Curran

Choshu tsuba. The "Tomo" kanji on your is not the most commonly used one, but it is used by some artisans of the school. Quickly checking Markus Sesko's translation of the book Tosogu Classroom Vol 2, I did not see Tomokiyo among the artists that were written up in greater detail. It was a large school. Perhaps someone with a copy of Nihonto Koza (Choshu section) or the Choshu tsuba book can tell you more.

Tobais: VERY NICELY DONE! I like your STEP 7: DIVE in the scenery most. So many tsuba have a lot more story to them than we appreciate. These days, finding the story often means the most to me.

I will list tsuba to fund my quests for things like a Juyo Hoan or a certain type of Nobuiye, but I don't want to be a dealer. This is to say.... don't expect a whole lot of listings. I want to build out the site as at least 60 to 70% educational or linking to smart people like Ito-san's blog. It seems the design organization might be challenging.

Thank you Dirk, Steve, Andy, Jason, and Luca. I think the email test is over. Time to add more content this weekend.

Got the 4th one from Andy. Thank you all. I seem to have fixed the glitch I made when first trying to set up the basic bones of the site. Curran

3 for 3, including Jason's from a work email. One more and I will cap this little test. I've been rather lazy about building out the hobby site, but want to get it a bit more set up and running by month end.

Thank you Dirk and Steve. 2 for 2 so far. I'm going to give it another 2 emails and then be done n confident that it is working as intended.

THANKS Gentlemen. Test is conclude. The email glitch seems fixed. I need to 3rd party test something tsuba related. --I've been building a hobby tsuba website. Articles, links to good blogs, and listing a few tsuba now and then. The website host seems to be splitting emails between their own mail-system and a hosted Microsoft 360 system. Request for help testing: (1) Can two or three of you rip me off a test email to: cur@irontsuba.com (2) ...and post here that you sent an email. Thank you for the help, Curran

My first thought was Choshu over Bushu. Lead fills in the nakago ana? That is a bit unusual for a Choshu or Bushu. That threw me a little bit, but I would chalk that up to having been added much later. Given my hard lean towards flower and tree designs, I remember having seen this design before. Not common. Memory keeps saying Choshu, though I doubt any one school owned this design. The inlay has a bit more of the Bushu flair to it. Ultimately, I'd let the iron tip my opinion between Choshu vs Bushu.

I am late to this thread and will have to read it in more depth to see if I can add any value. For now, here is one I have owned for a while. Thought it has gotten some surprising interactions out of tsuba scholars smarter than me, I have never inquired too much.

Not Ko-Nara. While there was a range on Ko-Nara designs, this is fairly far from from the Ko-Nara examples that I know.

Wow. That is a lot of work. Thank you @MauroP Two or three old friends are listed in there. Good to see them again.

Well, you know, a monster blade with a horimono to Hachiman comes out of the saya.... that band on the koshirae starts up the music Popeye style, and the lion shows it has some serious claws still sharp...

I know that I'm venting. I've got the mindspace and philosophical bend to try to Amor Fati this into a pleasant trip to Japan. I've never seen the sakura in spring. My tsuba live in Japan now. It might be nice to visit them there.

Don't. Give up on papering. It is over. Seriously. No, -really-, don't second guess this. DOA. So many headwinds for USA collectors, unless the Supreme Court actually rules against the current Tariff regime. I sent stuff before the Tariff shenanigans began. At present, it looks like I actually have to go to Japan to retrieve them.