Bugyotsuji

Owning a lovely little Tantō of his, I have a soft spot for the very late Edo and into early Meiji, Bizen Sukenaga. and in Japanese Another blade for Brian

At present, the ground floor of the Osafuné Sword Museum has a display of sword blades representing the various ages, while the second floor was for the Koshiraé exhibition. Private collectors, yes. (Tumi works there full-time, and he and Paul Martin have been featuring as a combo on TV recently.)

Hoping your eyes can see this neat piece of functionality, Deiro. For cleaning out the scabbard!

Cheers, Paul. I’ll put up some more. Here’s a blade for today’s guest, Brian! Nagayoshi, they say! In Japanese And the blade

A couple of eye-catchers next. (What’s this first one made with?) And

Any requests out there? Here’s a ‘cobble-stones’ lacquer technique I’ve not come across before. to wit:

The panels speak for themselves. I am sure there is more to say, but brevity probably overrules museum explanations. Most of these photos get bigger and bigger the more I click on them, up to three times larger, or closer. And another angle…

So I got a better camera, and took this from a distance!

OK, there does seem to be some interest here after all. I shall pick a few that I particularly liked then, and post them here. Nagadachi 長太刀 First of all, this GIANT Kinkarakawa tsutsumi-zaya nagadachi koshirae. Oh, ...did I mention that it is quite big? In fact it was too big for the camera, so here’s half of it, the Tsuka end.

Interesting tsuba. It may be that the central design was pushed into the rim, which would account for the fine lines around the 分銅 bundo weights.

Mmm… nice. Those could be the strings of the battered ajiro-gasa which has been casually tossed aside.(?)

(Last two Koshiraé on the list above.) catching the light on the raden and from the other side

And page 3

EG The first was a Den Masamune Tantō. Page 2

Did a quick run just before closing time when there were fewer people, in order to grab some paperwork and a few photos. Some lovely Koshiraé there. Will definitely go again in the next couple of weeks. Here are some printed materials. If anything grabs your fancy, I’ll put up a photo. The Koshiraé were mainly in the upstairs exhibits room.

Perhaps we need to rephrase the question and ask what the purpose of a tsuba in general is, or better still, what is the primary purpose of a tsuba, whether offensive or defensive, or even what are the other possible purposes of a tsuba, including what does each school of bujitsu say about the purpose of a tsuba as they see it for each type of weapon, and finally why do people today like to get into the same old circular arguments, making out that there is only one correct answer, or that their answer is demonstrably the 'right' answer? Perhaps we can all agree that the tsuba is a jolly good thing, a harmonious invention, that life is better with tsuba, with endless numbers and varieties of them extant and available to collect, and they are frightfully useful objects for a number of syncretic reasons. PS OK, I admit it, I've been reading the 'Philosophical' thread.

Ed, I’m pretty sure it’s 在, so Zai- or Ari- (kawa), as above.

Put Baku into the search box, and voilà… https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/51523-papered-tsuka-with-very-unusual-kashira-on-yahoo/#comment-538464

Hang on a minute, let's not go overboard here! Having just moved house, I have not yet managed to work out all the internet gremlins here. And it looks as though someone poured water over them...

By the way, many or most Japanese sites mistakenly use the words 'Sold out'. What they mean is 'Sold'. ('Sold out' means there were originally many of a particular type of object for sale, and they are now all gone, i.e. whole stock is 'sold out'.) The problem is that when one person uses a word or phrase incorrectly, not knowing any better, everyone else starts to imitate it; subsequently the mistake becomes 'correct' within the particular Japanese context. (Happens frequently of course in other languages too.)

Shortest topic litle ever? Short, yes, but maybe Musk can beat you with X. PS We had a baku kashira here the other day.

PS the naginata…

While on the topic there’s a lovely nagamaki with tsuba in the Leeds Royal Armouries. (The place is well worth a visit, for a thousand reasons!) There is also a naginata with what looks like a very compact ‘tantō’ style tsuba in place.

Really sorry to hear about your ongoing health problems Brian; I was hoping you at least would be indestructible. Not sure if I could commit to any more super powers, but I do tend to keep a weather eye daily on the teppo section, translations, and odd things like Netsuke etc.

'Contact us for price' listing. Description and photos in Lewis's link above.