Bugyotsuji

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?

As a starter price, $80~$100 sounds about right. She knows her oats! Tsuba will always be a gamble, but each one will teach you something, helping you develop an eye for a) what you like personally, and b) what is universally sought after and why.

I guess the store owner needs to put a price on them. No sizes? The first looks quite small...? All iron, did you try a magnet? My feeling is that they are not top-value collectors items, but they could look good in a themed wall decoration. Whether to sell separately to someone who might like one of them, or better to sell as a lot?

No-Shu Ju Kanemichi Saku Kore 濃州住 兼道 作 之 'This made by Kanemichi living in the province of No-Shu'

Has the opposite side of the mimi been struck/hit and slightly flattened at some point, or did the sukashi for the Nata pull the edge out a little?

Looks like a pair of Abumi stirrups as suggested above, against leather Aori side flaps (with Kamon in central position). Horse tack indeed.

Bush clover is Hagi 萩 and it seems to have been a favourite theme among the Kinko artisans in the Chōshū, Hagi 萩 area, being a play on words. To summarize, it is often an indication of origin.

Sorry Dale, busy here sweeping up the piles of rocking-horse dung.

Whenever it works, it works fine! “There was a little girl, And she had a little curl, Right in the middle of her forrid. When she was good, She was very, very good, But when she was bad, she was ‘orrid.”

Seven-star Kamon is called 七曜紋 the Shichiyō-Mon. The saké flask is a 徳利 tokkuri.

Even without portrayal of the approaching chariot wheel, the mantis has long stood for bravery against the odds. Recently I picked up an irresistible small bronze jizai okimono of a mantis. What a great theme for a tsuba though! PS Mentioned before, but there is an island off the west coast of Honshu where they have been recorded trapping and eating migratory birds.

Random strands of DNA…(?)

That’s now as clear as mud. These links seem to be mixing the big and little dippers, but mariners use the handle of the little one for pointing out Myōken the North or Pole Star. Right? 七曜印 Anyway he’s my new friend as his familiar is Genbu, the great tortoise with ears, and we’re old pals already.

Don’t you have anything a little more comprehensive, our man Malcolm?

Well I answered that question already on the first page. Remember that some (combinations of) numbers were auspicious, particularly seven, the number of stars in the Little Dipper. Also nine, as in the nine-star Kuyōmon, which actually represents seven visible stars plus two ‘dark’ stars, the existence of which astrologers and thus everyone believed in. Stars were represented like that with brass, yes, and on a Kurogane background it does increase such a perception. If it is the Little Dipper, it seems that one rice shaped opening is in the wrong place…(?)