Geraint

Hi Ford. How's it going? The steam is formed by trapping damp material hard against the open top of the investment mould. Heat from the mould vapourises the water and the pressure forces metal; into the mould. Always frightened the life out of me as some pretty serious casting accidents happen if you don't unsure that all foundry tools are totally moisture free but I suppose the moisture in this case is not in contact with the molten metal. Here's a link. http://www.mindspring.com/~alshinn/SteamCasting2.html I can't find a reference to this process used for cast iron and being a cowardly woodworker by inclination I can't say that I would fancy having a go at those temperatures. You, of course, are quite happy to pour molten shibuichi into buckets of water so it might not have the same effect on you. Of course none of this makes a difference to the discussion unless we can find some evidence of early use of the technique by the Japanese. All the best.

Hi Bob. So far out you are in the bleachers. (Does that make sense?) Have a look at Hirata Hikozo tsuba and get a feel for them. This one is not a good fit when you see them, hard to use a written description. Are you sure that the edge of your tsuba has a fukurin or is it a part of the plate? Can't tell from the photos. All the best and have fun.

Hi Bob. As you will gather from David S the second isn't going to set the world on fire but I'm not so sure it's a modern cast, I think it is a well worn and probably mistreated one. You can't do it much harm so I would try really hot water and soap to remove the crud first off. If David N is right then you will end up with a shiny piece of junk, :D On the other hand give it some time and see what happens to the decoration, it might turn out OK but not a keeper. All the best

So we would like to see more pictures Alex, whole blade at least. All the best.

Do we have a smilie for, "Knuckles rapped"? Thank you for mediating the cultural differences on this little island John. So back to wakizashi. Kurt you may of course assume that the sword belonged to whoever you like but there are one or two things to consider. You mention that it was just a little longer than normal wakizashi length. What had you considered normal? I ask because I seem to have them in all sorts of lengths. As we have already established that some daisho occur with the dai below what we would call katana length it appears that the standard lengths we work with were at best disregarded by a lot of people. It is not too uncommon to find a sword mounted in a saya that is much longer than the blade length would dictate though I have usually seen this in wakizashi which have had a tanto blade mounted. I saw one of those recently and if I can find the link I will post it. I think that we are chasing moonbeams if we try to assign swords to a certain class of owner based on any of this. We know that daisho were the badge of office of the samurai, for at least most of the Edo period. We can guess that certain other koshirae were worn by samuari because of their good taste but as most of us really struggle to identify what good taste is now, never mind for a Japanese at any period of history, we are probably in the realms of fantasy. If you don't have it the catalogue of swords in the Tokugawa collection is interesting here, all sorts of mountings. If we say that significant numbers of high quality wakizashi were produced in a period of Japanese history because of the growing wealth of the merchant class then we are talking about the blades, and by the way commending them for their high quality. Really can't comment about ninja swords as I thought they were all black with dirty great big square tsuba to act as ladders and nearly straight. Hope you approve Stephen, now I'm diving for a nice comfortable hole in the ground. All the best.

Ah Gwyn. I'm afraid the Celtic connection does not stretch far enough for me to grasp your post. Do we need to move this to the translation section?

Ah Ron! Painful memory. Sadly no pictures. My father in law was a long time collector of vesta cases as we call them in the UK. He amassed a fine collection of several hundred, mostly silver and gold examples. The one that was the jewel in his collection was a fine iron case with the most stunning takazogan of two cranes besides some rocks and plants. At the time it was the finest work I had seen. Alas my hints were too subtle and when the time came for him to liquidate his assets he sent them to a London auction house, including the one I coveted. My only consolation is that somewhere a vesta collector has it in pride of place. I have no doubt that some out of work tsuba shi discovered a way of using his skills and produced this work of art after the haitorei. As an aside he was told that the work was called obi kirime, a term I have not heard elsewhere. All the best.

Hi Gary. Picture of your sword would help us a bit. If it is 60.6cms then most people would describe it as a wakizashi as it is just shy of the two shaku convention. However it is not uncommon to find daisho where the long sword is just short of the limit, practical considerations relating to use take precedence over notional limits here. You might chose to call your sword an o wakizashi, some people would go for chisa katana but that will ignite hot debate amongst some. In your original post you mention a swooping tip; not too sure what that means but are we talking shobu zukuri or naginata naoshi? I don't think we are going to get to a point where we can say who owned the sword based on length or the shape of the saya, the market dictates that anything under two shaku, or more usually 24 inches is a wakizashi and adjusts accordingly. As an example I have a wakizashi which is very long and very beefy, the saya has a rounded end and it is from around 1624. Can't say who owned it but it will always be a wakizashi. All the best.

Hi Caleb, Try a search for Niju habaki and you will get many images. Good habaki are works of art in their own right. Forgot to mention this recent thread, viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19561 Enjoy.

Obviously they take a little longer to arrive in these northern climes Jean!

Hi Dave. One swallow does not a summer make but just for interest here are some short wakizashi, two hira zukuri and one shinogi zukuri, all have rounded ends to the saya. All the best.

Unless the mei reads "Nobukuni Yoshi......" Hard to make out what the first part said but one of the Chikuzen Nobukuni school? And just to answer another question it is the smith who made the blade in this case. All the best.

