Guido

This tsuba looks "off" to me in quite a few ways. The worst is the patina, which is awful. According to the listing, the material is shibuchi, and it might well be. However, the attempt at patinating it properly obviously failed: it’s blotchy and lacks depth. Probably in order to hide this, it was lacquered, but that also was a fail, as the wrinkled lacquer shows: either applied with a dirty brush, or on a dirty surface, or reacting with the “patina” – or a combination of all the three. In order to make it look more real, fake seppa wear / discoloration was attempted. At least the person who did this should have been clever enough to use a seppa as a template, but instead he rubbed off a line free-hand, and missed some parts. Neither the signature nor the workmanship is up to the standards of this famous maker; attached is a genuine example, judge for yourself. IMO the tsuba discussed here is a modern fake; the best case scenario is probably that it’s an antique fake with a botched attempt at “restoring” it. Anyhow, lacquer remover/stripper can be used without doing any harm to the patina (if it’s real/traditional, that is); got it straight from the horse’s mouth, and been there, done that. Putting clear lacquer on antique fittings is unfortunately a frequent occurrence in Japan … Lastly, going to Yahoo!Auctions one will see many tsuba that have this “funny” look to them – they never have papers, the seller doesn’t accept returns (like in this case), and they always sell for much less than what the (famous) artist usually goes for. Again, draw your own conclusion.

This looks like a listing from one of the very active Yahoo!Auction Japan sellers. He mostly sells legit items, but also fakes; this seems to be one of the latter IMO.

I wouldn‘t hold my breath waiting for an answer, Ken, Tom is kind of a hit-and-run poster. Peace.

If I understand the “terms & conditions” on their homepage correctly, they do ship worldwide. To be on the safe side, you might want to send them an e-mail.

Looks like that hybrid from Jurassic World - I'm not sure even his mother could love that ugly bastard ...

That's me in the center, showing my friends Amber (to the left [recently out on parole]), and Tiffany (to the right [she's 18, I swear!]) how to properly use uchiko.

Did you mean "friend" or "Feind" ?

This can’t be overemphasized, especially when it comes to tsukamae and tsukamaki. I often see people going oooh & aaah over tsukamaki that’s sub-standard, just because it was done in Japan; one has to study the fine details in-depth in order to being able to judge the quality (this, of course, is true for all traditional Japanese crafts). Case in point: I recently needed to have the tsukamaki redone for an antique tsuka because the ito was disintegrating. I got talked into having it done by a “good but reasonably priced” tsukamaki-shi – I should have known better, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. The tsuka had very nicely “patinated”, high quality samegawa, and hosomaki-ito. I asked to have it done the same way, just in a different color, kodai-murasaki instead of black. When it came back, the ito was regular murasaki, and regular width. To cover up that it would have shown darker and lighter parts of the antique samegawa due to the difference in ito width, the craftsman had “cleaned” the samegawa, and had put a coat of amber lacquer over it. Furthermore, it was done in kata-tsumami-maki instead of moro-tsumami-maki, and the menuki weren’t placed correctly (even one or two mm up or down the tsuka can make a huge difference). To make a long story short, the sword dealer who had brokered the tsukamaki was so embarrassed that he covered the cost himself, and sent me a nice gift box from one of the more expensive department stores as a consolation; however, nothing will bring back the beautiful luster of the antique samegawa. In my experience, good quality (regular) tsukamaki sets one back about 45,000 Yen, up to 80,000 Yen for top quality; multiply this by at least 1.5 for jabara-maki. OTOH, while all kinds of amateurs try their hands on this in Japan – including some none-Japanese – it’s very difficult to find someone outside Japan who does at least decent work. And an economic truism in Japan is that anything done for a small charge isn't worth a jot. This field of collecting isn’t for the faint of heart …

The proper way to do it (if you want to skip the shirasaya): • Commission sword • Have foundation polish done • Commission fuchi, kashira, and tsuba (and menuki) according to the dimensions of the sword • Send sword and fittings to shirogane-shi (for habaki and seppa) • Send everything to koshirae-shi • If the koshirae-shi doesn’t do lacquer or handle wrapping, then • Send to nuri-shi • Send to tsukamaki-shi • Send to togi-shi for final polishing • Enjoy the end result despite the fact that you’ll never recover the investment if you ever sell the sword

Besides of what Koichi said, 歓喜 (kangi) is the sanskrit pramuditā, the first of the ten stages of becoming a Bodhisattva.

Simple physics. Reflections from metal are not polarized, so a polarizing filter does not work - it can’t cancel something out that isn’t there ...

Let me get this straight: instead of taking a quick pic with your cell phone (too time consuming?), you get into a lengthy reply about your photo equipment. I don‘t know where the fog machine, dry ice, and colored lights come in, but I doubt all that stuff will contribute to getting clear pictures. A polarizer will do you no good, since it doesn‘t work on metallic surfaces. 50 mm and F8 would be my choice, btw, but that‘s probably too easy for you ...

Maybe he said “Tim Cook Apple” really fast, and the "Cook" was soft, but all you heard from the fake news is that he said “Tim Apple.”

濱堅直親（花押）Hamano Naochika (kaō) Looks more like shibuichi than shakudō to me.

The kozuka shows a 如意 (Japanese: nyoi; Chinese: rúyì), a curved ceremonial sceptre used in Chinese Buddhism.

The last kanji is hard to read, but since there was no 山田吉和 Kichiwa, I think it's Yamada Yoshitoshi 山田吉利, who was the head opf the Yamada family at that time.

Looks indeed like Toshinaga 利寿.

I‘m not 100% sure, but I think NMB has a non shooting policy.

Castle is 城 jō / shiro, this 掾 jō is a gubernatorial title, like 守 kami and 介 suke.

Filling in the blanks: 菊紋 伊賀守金道 日本鍛冶宗匠 刃長一尺六寸有之

Krystian, Ford probably referred to this tsuba:

You are right, of course, I now added the missing “r” - and found out that “Late Generation” is a punk rock band.

江戸時代後期 Edo jidai kōki 目貫 menuki 後代美濃作 kōdai Mino saku late Edo period menuki made by later generation Mino

I don’t know anything about role-playing (except when it comes to kinky sex practices), but yes, you’re right, there is no such thing. Maybe this term originates in O-klahoma?