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Been a bit busy lately so just reading this for the first time. Japanese without question (all parts), as others have said above, but using Classical Chinese, just as Europeans might once have quoted ancient Latin or Greek.

@Bugyotsuji….Piers, what do you think? Im still for Japanese especially with that lovely ivory “repair” (but that is not based on hard knowledge!)

Thank you, Piers, Colin, and Baby Joe. I was just reading up on kanshi. I appreciate everyone's input on this. John C.

George, perhaps the first thing to learn is what we would call a "matching" KOSHIRAE might not be the same in a Japanese view. In fact, there are (often valuable) KOSHIRAE with TOSOGU en suite coming out of the hands of a renowned craftsman, but this is far from being common with all SAMURAI. As I have read, with "average" class SAMURAI, KOSHIRAE were put together following individual taste and available money, and easy-to-change parts like TSUBA, TSUKA, or SAYA were probably exchanged a few times in the life of a good sword. So, not even looking at the historical changes in general styles and use of a sword, there were many factors in the choice and combination of sword parts that we are not always aware of. In many cases, we have to learn about Japanese taste, about their mythology, religion, nature, tales and legends, folklore and customs, a.s.o. Just to give an example: in the West, we would consider martial symbols fitting a weapon, but in Japan, you may find a FUCHI with playing puppies, or a (matching !) FUCHI-GASHIRA set with a peaceful farm scene with hens, chicks, and a cock. So, studying and understanding Japanese beliefs, feelings, and taste in the historical and cultural context will certainly help. Reading books by Lafcadio Hearn might also help. I don't think there is a fast and easy way.

I'm also leaning that way Colin as this form (separate tobacco-bon, zutsu, and ojime) seems to be distinctly Japanese based on the research I've done. But I also think that Baby Joe my be on to something that, if I may paraphrase, the maker was a fan of Chinese poetry. John C.

Neat display, Piers. That red table top seems to set everything off really well.

Hmm... The first one is 若无(無 in cursive)清風吹，香氣为(為 in cursive)誰發, part of the poem 古風·孤蘭生幽園 by 李白 Li Bai of the Tang dynasty. Gemini suggested "If no gentle breeze blows, for whom would the fragrance spread?", feels close enough I guess! (Edited again: This is quite a poem upon a second read! One of the most classic themes recurring throughout Chinese poetry history, that is not being appreciated in one's own time for their talent. This poem was written in the autumn of the second year that Li Bai (arguably THE greatest Chinese poet ever) was called to the capital by the emperor himself, one of the greatest honors and dream of every ambitious person in ancient China, slandered by the emperor's favorite eunuch because Li would not kiss up to him, now growing apart from the emperor. The poem pictures a lonely orchid (considered the gentleman's flower, signifying pure of heart and high moral standards) overrun by weeds (the evil people in the court), once blessed with the sun's warmth (the emperor's favor), now loomed by the autumn moon(absent of sun and gleam future), experiencing frost and rain, and finally, "If no gentle breeze blows, for whom would the fragrance spread?" (one's talent is meaningless without the emperor's appreciation) (孤蘭生幽園，衆草共蕪沒。雖照陽春暉，復悲高秋月。飛霜早淅瀝，綠豔恐休歇。若無清風吹，香氣爲誰發。) ↑ AI could probably translate this well, not me orz) The signature on the bottom left is a little hard, I read 化 something 主人, so master of 化 something, a typical pseudonym of an old-timey Chinese or Japanese literatus. Edited: Forgot to add! Many well-educated Edo-period people read and write Chinese poems, there are even quite a few examples where swordsmiths chisel Chinese poems onto swords (Nakago and/or sword itself). But the bowl(?) in the first pic looks a little Chinesey to me. A good magnifier may tell if it's machine-made with a mini hand drill or laser-engraved. The middle one might not have anything actually intelligible on it. The third one is too blurry to make out for me, perhaps someone trained in Chinese cursive could tell, but I'm in my third weekly class in total and from which I haven't been for three weeks......

