pcfarrar

Thanks Rich! Very interesting. Any idea what the tsuba represents overall? Does all the symbolism add up to something? Also would this have been a special order, for example would the original owner of have said he wanted tea leaves, spoons etc. on the tsuba he was having made or would this have just been selected at a shop? Thanks, Peter

Stephen could you post some more pictures of your sword including the nakago? Is this the sword you had polished that had a hagire?

Which Hidetoshi do you have if it isn't the pupil of Amahide? Have you got a rating for him from the Toko Taikan? Judging from the pics, if the attribution is correct he must have been a pretty decent smith with some skill at copying older blades.

Pupil of Amahide. Says he made some Amahide blades. Rated in Slough as Low to medium grade showato and gendaito. Quite a suprising result, I wouldn't have thought gendaito from the images. Does it say ubu on the worksheet?

I think its Shinto like you say, and the sue bizen style hamon is typical of Bungo Takada work. Not much information about on Bungo swords really, which is odd considering they seem to survive in a quantity greater than anything else :lol:

I think Shinto Bungo Takada could also be a strong possiblity for this sword.

Thanks Rich and Koichi. Do you really think they are spoons? I thought they were geese?

Hi Ken, Good choice! I think thats one of the best deals around at the moment.

It's not bad for the price, especially if he sorts the tsuka out. Amahide made a lot of poor quality blades, including showato. This looks like one of the much rarer better blades. I think Slough is quite correct in his appraisal. You could consider the Takahashi Naganobu at nihonto.us http://www.nihonto.us/TAKAHASHI%20NAGANOBU%20KATANA.htm

Hi, Anyone have any ideas of age / school for this tsuba? Also any thoughts on the design would be great. It's quite a large katana tsuba 8.4cm x 8.4cm. Thanks, Peter

Thanks Milt. The menuki came with a nice old grooved o-suriage wakizashi in black lacquered saya inlayed with mons. I also got a brass tsuba, and a nice kashira with birds and sunset. $300 goes a long way on ebay these days

Hi, I recently got these menuki with a beat up wakizashi. They look like they could be signed. Anyone have any idea if this is a signature or just a design? The menuki look a lot better in the flesh, the colours haven't come out right on my scanner. Thanks, Peter

The one at Buddhamuseum is a fake. No chance at all thats 19th Century. Note the lack of detail in the feet, always a give away, the eyes etc. I doubt its more than 10 years old. Actually looking at the site most of the netsuke they have are fake. I can see a few that potentially look real but the vast majority are clear fakes.

I was also told the style of the signature dates it to around 1642 if that helps.

Hi Wah, Judging from the pics it has a few patches of core coming through but no other problems. I'll have it in hand early next so I'll be able to post more then.

It was polished by Rinzo Negishi via Usagiya http://www.ksky.ne.jp./~sumie99/ Considering how thin skinned Hizen blades are it could have turned out a lot worse.

I have a wakizashi by Omi Daijo Fujiwara Tadahiro (2nd generation). I got it cheap from Mark Jones who was selling it here on this board. The signature was real but the blade was heavily damaged by amateur cleaning. I think it had lost 30% of the steel off the shinogi alone! I decided to send it over to Japan for polishing. Here's the before pictures: As you can see it was in a horrible state, the end result follows. It was not possible for the polisher to repair the damage to the shinogi but it came out ok:

Only if you ask for it. You can have old shirasaya split and cleaned out.

I think its not so bad for the price, a decent quality blade and you don't need to spend anything on it. The shirasaya looks quite new, did you ask Mike where he got the sword? I wonder if it was in gunto mounts?

Comparing this with the examples of the 6th in Robertshaw's book, the tada and yoshi characters are completely different. Lately historian333 has been selling a great number of gimei swords and they all have a similar kind of style to the nakago, very crisp with a "recent" look. I have wondered if these are all gimei made in the early 20th century.

Interesting sword, undoubtably gimei. The lack of nie is the big give away.

Anyone got any ideas what this tsuba represents? I thought it was perhaps sun rays and a cross based mon? Also does anyone have ideas for school. I thought it could be early edo? 8.13cm x 8.1cm, thickness 0.41cm Thanks, Peter

They often have just plain wooden scabbards underneath so it wouldn't exactly look good for display. Unless yours has a nice lacquered old saya?

It's not bad, but polishing and papers will really add to the cost. You'd probably be better off going for something like this: http://www.nihonto.us/TAKAHASHI%20NAGANOBU%20KATANA.htm

Hi Grey, It was polished by John Bolton here in the UK. He said it opened up straight away as soon as he put his first stone to it. I decided to go ahead and get the polish completed. It's not quite as bad as it looks, one side of the blade is pretty much ok, and the picture shows the worse of the other. Peter