Higo Nishigaki?

[lotus]

Attached are a couple Tsuba, the first one was posted on Facebook and attributed as such "Higo Nishigaki paulownia sukashi". The second Tsuba I own which is very, very close in design to the first. I have always been on the fence with mine as being Nishigaki or not (possibly done by another school but copying the Nishigaki design). It does share many of the same characteristics of the Higo Nishigaki school. Look forward to your thoughts...

[Curran]

No one replied, so I will fill the gap.

   Yours is somewhere in the later Hayashi [A] or Kamiyoshi school. = Same difference, as B inherited from A... though A didn't die out quite like was expected.

The outer rounding on your kozuka ana is something that points that way.

 

The Facebook one is a tsuba.

[lotus]

Thanks for the feedback. I will definitely look more into the 2 schools you mentioned and research more into the kozuka ana shape.

[vajo]

The first one is made in the style of a Higo Tsuba.

[lotus]

Couple more photos in better light and dimensions are about 77 mm round and 4.8-5 mm thick...

[Japan2112]

The first one is not Nishigaki, nor perhaps Higo, but made in its style. The kogai hitsu, kebori, and mimi itself seem crude. I like yours better, although I would expect some refined kebori carving if Hayashi or Kamiyoshi, While it doesn't have the expected seme tagane the iron, color, and maru bori is reminiscent of Tosa Myochin. As said, yours is nice.

[lotus]

Mark -

 

Yeah, there is kebori carving in the top leaves but it is very faint indeed and hard to photograph. And like Curran pointed out, the outer rounding of the kozuka ana does seem to match with those from the Hayashi school. Though either school sounds good to me.