Bugyotsuji

From memory I think 17k is about right.

There are many gold substitutes out there. Gold does not tarnish. Solid gold is expensive so they would be very rare, examples are more often gilded onto copper, or sometimes lead for the realistic lead weight. The first rule of thumb is to weight them in your hand.

This thread is dreaming of better photography. I think we should be allowed to dream.

Totally different construction but your swirling ‘ran’ orchid design reminds me somewhat of a Chōshū Tomonobu guard. The leaves run over the Mimi.

That bottom one above says Hokuto Shichisei.(The dragon’s tail probably indicating Polaris the Pole star.) Long lusted over this Sendai matchlock in Sawada Taira’s collection. Close-up

Whoah! I just took it as a seasonal symbol of the New Year. (The surface does look like glutinous rice though…)

There are so many ways you can look at this, and there may never be a convincing answer. You could even say for example that the Shippō pattern itself developed from people looking at the stars, and maybe seeing random patterns. In Japan of course they would not have seen the same Mediterranean mythical figures or creature shapes up there, though you do find allusions to the Hokuto shichisei 北斗七星 One of my netsuke could be a star map, but that is only one interpretation of it and other possibilities remain. I do not feel the need to come down on one side or another. My own feeling is that we are free to look at Shippō patterns and make mental associations, and that such poetic lateral association or subtle allusion is an active feature of Japanese art.

Shippō Mon (Chirashi) Sukashi Tsuba 七宝文散透鐔 (Scattered) Shippō pattern perforations (The rest is Mei and tsuba physical features.)

That is so unusual! Is there no end to the imaginative Tsuba cameo world? (Besides, I have a soft spot for orchids in Tōsōgu.)

I have a Sukekane Tantō blade dated Meiji 2 (1869) in black urushi Inaba Koshiraé with silver chrysanthemum style fittings, plus rings. No proof, but common sense says the Koshiraé has to be contemporary with the blade, i.e. c 1870. NBTHK Hozon

Dan, your post comes up in weird typeset format. It looked as though you were quoting from somewhere…(?) See:

Whose words are those Dan, yours, AI’s or someone else’s?

杵 Kiné wooden mallet for pounding glutinous rice?

Thanks for the video Joseph. Pleased to report that they have recently crossed the 3 million yen target, meeting the conditions set for starting off the latest project.

Re AI above, it mistakenly attempted to translate the smith name 馬面 Bamen, producing the expression ‘horse-faced’.