MauroP

Hi Viktor, the shape of your tsuba in unusual indeed, but not unique. The "wavy" shape is described as 皺目文 - shiwame-mon (wrinkled pattern). The irregularities near the nakago-ana are just yose-tagane made on the omote side to fit a particular sword tang. About the subjet depicted the man holding a broom in Chinese clothings could be "Kanzan and Jittoku" (where Kanzan is represented just by the scroll). Or could be the sixth Zen patriarch, Daikan Enō reading the stanza composed by his opponent Jinshū.

I have to disagree. The paper cover just the blade. And Tensho koshirae refers to some stylistic characters, not to the age that koshirae was actually assemblee.

Jake, search for 宇治川先陣 - Ujigawa senjin - Race at the Uji River

Far from the real thing, in any aspect...

Hizen?

It should be 橋工人字透鐔, but I'm unable to grab the meaning...

What's written on the outside of the kiribaki?

Kanji.pdf May help?

Hi Grev, about the third tsuba see: https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/18068-another-shoami/ PS: the same tsuba?

Have we any reliable dating source for whatsoever unsigned tsuba?

You are possibly right, but most NBTHK shinsa staff think otherwise...

江刕彦根住 - Kōshū Hikone jū 藻柄子宗典製 - Sōheishi Sōten sei

On this point I completely agree with Dan (well, unusual, but can happen...). On the image below the red arrows point at different gilding of the same items in ura and omote. Quite interesting, the green arrow points at an unpressed area (confirming the way of production). So for sure, IMHO, a sanmai tsuba of lower quality BUT possibly very old (usualy papered as ko-kinko by NBTHK). Not worth the price asked, but not rubbish...

I regret to disagree on the attribution of the first tsuba to Kaga school. Maybe I'm unable to see properly the pics, but my guess is nunome-zōgan. Kin-nunome-zōgan on iron makes (more probably) Kyō-kenjō school.