Hi Shai. It is almost impossible to ascertain very much from your photographs, (Japanese swords are very hard to capture in the detail that would allow anyone to make much of an informed judgement). You have a katana in shirasaya, as you do not mention any papers from a Japanese sword organisation I assume it has none. You might find this thread useful, http://www.nihontomessageboard.com/nmb/ ... 5&p=136122 Just to be clear, at the end the quote makes reference to kazuuchimono, this is usually translated as mass produced and refers to the fact that during the period your sword was made large numbers were being made very quickly for war and therefore the quality is usually not very good. All this means that in spite of dating from around 1560 your sword is not a national treasure. One sold recently for $1700, I am not in the US and others may have a different view but I fear this is about what you could expect. All this assumes that there are no major flaws in the blade, something which can only really be seen with the sword in hand. It is an honourable old warrior and deserves to be taken care of, I hope you enjoy it for what it is. All the best.

Hi Trent. Have a look at this thread. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18738 All the best.

Dear Flemming. I think it will be very hard for anyone to suggest anything given the quality of your photographs. So far we have a mumei wakizashi in shirasaya, possibly machi okuri though I would guess the nakago jiri is original. What does your charming phrase, "wounds of age" indicate? Are we talking about grain openings, rust, kirikomi or something else? If you can see the hamon detail and the hada what are they? What about the boshi? I would suggest that you try to do an oshigata of your sword, the discipline of trying to see and draw the detail of the hamon is instructive even if you are not pleased with the results. If you have the Connoisseurs Book you might try to narrow things down from the details, I have to admit that this is much harder than it seems as the features are rarely as obvious as one would wish. I know you were hoping for more than this but without good pictures any guess would be just that,a guess. By the way, the last image is the torokusho which indicates the sword came from Japan, did the dealer have any suggestions to make about it? All the best.

Thank you David, pm sent. All the best

Hi David. I am sure that John meant the tsuba in my post and not yours which is a cracker. I was certainly contrasting the ones I had shown with the original for this thread.

Hi John. I tend to agree with you about your choice. David. Having trawled through my NBTHK I find that, of course, the article you mentioned is in one of the issues that I am missing. I would be very grateful for a scan if you can find it easily. Michael, thanks for the info, any chance that you have photos of the tsuba you have owned, would love to see them. It would be nice to collate as much information about the school as we can and it seems that we are onto a start Many thanks to all.

Thank you David, I shall immediately go through all the copies of the NBTHK journal I have, (my wife also says, "Thank you very much", but in a slightly different tone.) When I first saw the tsuba that Peter posted I assumed it was shibuichi or another soft metal but I am not sure from the images. All the best.

Hi Steve. If you like handachi have a look at this one, http://www.nihontocraft.com/Koto_Wakizashi_R.htm Or even better this one, http://yakiba.com/Wak_MumeiR.htm Enjoy!

Nice Thierry. Sergei I regret that like many museums the staff are not knowledgeable and not even interested. Their tsuba were part of a collectors legacy and have been largely ignored. For one brief period they had a curator who actually thought that the collection should be accessible to interested parties but alas she is no more. Thierry has supplied good examples for you however. All the best.

Hi Sergei. A piece is in a museum collection not too far from here which represents a piece of weathered wood, bound at both ends with gold as I recall. Yours reminds me of that but I can't suggest a period. I am sure others will have suggestions. All the best

Dear David, Thanks for the reference to your tsuba. May I say first of all that i Like very much botht the tsuba posted by Pete that started this thread and your own which I have already looked at with interest. I believe that yours was already posted by Curran some while ago. Am I correct in believing that the paper your tsuba has specifies Hirado but not Kunishige? I was intrigued by the suggestion that Michael made about a connection between this tsuba and Kunishige as it did not seem to match what I had assumed. Well it seems that there is not a great deal of information available from the sources I have at my disposal. Aside from the papered example that I posted here is another of the type I have always associated with this artist. I have been trawling through my references and find these: The second page from the catalogue of the Monzino collection. A search of the web reveals an alarming tendency for any brass tsuba to be labelled as Hirado and very little information apart from the suggestion that there are thought to be two generations working around 1716 - 36. Bob Benson has a copper tsuba on his site, here, http://www.bushidojapaneseswords.com/sw ... subas.html scroll down a bit 'til you get to it. I'm not arguing that it isn't, just wondering why. Examples that we can be fairly sure about are in brass and iron and include tsuba, fuchi kashira and kodzuka including one in the 100 Kozuka book, number 68 if memory serves. What I glean so far is that we are looking for a Namban influence, seen in the seppa dai and/or in the imagery used as well as a tendency to use western stamped characters, usually near the rim. Michael is right that he used waves and clouds but I am not sure that I can see a connection with Pete's original tsuba yet. By the way, is that first tsuba an iron ground? Anyone got any light to throw on all this? All the best.

Hi Dave. I think that mixed mounts are more usual and quite acceptable. The term issaku koshirae is sometimes used to describe a situation where all the mounts are of the same material and my the same hand, it is rather unusual I think. All the best.

Interested in Michael's suggestion about Hirado Kunishige, I have always associated him with tsuba such as this one, http://www.ebay.ca/itm/7514-Japanese-Sa ... 1180691391 And for when the link goes down: