Curran

Thank you for sharing that.

Nidai, the 2nd generation. I'd guess from the 1860s Compare signature

Yeah- glad I saw this outside the Tosogu group. Another collector in NYC and I are both into Norisuke tsuba. We hoped to have a joint exhibit of them some day. The NYC collector has a lot of nice ones, and I have a few too.

After all these years, I'm still learning. Luca: Incredible restoration by Manuel. I would have thought the tsuba was beyond saving.

Kogai looks good. I cannot tell much detail from that one photo, but I can guess it is probably Yasuda, Yoshioka, or Waki Goto stuff. The tsuba looks promising with plovers on it? A signature at all? Feel free to post more pics of it. Some of the vets mixed and matched the bits n bobs of the WWII bringbacks. Sometimes you get great tsuba on ho-hum swords.

Hi Cole, Good to have another collector here in Georgia.

You made me look. Nice fittings. The same could use a small discrete lacquer repair in a spot or two, and the kurikata needs something (repair or replace). Otherwise, looks like it would be a nice little package could be dressed up with a sageo and basic kozuka-replacement.

It seems Michael and I both commented at the same moment, from the 2 sides of the Atlantic.

It looks like a nice modern made tsuba to me. Not cast, but some of the working makes it look more like a modern utsushi to me. Fine for what it is, depending upon your pricepoint to satisfaction ratio. That is just my opinion. I have been fooled once or twice before and given the item to Goodwill thereafter.

This is a Hayashi Shigemitsu I own. 2nd gen of the school. Ex-Ito-san. I've been told it is a Camellia design, but I have not translated the description of the papers.

I thought the same. Both of these might have been his back in the day. He has specialized more in one school and sold off the other Higo schools. A few of those reside with now. Some got away. That wave form one might have escaped my tractor beam.

It looks like someone also brought a very nice wave form Kanshiro tsuba. Unless my wife rug-pulls the move, life looks like we will be joining you next Fall.

Oh, to hope, to hope! This Tariff schtuff chaos has been a severe butt cramp the last few months. The US Customs site updated in late November 2025 and claims that antiques are tariff free. https://hts.usitc.gov/reststop/file?release=currentRelease&filename=Chapter 97 I've been very cautious, as some people are still getting slammed. The one tsuba I had sent to me from Japan was +23.5% or so with Tariff and Taxes.

Wow, that is a pretty butterfly cabinet example of lacquerware. Wife would probably permit that in our house. I'm glad I clicked on the link. As you guys debate this, I have no real knowledge to share. I'm familiar with the Korean furniture versions of this, and have watched videos on how they make it. I've never much delved into the Japanese versions.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. On my katana kake: I too have a Higo koshirae up with a shirasaya'd mumei Shinto Echizen blade that doesn't really go in it. The (very) few blades I own are stored elsewhere. On my Higo koshirae, the parts (f/k) are worth about as much as the entire koshirae would bring. Darcy went through a period where he insisted on telling me that every sword shop in Tokyo was stripping down old koshirae for their parts. I happened to walk into a shop near Aoi Arts where they were doing this. Obviously they didn't expect the foreigner to pop in on some random winter holiday. If the day comes that I want to rip fine artwork apart so that it can fit into little wooden boxes and be sold off, then I might as well climb into my own box and close the lid on the casket.