Spartancrest

I agree with Grev it looks much improved, the scratches on the ategane on the ura are a pity but you would need to polish them out to stop the refracted light but I think that is drastic and should only be done by a professional [leave the wrinkles they show its had a life] Barry is right about his tsuba fussing - cotton jeans with cotton pockets and a lot of rubbing but as he says not with inlays. [you might end up with strange indents in your butt when you sit down as well ]

Also running on Jauce - with their usual selection of fees! https://www.jauce.com/auction/d519528671 Yum that popcorn looks good!

Ron. What I notice about this guard, is trace evidence of once having a fukurin from the corrosion line following the rim outline. Monkey tumbler motif at the top? Nice unusual guard. The repair sekigane/ategane means it was treasured by it's original owners. Sorry I can't hazard a guess at the school.

Updating the auction of the not - 'Kanshiro' - it sold with 66 bids for ¥ 501,000 or roughly $4,500 US, with fees probably closer to $5,000 US. Which only makes me smile when I think how much I paid for mine - utsushi or not.

We have discussed commemorative paperweights before [ like that below ] but one has turned up in a combined auction. https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/a-carved-wood-okimono-with-shells-a-tsuba-and-a-b-952-c-6ea45478c8 I think this is how some tsuba copies get confused with what they start out as, this auction does not mention the storage box that would have come with the paperweight, so that subsequent owners have no reference to what they really have. I am not criticizing the estimates by the auction house in this case, the okimono alone may be worth the estimate, but there is a lack of relevant provenance on the tsuba paperweight.

One in the Met says Bushu. Masayoshi (正義), first name Sadashichi (定七), was an Edo-based artist active at the end of the 18th century who had studied with the Masakata (正方, ?-1774), the third master of the local Bushū-Itō (武州伊藤) School. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/25746 Just going by the star shape flower head [top of the seppa-dai] they look darn close to me. Bushu x 2?

What I thought - there is so much overlap between the two that it is very hard to tell without a signature. Thanks very much.

I am interested to know which school this guard may have originated from - I don't have much information from the auction site.

Thank you Curran, glad it isn't 'Tacky' Kanagushi like my wife thinks! Wow I just had a look at Nihonto.com $48,500 is in a different financial universe to the one I live in! PM me if you like and I will tell you what I paid for mine!

Thank you all - indeed I would love to hit the books, but so few are in English [or German] the only ones I can read. So Kanshiro is out, who is in? I too don't think my guard has great age, utsushi of who or what? I did have an image of yet another with the identical fukurin, in that case there was a slightly raised central plate both sides with conventional nami (wave) engraving, the thin (shakudo) plates were riveted at the seppa-dai in sanmei fashion. [unfortunately the image is now missing from my database] Whatever they are, they are all linked by the style of fukurin (odawara?) I just came across this image - same fukurin

I am always worried when I see tagane-ato around the nakago-ana and no movement of metal into the hole, the lack of any seppa 'shadow' can also be of concern except if the piece were for 'presentation' - but why would a presentation guard have tagane-ato?

Yas what do you think of this? https://www.eldreds.com/auction-lot/inlaid-iron-nade-gaku-hokei-tsuba-by-sekizan.-dep_75E43C99FB/ I believe someone was really burnt with the price paid on this very common copy. [My pet hate] Auction house should be ashamed.

I think they used much better technology than the old picture! They are made of steel rather than iron but they do pop up in copper and brass. That one with a fukurin is the first I have seen. I have one myself with an inlaid silver 'Moon' and a hitsu-ana cut in, so there may have been some embellishing going on as well - 'gold' overlay etc.

Many years ago I posted an interesting guard that I had just purchased - it was almost universally thought to be a modern cast fake [it is certainly not cast] Today I have found another attributed to Kanshiro Nishigaki (I) copper with identical fukurin in brass. https://www.jauce.com/auction/h556950818 The one I have, has enameled plates either side over a copper core. [I did at the time think the base plate was iron but it is non magnetic, so copper or Shibuichi?] I am wondering at what the board will think this time? [ I will be watching the auction with great interest]

One with an added fukurin in the same week https://www.jauce.com/auction/x777616974 They look like they are punched out like big coins! These are nearly as common - I got caught with one about five years ago, bought from Poland - so they get around! https://www.jauce.com/auction/f512871912

This one is like an old friend [not] https://www.jauce.com/auction/e516816626 Whomever made it has figured you only need one side of the design. Rather than struggle to compare the images at a slope I have straightened them up. From a cheap display board perhaps? Would not fool a monkey!

Mauro thank you so much for those examples - it really does seem everyone made a version of the design! I may not have enough room to include all the possibilities

Thanks John I know it was a big ask getting attributions from pictures, the museum's lack of thickness dimensions is also a handicap. I have since stumbled on another example of no. 8 in the A.H. Church collection in the Ashmolean museum Oxford. That one is described as Satsuma [EAX.10756] perhaps everyone made an example! Also this one {very grainy picture} described as Satsuma from an auction Sotheby's 2001 abalone on drying rack. If I give both attributions people can make up their own mind - for me the image is often more important than assigning a school, because there are so many cross-over designs. Even a signature is no guarantee because of the number of forgeries.

John Higo was a good lead for 8 https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/higo-tsuba-sword-guard/3QLyDIAlN6VZLg Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art (The Ideta collection) it is all out there it's just a matter of knowing where to start looking. http://www.shibuiswords.com/haynesTsu78.html Not too different drying rack by SAKURA YAMAKICHIBEI but not close enough.

The museum has it as Yamashiro no kuni Nishijin ni sumu Umetada Anyway why is he stealing a Kinai design? https://www.catawiki.com/l/15451427-iron-sukashi-tsuba-dragon-echizen-kinai-Japan-17th-18th-century

Yes it is the same guard and the Cleveland museum collection is what I am working on. - Makes it a bit difficult with two pronunciations - I will include both, thanks for the information. I was a bit taken aback by what I had always seen as Kinai dragon tsuba with signatures ascribed to Umetada in the museum, I am hopeless at reading mei. What is your opinion on this signature.

Sorry John yes it is one of the very few with a signature Hokuunsai Mitsutomo at least that is the museums take on it. Even enlarged it is difficult to make out.

I am trying to get some general attributions for a number of tsuba missing information in a museum collection I am forming into a book. Whilst I can hazard a guess with some I am not entirely confident that a guess is good enough to go into print. Any help with identifying schools or styles would be appreciated. [let me know if you would like to be included in the credits, otherwise I will list as "Assistance from members of the "Nihonto Message Board"]

Piers that link has some seriously weird characters! I have found another guard in the Metropolitan collection. "The obverse of this tsuba shows the relief of a Hyottoko mask and a broken fan and the reverse a closed fan. Hyotokko is a clown-like Japanese stock character which is potrayed through the use of a mask. He is depicted on this tsuba in the traditional way, i.e. with asymmetrical eyes and wearing a scarf around his head." Not sure if I agree the object on the ura is a closed fan, once again it looks more like a truncheon? I am inclined to think with the similar layout that the ugly man probably is Hyottoko - The Cleveland Museum from where the original post image came from, has no idea about the theme either. I think I might include Hyottoko in the new book with a big ?

Can anyone hazard a guess as to who or what this strange man could be? And what the object on the ura might be as well? Thanks in advance.