cluckdaddy76

Alex, thanks for the post. If this is still available when my bonus comes in this spring, you will have sold this one for them. It actually ticks a couple boxes for me in terms of a purchase, mainly the kissaki and the test inscription. You even have me starting to think about parting with a couple of my current collection now and grabbing this up. I do like this piece, and it is under $10 K. Jason

Just to chime in, I am also now a huge fan of tsuba. I was lucky to acquire a large collection of many different items all at once, including 50 or so tsuba. I have been quietly studying away for some time now and have only posted a few times. Now that I have studied, I just do not see much on Ebay and rarely even look here and agree jauce is slightly better. My personal issue is now that I have learned more, I rarely see a tsuba I am interested in for much less than about $500 USD and then it goes up from there. I am also in the camp of if it makes you happy, keep doing it, so if you love your pieces Dan, keep on going. My concern with this type of $100 or so tsuba is that down the road if you needed to sell them, it may not be that easy where a quality piece would be more desired by collectors and easier to liquidate. Sure, someone can get what they feel is a great deal on a tsuba for say $50 and you value it at $150; so, in your mind this is good. However, if down the road you actually try to sell, I feel it may be a different story whether you get what you valued it at. Once again, not knocking what anyone likes, but to me once you hold better quality work in your hand, it is hard to settle for less in my opinion. Jason

Thanks for all the responses. I also agree with everyone thinking it is an artistic interpretation of a dragon and ken. Dale, I also think you are right about it not being Kinai, I have a couple decent tsuba from that school and from my research, almost any decent piece is signed. The iron quality is also different than any Kanai piece I have seen, which is another reason I do not believe it came from them. Glad everyone likes it; I came into a larger collection all at once and have been studying away trying to learn. The original collector definitely seemed to be a tsuba person as they had more of these than the other fittings. They had many different schools in their collection and also seemed to pick out ones with less common themes and of fairly decent quality.

Just the back , couldn’t fit both in first pic. Jason

I will add a second pic, just curious if anyone has an idea on the school or age of this tsuba? I have not seen another open work dragon with this particular theme, iron quality and carving is definitely better than average

I came into a large collection all at once, and I had one blade in poor shape (the notes that came with it did say this was a project blade). I made a joke about turning it into the best machete around in a post on here a bit ago but am glad I did not. I took the advice of members here and what was once a rusty piece has come a long way with just my patience and basic cleaning advice from members. At first, I had similar feelings as you, that it would be honorable to put it back in use. Now that I have been studying and will call myself officially a novice collector, my feelings have changed and agree they should be preserved. I have heard there are some decent options out there if you do want to upgrade your practice blade for cutting, even possibly a tamahagane blade made more recently. This is only something I have read about, but what I have heard is lesser-known smiths sometimes make extra blades beyond what they are legally able to produce each month just to survive. To me it sounds like your blade in question may be better off putting preservation energy into it. You mentioned you basically had a new koshirae made which is not cheap as we all know, what about getting a new polish on this blade? In the end for me, I chose to preserve as once you damage it, there is no going back. I look like I am ending up with a nice Mino-Den wakazashi and am happy with my decision. Hope this helps. Jason

Again not sure on age, 91 mm diameter and very nice iron quality. Jason

94 mm diameter, I am not positive on age but have been told this is an older tsuba Jason

Have you checked on Grey Doffin's website, Japanese Sword Books and Tsuba? One of the larger book dealers I am familiar with right now. Jason

I have also had this happen once with a shipment from Japan to the US. It was also DHL and the reason I was given was that the total amount of value for combined items triggered this new fee. I told them that was ridiculous because I did not have this happen with previous shipments of even larger value. They refused to give me my items unless I paid, and I did as at this point an extra $100 was not worth not getting my pieces. I have never had an issue when using EMS. Jason

Good topic, this tsuba has made me ask myself the same question, mice or rats???

Does taming goats count????

Add 48 to this list...

I am a newer collector just learning myself and have fallen in love with specifically tsuba. Everyone here has given great advice; my suggestion is to do some studying on metals/metalwork in general. Once you get some basic knowledge, start studying nicer tsuba for sale on sites from legitimate dealers. Then head to a site like Ebay and try to start spotting fakes. As your knowledge develops, you can then start to pick out the better "fakes" or cast pieces trying to get passed off as handmade pieces. The more you look at them, the easier it gets to spot bad ones. Some basic things to look for would be casting seams/bubbles, often the colors of various metals look off (this you learn from studying real pieces). If you see a piece, you are not sure about on an auction site, take a look at what else that dealer has for sale. If you can tell other items from that seller are not legit, my rule is run away. I am far from an expert but have a job where I can do some research every day and I have been studying hard for some months now. I do also have books, but for me the visual study/comparison helps greatly. Ginza Seiyudo website is a great place to start looking at really nice higher end tsuba. Grey Doffin's site, Japanese swords and tsuba is also another one with a ton to look at and study. The biggest problem is that the more studying you do, the prices of the tsuba that you now want do tend to go up in price dramatically. But this is the fun of collecting so enjoy but be careful because you can buy some junk if you are not knowledgeable.

These may not have come together; they are in a large collection I acquired. The lower pair is papered by themselves and not as a set. I am still waiting to see if there are papers for the upper pair, we are still sorting through things from a large estate. Both definitely not cast, but lower pair to me looks better quality. I am not convinced they are a true pair myself based on size, but someone I showed suggested it was since one was a single large hen/rooster and the other was a pair of smaller birds. Unfortunately, this large collection was abused for many years and some papers have most likely been lost. This was just a single box that I placed both pairs in for the pic. This is also a mediocre pic, they look much better in hand especially the bottom pair. Top pair if cleaned a bit should bring out a bit more detail.

Would these be considered a true daisho set?

Adam, totally agree. I enjoy using my whetstones to sharpen and do it more frequently than most people might think. I use my knives almost daily and definitely cut more than butter.

Thanks everyone for the insight. I do believe I will not paper the fittings based on most feedback. I would have eight to ten between tsuba, fuchi/kashira, and menuki and does not seem to me that it would be worth the money spent unless I want a certain piece done for personal gratification of some kind.

I realize my title should have been, "How to Preserve and Prevent Further Damage". I will be posting more pics eventually. Thanks for the help so far.

I was curious on the forehead and other's opinions. I thought it looked like oxidization; had a long shot someone would tell me it was a mask. It seems a lot of people like these style tsuba, for some reason I am really attracted to different styles of iron tsuba more than softer metals such as this one, Don't get me wrong, I still think this is a decent piece, thanks for your response.

Thanks everyone, I will continue with cleaning and oil. Jon , not sure if this matters but these pics were done in almost completely dark room with flash. In normal light I have gotten this rust looking darker, but I was actually surprised how red it was when I viewed these pics. Thanks for the help.

And this is why I have finally learned to ask before just doing, only took about 47 years It has a very nice feel in hand and I can see some nice activity under the rust but can't tell much about the hada in current condition. I will upgrade this one and maybe I will make this one my first full restoration piece.

Thanks for these quick responses. I am still playing around with the photography and will be posting much better pics soon. I did not mean a new polish; I just want to not let it get any worse than what I now have. I will update with new photos possibly after this weekend.