Peter D

I just ordered it, so I'll let you know once I receive it!

Super excited to get Tsuba #2! These chrysanthemum tsuba have my special interest because they were widely adopted throughout SE Asia, inspired by Samurai who had settled there. Indeed they were found on the San Diego, a Spanish ship sunk by the Dutch (sorry guys!) in 1599. It probably belonged to their Samurai mercenary crew. Such samurai mercenaries served most maritime powers at the time, including the Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and various pirate factions like the House of Zheng (Coxinga). They were recruited either directly from Hirado, or came from the various Nihonmachi, villages of Japanese settlers in Southeast Asia who had fled Japan in the 16th to early 17th century. It's a little-known part of Samurai history, but one with many interesting stories that would make great Hollywood movies. -Peter

Folded steel is really easy to make, especially in countries where in some areas $20 a week is a normal wage. Chinese and Indian makers are already making fakes that are many times better than presented here so watch out. I know this appears like the most boring advice but its true: Invest your first few hundred in books, then in items. The fakes posted here are so far off the real thing that a single book would have helped you spot the difference. Other good advise is to go to sword shows, join a local nihonto collector's club, or at least befriend a serious collector. This in order to get a handle on what the real deal looks like. The internet is only a good source for study once you've enabled yourself to see what's good and what is not. I hope this helps.

Great results! Better than many of my results with fairly pricey models. Which microscope are you using? (I use two Dino-Lites to study things like workmanship, signatures, etc. One is the 1.3 megapixel AD4113T-I2V IR/UV model that can sometimes expose restorations, repairs, or faded lacquer layers. The other is the 5 megapixel AM7515MZT, a high-resolution model. I'm sure the latter is great on a Windows PC but I'm lacking important functionality on Mac which is a shame. It is almost always over-exposed. There is a mechanical workaround, but I don't want to use workarounds at this kind of price level.)

Hi guys, I'm now the proud owner of this set that is the subject of this thread. I'm not a Japanese sword collector per sé, I only own a small number of Japanese arms. The set appeals to me because I am mostly a Chinese sword collector and researcher. The style exhibited on the handles of this set is a close match to the sword mountings of the early Manchu nobility, even before they set out to conquer China from the Ming dynasty in the mid 16th century. One of the textbook examples of this style is the saber of Hong Taiji who lived between 1592-1643. Such sabers are extremely rare in Western collections, which is why not many people immediately draw the link to early Qing imperial mountings and nanban tsuba. For most, quality is not the first that springs to one's mind when thinking about Chinese swords. The Hermitage in St. Petersburg has an impressive collection of such sabers -not on view- and the Metrpopolitan Museum owns one. The style derives off Tibetan saddle mountings, and in the decades before the Manchus set out to take over China they forged alliances with Mongol tribes. From letter exchanges between Manchus and Mongols of this time we gather that part of the tribute were "carved saddles", most likely Tibetan imports. The Tibetans didn't use sword guards anyting like the Japanese or Chinese, but I think they were the ones that started to produce the first sword fittings in this style, made to be mounted on Chinese sabers. The first of these made it to Japan mainly through trade, probably from the late 16th century onwards and became the prototype for that since the 20th century got known as "nanban tsuba". (This is the typical Canton style. In China the style was mostly found in Beijing were imperial craftsmen made them from the 17th century onwards, but it was through Canton (Guangzhou) that they spread through Asia, including Japan.) I agree with Peter Bleed in that by far most of these are Edo period, and these late designs usually follow one of various standardized concepts. There are however quite some very interesting earlier guards, some of which most certainly imported into Japan and modified for Japanese use. Others were made abroad with export to Japan in mind from the start, including hitsu-ana, sometimes not well-cut by a craftsman ignorant of Japanese sword culture. This also explains the wide range of odd seppa-dai, some of which copied in Japan, by Japanese craftsmen, for the sake of an exotic look. This set seems earlier to me, possibly made to match an import guard. Its importance lies in that it's the only known matches set of its type I know to be in existence, and it may well date from the Ming-Qing transition period of the 17th century. This is fascinating! I would love to examine these. I'm having a hard time finding them in their current online database. Do you happen to have an accession number? Peter

Wow, 2014. I'm a bit late to the party! Anyway I came across this thread through a google search. The octagonal guard is most certainly an import, it's a fairly standard type of Korean guard. A lot of guards classified as "nanban tsuba" are in fact foreign imports, others are Japanese-made work inspired by them. Even NHBTK doesn't seem to realize this. Officially they don't appraise foreign made work, yet I own a Sinhalese and a Chinese made sword guard with papers by their hand. Here's an example of the style on the Korean saber it belongs to. These are incredibly rare so I can forgive many a collector for not having been exposed to these before: http://www.czernys.com/a-71/?o=67446 Peter