Tsuba mei

[WillFalstaff]

Hi all,

 

Can you guys tell me if this mei is legit, and if it is, who’s signature it is? Thanks a bunch. I know 0 about tsbas, never mind the schools and smiths.

 

 

[ROKUJURO]

Will,

 

picture is upside down, so it's difficult to read. To find out if it is authentic, you have to compare with the MEI of certified TSUBA (no plural form) of the same maker.

[John A Stuart]

活法 Katsunori maybe. John

[Spartancrest]

Well it is not this Katsunori = 勝則    Katsu-hō = 活法  Looks a better bet.  Katsu-hō = "How to live"

[WillFalstaff]

Thanks, guys.

Wow. It was upside down. Great.

Any suggestions on how to get started on studying tsuba (never mind mei)? I feel thoroughly ignorant. 

[GRC]

Hi Gabe.

Go to the downloads section and look for the "tsuba diving" article. It was written as a primer to introduce people to tsuba and tsuba collecting. I think the NMB member "GRC" wrote that one 

 

After that, the best place to gather some information on various tsuba schools is shibuiswords.com, which is written by Haynes and Long. Haynes has been studying, writing about, and collecting tsuba for many decades

 

After that, have a look at various museum collections posted online: Metropolitan, Ashmolean, etc.

 

Then once you've looked at a few thousand images and gotten a sense of what's out there , THEN start looking to buy the types of tsuba that interest you the most.

If you want to build up a collection, then it really helps to have a tsuba "meikan" so you can identify the signatures of various smiths, which also helps to identify some of the many forgeries that exist.

 

It also helps to familiarize yourself with mass produced cast tsuba and some of the really high quality fakes being produced today...

so maybe search for "cast tsuba" here on the NMB, and have a look at the "oh for goodness sake" thread to get an idea of what to watch out for.

 

Most importantly, ENJOY IT!!!!

 

Oh, one last thing: bear in mind that the idea of "schools" is pretty fluid for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to: smiths moving to new schools, sharing of technique and style between schools, revival movements in the mid to late Edo periods that sought to bring back some of the styles form the past... not to mention the fact that some of the "schools" weren't actually schools at all and are simply a "construct of convenience" that allow us to classify some of these tsuba, etc etc

 

Hope that helps ...