@Spartancrest, After my last reply, I did a LOT of digging. Now, when I buy a unique item online, I always try to do a reverse image search, because I've seen a lot of people selling items they do not own, then rushing off to buy the item if it sells. I bought a wonderful set of Fuchi & Kashira off ebay, asked the seller to send them to a Japanese company making a koshirae for me... and the guy panicked, acted weird as heck, and canceled the sale. I don't think I was even able to bad review him because he cancelled it. I did a reverse image and found out it was on a Japanese site for half the price. I bought it there out from under the swindler. Lately though Japanese sites are bouncing the reverse image search, and ChatGPT who I occasionally use for assistance (though I do NOT trust LLMs. I use them as search engines now that search engines are mostly bad at the job.) tells me that it is not able to access the images on those websites if I link them, I have to download the screenshots and manually enter them for Chatgpt to look at. This is a big problem, and I think I should make a thread about it, because if I can't reverse image to the Japanese auction sites because they are bouncing the search it's much harder to catch swindlers. Still, I took your photo (which I originally didn't recognize as a link to Yahoo auctions Japan's images) and reversed it, and got those suspicious websites we mentioned. It seems what these websites are doing is scraping the internet to have the entire internet on their site so they can mirror whatever you are searching and can come up for every search. You search "Prehistoric potato chips made by time traveling dragons from mars" and they will somehow always manage to come up and look like they have something for you.... The scraper sites however did have some real images.... and copies of the Japanese kanji text from the original yahoo auction. And using that text I was able to search google for that text exactly, and the original auction (from 2021) came up.... and it's the place I bought the item at. Which was a lot of work to go in a circle. Seems they had the neat little thing 4-5 years before I walked in and was enchanted by it. (IT was also 8K more in person..... but I still love it.) https://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/t1026815632 Still, the ability to reverse image to these sites directly matters to collectors, and I really do want to dig into why the search engines are getting bounced by them. Anyone have anything on that? Below is (some of) what ChatGPT had to say on it. Also, note that where it says "And this is important: your object may not originally have been catalogued as a netsuke at all" is an example of an LLM having a breakdown, as it was never suggested the Frog Overlord was a netsuke, and I always referred to it as a menuki, since it was sold to me as one (though I think the idea above by @ROKUJUROthat it's actually a clasp has a lot of merit.) Which roughly translates to: “Sword fitting, Edo-period original, shakudō-ground frog large fitting, 12g (first item / purchased item)” That is a very strong sign this was copied from a genuine Japanese antique listing. A few important clues: 刀装具 = sword fitting 江戸～ オリジナル = Edo-period original 赤銅地 = shakudō base/ground (the dark copper-gold alloy used in high-end fittings) 蛙 = frog 大金具 = large fitting So the scraper page at least preserved the original Japanese title. And this is important: your object may not originally have been catalogued as a netsuke at all. It may have been sold as: a sword fitting, kozuka ornament, menuki-related object, or detached tosogu component. That actually fits your earlier suspicion that the piece felt “odd” and did not neatly conform to normal netsuke construction. As for safety: The domain does not immediately present as classic malware/phishing from the search result alone. HOWEVER, it still behaves like a scraper/mirror commerce site, and I would not log in, create accounts, enter payment info, or disable browser protections. If you want to inspect it safely: use a browser with scripting limited, or open it in a VM/sandbox, or use a text-only fetch service. But the key takeaway is: you now have real Japanese metadata attached to the piece. That is valuable. And honestly, “赤銅地 蛙 大金具” is probably the most useful lead you’ve gotten so far. {I asked about the scaper sites and it came back with 1) Why those scraper pages exist (and why they look sketchy) They’re not random—they’re SEO parasites. How they work: Bots crawl places like Yahoo Auctions Japan, Rakuten, Mercari They copy: title text (often in Japanese), thumbnail images, sometimes prices/IDs They auto-generate fake “product pages” on cheap domains 2) Why the real Japanese listings don’t show up This is the part that actually matters for your use case. I'm also discussing work arounds with chatgpt, but he's being unrealistic in the way that LLMs sometimes are. Giving academic ideas that actual users will immediately see are bad. Have there been big discussions on here about that? There likely should be. EDIT: Actually do kind of like that frog Tsuba.... if it stays low maybe I will buy it.... I like fitting with animals, especially aquatic animals.

Geez, Alex. "Set everything off" on a table full of guns... John C.