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Thank you Brian!

I'm proud to announce that the tsuba i sent for 2023 NBTHK contest for newly made tsuba got accepted and ranked 7th Nyusen (入選七席). Despite not being an high rank, to me, an amateur italian tsubashi with no teacher that got serious in making tsuba only few years ago, is a huge victory. My tsuba will be shown in the New Sword Exhibition in NBTHK museum, so if you'll have the chance to see it there, i'll be happy to hear it from you. This result encurages me to keep working hard to improve myself and to aim to higher ranks next years. Manuel Coden 古伝

Please move to sold archive or remove

Sold to a member of the board, thanks!

Hold pending payment

Modern tanto made by Minamoto Shigehide, real name Shibuichi Fumi (四分一二三), born September 27th 1912, he signed first with Akishige (昭重) and studied under Satō Akinori (佐藤昭則), gō Musen (夢船). The blade shows a prominent "Norishige style" hada, with predominant masame along the ha resulting in prominent sunagashi and kinsuji in the gunome hamon. The sugata is koto-like with a visible uchizori and bohi on both sides. The mei shows this was made as mamori-gatana, so most likely he put an extra effort to make it well. It's in shirasaya with solid silver habaki. Nagasa 25.2cm　Motohaba 2.36cm Kasane 6.8mm Sori uchizori Mei: 源重秀 Minamoto Shigehide Nengo: 平成二年正月 Heisei 2 the first month (January 1990) 石塚氏代々 For the future generations of Ishizuka (family) Price 1200€ plus shipping and Paypal Please note that buyers from outside EU might face extra costs cause sending blades outside Italy can be troublesome, so i'll need to ship to another EU country in order to export it.

SOLD to a member of the board, thank you

Hold pending payment

Price down to 800€

河内守藤原正広 Kawachi no Kami Fujiwara Masahiro

I do have both digital and physical copies of the first two, the third only physical one. I just checked it, it does show some tsuba and mention "pig iron" in a totally different section, nothing about tsuba made by cast iron. So far no evidence those quotes were accurate

If i recall correctly should be the 1997 version, i think 1968 version is only in Japanese. You can also rule out "The Craft of the Japanese Sword", no reference to tsuba in that book either I should check but also in "The Art of the Japanese Sword: The Craft of Swordmaking and its Appreciation" but i don't recall any reference to tsuba there either. So now it's 3 wrong quotes on 3 books, my guess is that it just takes titles regarding Japanese swords and put the quote you're looking for in it Especially most of those books are not digitalized, so no way chatGPT could have read them

It's ok I can just keep a couple that can have enough material on them and the rest give to you if you really wanna do these tests

Did you proof check those statements? Cause for example in "The Connoisseur's Book of Japanese Swords" not only there's no such statement, but it doesn't even mention tsuba in it. ChatGPT can be a great tool, but not something you should put blind trust on

This is pretty much what they look like, this one is the one i restored

Indeed the patina recipes usually use red clay, copper sulfate, saltpetre, sulphur. So maybe the traces of copper might be on the patina only The tsuba come from a ship wreck, i managed to restore one, but the rest are too badly corroded. Tho despite the corrosion there's still enough "good iron" to make analysis. I was thinking to use them as blank to make new tsuba, but i can sacrifice them for your experiments.

Yes you're reading correctly, other tsuba has just traces of other elements, only a couple of tsuba have some high content of extra elements

Someone in Japan already did an analysis on many tsuba, also high grade ones https://cdn.fbsbx.com/v/t59.2708-21/348839532_969136647835640_438820047155320693_n.pdf/tsuba-analysis.pdf?_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=0cab14&_nc_ohc=Cd6sQgNJyhUAX9Ne4U0&_nc_ht=cdn.fbsbx.com&oh=03_AdTZ77s5Y2Hvl_iXbq3So4biQd2yMT8y3ML-8nLOFoCRsQ&oe=646DDD59&dl=1 (tell me if link doesn't work) That said i might have some tsuba that can be used for this purpose, i managed to save one, but others are beyond repair

another drop to 850€

Classic Akasaka school design, bell cricket and fern. I used to own one myself with Kanzan hakogaki other examples :

George Miller aka Tanto54 was kind enough to write me the meaning of the story depicted on the tsuba: "Your Soten Tsuba’s theme is Filial Piety (a perfect gift from a Samurai Parents to their son). It depicts some of the “Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety”. For example, I see on your tsuba: Meng Zong (known as Moso in Japanese) digging bamboo shoots, Huang Tingjian pouring out his Mother’s chamber pot, Wang Xiang lying on ice to get a carp for his Step-Mother, Yang Xiang wrestling a tiger to save his father, etc. Hopefully this can help you and your sale."

Price drop to 900€ plus shipping

Tsuba signed 江刕彦根住 藻柄子入道宗典製 "Eshu Hikone Ju Mogarashi Nyudo Soten sei" with Tokubetsu Kicho papers from Showa 40 (1965). The details are astonishing, there are many characters depicted, which probably tell a story but i couldn't figure out which one. There are hon-zogan of copper and silver, gold nunome zogan, intact gilded mimi and shakudo hitsuana plug. The quality of work becomes even more impressive once you hold it in hand, because you can really see how small everything is, those faces are 2mm tall. Comes with a good quality box with pillow. Dimension 77x74 mm Price 1000€ plus shipping and Paypal fees I'll be at Japan Art Expo in Utrecht so i can hand deliver it there as well.

Bamboo leaves or feathers i'd say