Teimei

Shimazu Mon... maybe. Also often described as Jumonji or Kutsuwa, whatever you prefer i guess !

Honda Aoi Mon

That will be useful on my trip to Japan next year!

I use plain unscented tissues. Cheap, easy to buy and you don´t need to wash them.

Thats the old location in Dahlem, which is now used as the research center. The new location in Mitte is quite more elaborate with interactive panels, sound and light features. Definitely worth a visit or two ! Fun fact: It´s the basement of an retirement home.

Hi Peter, maybe some kind of fire damage / corrosion problem in the past?

Hi Mark, that was actually my first "real" tsuba i ever bought.

Hi folks, after the regular semi-annual oiling session (of my nihonto), i decided to invest some time on my day off and revisit every piece of my collection. After observing them using different lightsources (sunlight, LED) i also tried to shoot some good pictures. Which went okay with the tsuba... and horrible with the blades. Especially the photographing part was interesting, because i was able to see a lot of activities in the blades and texture details of the tsuba. I learned a lot of new things about my own collection, even from pieces i owned for over 10 years and my passion for the hobby got quite a boost again. So the morale of the story is, take your time appreciating what interests you, even when life gets in the way a lot. Here are some of the pictures that came out okay:

Mist?

1. Gassan Sadakazu 2. Masamune 3. Koyama Munetsugu

My examples: 3rd generation would be my guess, with a book theme and a very nice executed mei both 1st or 2nd generation with quite worn mei