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Coins as Menuki


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Has anyone ever seen coins used as Menuki. There are, believe it or not, replica "Satsuma Rebellion" swords for sale, and they use old style Chinese or Japanese coins as menuki, rather than the rovings or washers we see on the real thing.

 So what I ask, having seen some very odd things indeed used as menuki on genuine Nihonto... has anyone ever seen coins, antique or modern used on real Japanese swords of any date?

 Further, what are the oddest or most original things anyone has seen as Menuki on a genuine piece? Personally I have handled a "Satsuma sword" that used flattened military buttons as menuki, and on the 'net a Katana with Jomon era flint arrowheads used as such.

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I once owned a fairly small tanto that had an oval shaped Japanese coin used for the tsuba. The coin had a hole cut in the center to let it slip over the nakago. Although it was a Japanese coin, I have no way of knowing if the coin was original to the blade or if some enterprising WWII service man made the modification. It certainly wasn't a better quality blade and if I recall it looked more like the end of a broken blade with a shinogi that had been converted into a tanto.  

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Here is an unusual pair. I acquired them many years ago from a Japanese sword that was brought back from Burma. I guess they are probably a leopard or tiger tooth. They appear to have once been a pendant or part of a necklace due to the hole in them. It is one tooth that was sawn in half to mount them as menuki. They are 42 mm OAL.

post-1142-0-37649800-1573949688_thumb.jpgpost-1142-0-06815600-1573949716_thumb.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

 Some time ago I started a thread in the hope of achieving some sort of consensus as to  what exactly defined a "Satsuma Rebellion" sword. It didn't head in the way I hoped, but I did come to some conclusions of my own.

 

 I am seeing some interesting stuff coming up here on this thread, and the Indian coins as menuki are very nice! These are just the type of coin I have seen reused (shank soldered on the back) as buttons elsewhere, so I wonder if that is what they arrived as in Japan? Used to own one in fact, but sold it a while back....

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Not exceptionally uncommon, usually dating to the 19th century, often Persian or Indian, as Indian things were quite in big favor at the time.

 

Kirill R.

 

 Yup, as the curtain came down, Japan became interested in, and sympathetic to, how other Eastern Nations fared under Western colonialism. Japan became something of a haven for fleeing Indian and Chinese nationalists

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Here is an unusual pair. I acquired them many years ago from a Japanese sword that was brought back from Burma. I guess they are probably a leopard or tiger tooth. They appear to have once been a pendant or part of a necklace due to the hole in them. It is one tooth that was sawn in half to mount them as menuki. They are 42 mm OAL.

DSC03812.JPG DSC03813.JPG

That's pretty cool!

 

I know its from Burma but it would be cool if those teeth turned out to be really old black bear teeth from the north of Japan from an old samurai family

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