And I thought translating from Japanese was difficult!

[Spartancrest]

I have been working on some old references on tsuba from 1914  - in Swedish - and apart from the inevitable inability of Google, Windows or whatever program that manages copying pdf back into text, either missing letters or adding ones that are not there to start with. Google translate just can't do the job. Can anyone check if I have 'cracked the code' and the translation is accurate. I was a little perplexed when the original Swedish was saying Yoshihide was working in the Kiowa era - I don't think the native Americans had too many Japanese tsubaco!

[SteveM]

Kiowa is maybe Kyōwa 享和 1801-1804?

[Spartancrest]

Thanks Steve,  that means there was only a three year work period for Yoshihide. The description in the book is probably too narrow and may refer to the guessed time the actual tsuba was made and not his time of overall production. [?]

It is fun going through old books, they didn't know it all then and here we are a hundred years on and know even less. 

[Bugyotsuji]

Not quite so strange when we remember that many post-Edo English maps, texts etc., referred to Tokyo as Tokio and Kyoto as Kioto.