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Thank you very much! Not my blade, i been asked if i could help, but here's some shot

Hello, i'd like some help with this RJT gendaito, i managed to figure out the maker which should be Hiroaki (but no info about him anywhere), but the fluent writing style doen't allow me to figure more. Thanks to anyone will help

Thank you John, do you have any idea which toys? My guess was they are tea tools, but not totally convinced

Not even a wild guess it seems...

Hello, i recently bought this nice ko-tosho, good size and fairly thin plate, but i'm having trouble to figure out the theme of the sukashi, anyone has some idea?

Sunnobi tanto, signed "Hiroshi tsukuru kore" dated 1984 By modern swordsmith Keiun Naohiro

I have some experience creating hamon and utsuri myself, what i learnt is that utsuri (at least the Bizen style one) is an effect of temperature transition, meaning that higher the difference of temperature between the ha and the mune and more likely it will appear. The reason why from Shinto times to today is become more rare is simply because the style of hamon changed, swordsmiths create more "controlled" hamon with clay designs using higher temperatures of hardening having as result a lower difference on the various parts of the blade. Anyway there are still some modern swordsmiths able to create it, this is a blade i own by modern tosho Keiun Naohiro

Thank you guys, unfortunately i don't have more info about them, the owner didn't keep many records

These items were stolen from a collector in Venice, in total there are 4 blades: 1 katana 1 wakizashi 1 tanto 1 tanto/wakizashi (the one with shibuichi kurikata rabbit shaped) Unfortunately there aren't many pictures, but if you see one of these objects please contact me

But maybe Jo didn't know, so better not confuse him more

i guess you mean dragonfly

Not junk, It's a katchushi/tosho from the thickness most likely Edo period. Patina is good

Could be Kannon riding a dragon or this to me https://broomcloset.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/benten-Japanese-goddess-of-eloquence/

There are schools of iai that use odachi, so it's not a problem to get out the blade of the saya, just i feel interesting that such long blade was their sword of choice

Seems there are also many very long blades, well over the 2.5 shaku which is now considered "standard" for practice for a man 175 cm tall, which i guess they weren't

another variant of the workmanship on same plate

Well that price seems quite off-market, maybe it paid that came from a collection of a noted person, but still seems excessive

Ciao Mauro

Very similar style of zogan on a different plate, quite interesting

Btw seems that tsuba on the book is for sale now https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Japanese-Samurai-Sword-86mm-Iron-Heianjo-Sukashi-AOI-Azuchi-Momoyama-Tsuba-/382694353959?hash=item591a5c6c27

Thanks Steve, even not same subject is definetely same school to my eyes, which is interesting and add more evidence to the post. Florian, my idea is not that plate and zogan been made by the same person buy maybe inside the same workshop, one person(s) in charge of "mass producing" the plate and then other artists in charge of carving or inlaying. Of course this is all speculation, but assembly lines were existing already to produce kazuuchi mono blades, so doesn't sound so weird to me.

From my knowledge the line carving should work for a linear zogan, once engraved the line then you put the zogan in position by hammering it, the brass expanding should stuck inside the carving. But i never did that before so i'm not sure is correct

I'm actually wondering how the zogan would fit in place on that flat surface with only those line carvings to keep it in position, but that's a question for a tsuba maker i guess. If you can find the book would be great

Welcome Steve and thank you for your post, i actually find quite interesting your tsuba cause it can show us the insight of the iron plate under the zogan which appears to be, as Florian say, a "standard" iron plate on which then a carving and/or zogan is then added. But to me the choise seems been taken at the moment of creation of the tsuba, not a later addition cause the flat surface under the zogan, if there was been a carving there the plate would at least been hollow to remove it. So the question still stands, who made these? Was it a smaller school (maybe trading on the Tokaido road?) or was it part of a larger group like those in Kyoto (Kyo Shoami) or Choshu (Hagi)?

I recently bought an interesting tsuba, iron plate with copper and brass inlays, rappresenting a kiku leaf with one kiku sukashi and one zogan. It shows a nice dark and glossy patina with some small tekkotsu I made some research but i couldn't find any similar one on my books, nor a certified example. Searching online i found this topic http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/10101-references-for-the-kiami-school/ where David seems to have my same problems to categorize his piece which looks really similar to mine. Since i had no luck finding a certain attribution i started research simila pieces online to try figure this out. The following are the most similar examples i found: Appears to me that the pieces show all similar workmanship, despite the changes in the composition and even in the presence or absence of zogan (even different kind of zogan). Often the first examples are described as "ko-Hagi" because the kiku subject and the presence of positive/negative sukashi, but that school show no zogan. Other options would be Heianjo or Kyo Shoami, but they don't totally fit either. In my opinion maybe we're looking to another minor school that been uncategorized, probably born in the early Edo (or maybe even earlier) and continued till mid Edo. To add more "head-scratching" there's also this piece which is totally different subject but the zogan kinda remind the one on my tsuba. For some reason they attributed to Kyo Sukashi I look forward to hear your opinion on this matter