses for example, but many have no idea what they even have and many list reproductions at ridiculous prices. I don't know how many times I wish there was a way to insert comments in the middle of bidding when I see people overpaying and battling it out for some hunk of crap. But even with all this, mistakes can still be made. Sukashi iron tsuba fakes are among some of the harder ones to decipher in my opinion. I feel the only "downfall" which is really a bad thing when you do a bunch of studying is that I have become much pickier about the quality of what I will purchase compared to what I thought was good quality when I first started. Do not be frightened by the hobby, if you can take some time to study, I think you will enjoy it. I do believe my studying at first definitely saved me from what I would now consider mistakes, including spending money on legitimate older pieces in poor condition or not particularly desirable pieces to study except for the fact they are actually old. Good luck and I hope this helps and gives you some encouragement. Jason

I have also found studying pieces for sale from higher end dealers (start with Ginza Seiyudo) is also a great way to learn. Be careful with current auctions even from high end auction houses as they do make mistakes but past auctions from them should also be a good resource as previously mentioned. This piece caught my eye at first too as I did see it in the auction, but I had hesitations on it. I only started to purchase recently myself but was lucky enough to come into a larger collection all at once. I studied for more than a year and a half before attempting to make a purchase. My rule on auctions is to not get caught up, evaluate the piece and set your top price. Stay strong and do not get caught up in the passion of bidding at the end. Still a nice piece even if gimei so congrats!!!