Bugyotsuji

Wow, yes, you must be correct Moriyama San!

Hmmm… looks like a Christian pointed trefoil symbol.

May be the classical story of the horse appearing from a gourd. Hyōtan Kara Koma 瓢箪から駒 in Japanese.

Recently a friend commented “This looks like work by Shōami Katsuyoshi.” At the time I thought it was an odd comment, but he does have a huge collection of valuable artefacts, so it was an interesting insight. 正阿弥勝義 Later I discovered during some background reading that Katsuyoshi was apprenticed to his father as a tōsōgu and Tsuba maker long before he became famous for his finely-detailed metalwork objects into the Meiji period. Here is the Wakizashi sized iron tsuba, kind of aorigata, with sakura, pine and ginkgo themes in silver and gold. Front Back

That’s visionary. Thank you Lewis.

武州住 正光　+花王 First guess: Bushū Jū Masamitsu, plus Kaō

Glad to hear it went well. Many thanks for the photos!

If you look up similar names (Myōchin Ki Mune… etc.) in lists of armourers you’ll find that some of them became tsuba makers during the Edo period as with lack of warfare the demand for sets of armour declined.

perhaps we can faintly see the top ‘lid’ of 安Yasu …(?) Calabrese. When I start to write an answer, I get a world globe ikon bottom left and that enables me to switch between English and Japanese and keyboard settings.

Mune—- 宗

The websites usually tell you when the museum tends to be most crowded. Personally I’ve had some success avoiding crowds with late afternoons.

Guessing this represents writing poetry on vertical tanzaku paper strips then floating downstream in some garden in Kyoto for example. Spring and autumn? Encompassing also the Kikusui theme. Very unusual!

Thanks Pietro, I missed those. Not some of her best work though, IMHO.

Possibly 正一 Masakazu w/kao(?) (But they are very small and do not seem well aligned)

Just a small caveat to Jean's 'no collecting value'. It may have little or no monetary value, but as a reference for examples of cast tsuba, if that is what it is, I would count it as a personally valuable object for the goodies drawer. Something to learn from everything that bubbles up!