dir

I have just had a reply from Ellliott Long and Robert Haynes and they think my tsuba was made to fit a gunto military sword with the notch being for the clip they have - a kind of security device......

I just looked at the BMAG tsuba page - there are 28, but that one is not amongst them! However, I have found your book about the collection, and also another of 50 selected tsuba - so I will get those. But I was actually referring to the kind of bird feet markings all over the surface of the plate. Do you have an idea of what flower (?) that is? David

Yes, Peter might well be right. I have never seen anything like it before - either in the flesh so to speak or in books. I did actually see it "in hand" before I bought it - but I find it quite interesting and instructive to come across reproductions or fakes from time to time. Kissakai, can you say anything about the motif on the other tsuba (that you originally posted?

In July 2014 there was a thread on udenuki-no-ana - two holes near the edge of the tsuba. A year earlier, there was another thread on the shape of the nakago-ana. I have just acquired the attached tsuba, recently bought in Tokyo, which has a hole at the top and bottom, thus presumably not udenuki-ana. The hitsu-ana are unusually narrow and there is a notch in one side of the seppa. The nakago-ana is of oblong shape rather than pointed. Can anyone shed any light on this tsuba please? In the same post, kissakai posted the other attached image. I have also acquired two tsuba, again bought recently in Tokyo, with the same motif. Is it known what the design is (flowers, pine, snowflakes, or?) please? Thanks and regards David

Actually, there are two similar examples in the book by Masayuki Sasano entitled Early Japanese Sword Guards: Sukashi Tsuba (Japan Publications, Inc., 1972). They are both classed as Ko-Katchushi and one has an elongated Buddhist pagoda at right and two crossed scythes at left (p39); the other has simply a five section Buddhist tower at right (p44), both dated to early Muromachi period. As Jean C. said earlier the designs at left are Monkey tumbler toys (Kukurizaru) - there is an example on p42 of another Ko-Katchushi tsuba with a pair of them at lower right. David

I have a similar example - unsiqned - and said to date from the first half of the 18th century. It has fine amida-yasuri-me on each side and nekogati on the hitsu fillings. Size is 7.8cm and 3mm thick. David