Bugyotsuji

These mokumé tsuba were quite fancied.

Here’s a tsuba for reference.

I like the design a lot, but it looks quite fragile!

Ah, that’s eased my mind a little! Thanks. Looking forward to hearing what you find out about it once it’s in your hands. (It’s not so easy judging from photos.)

If it’s for sale I would prefer not to have commented on it.

Seriously good point! Dodgy stuff!

伊賀守金道作 Iga no Kami Kinmichi Saku

Is this yours, Pown, or are you wondering whether to buy it? The Kozuka blade is not good at all. I have to admit that Koshiraé, like human clothes fashions, are interesting in their own right, but not so easy to date without a lot of experience, which I sometimes wish I had. (Hoping someone else may like to comment here…?)

Efugo, bait or captured game containers, for Takajo falconry.

Oh wow that link is amazing, Sam. Many thanks. One of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s favourite pastimes. A world about which I knew little. (Now after many years and at a stroke I know what the original purpose of four objects found at antiques markets really are!) Also I have a set of falconry menuki but these look quite different again.(See below) PS The caption to your photo just above looks mistaken. That’s a riding crop and two ‘shiodé’ fasteners for a Kura saddle.

Just a feeling but I kind of agree, e.g. from John’s link above:

As Dale did above, placing them the right way around, point of the central triangle upwards, tri-lobe side hole to the right, but on a plain dark background under neutral lighting or lighting which allows a sense of the actual metal to show.

Not sure if it was all a ‘set’ at first, but my immediate thought is most horse-themed parts are from mid-Edo to the Bakumatsu. (?) The Tsuka wrapping looks new.

Fantastic result, congratulations!

A zero too many?