Curran

Well... classic pretty rice plant design with some gold highlights. Either Choshu (West Coast main island) or Bushu (East Coast main island) and fairly solid for a first try. My first tsuba was a Choshu not as nice as this one. Several schools will have done this design. Because of some of the mimi geometry and general design, personally I lean more towards Bushu. Definitely better than my first tsuba or two.

It was multiple back in the day. Museums still open and museums now defunct did all sorts of things to them. Tiffany made a fireplace hood out of them. https://morsemuseum.org/on-exhibit/fireplace-hood-installation/ (look closely). Even more respectable museums like the Boston Museum of Fine Arts somehow managed to trash a lot of their sukashi tsuba. They look fine from the top, but an angled view shows many have been turned into swiss cheese. Who knows how they did that? Super special sauce to inhibit the naturally forming rust inside the sukashi? (my first guess) Yours got off lucky.

Old museum catalog numbers? Quite a few of my tsuba have old lacquer or other numbers somewhere on seppa dais or inside the nakago ana. Old carved or stamped ones like that are not commonly seen. It is a bit of defacement, but I don't think anyone is going to belly ache over this one where the design more than overshadows that little bit of scar.

Ditto. When it comes to silver, I absolutely agree with Colin. Translated through Gordon Robinson, a shinsa judge showed us a koshirae where he had cleaned the silver when he was much younger- not knowing better. With shame face, he pretty much said "don't do it". Ford was Ford. Unless it is with someone at that level, don't touch it. Even then, think about it for a long time before doing. It is hard to go back.

And some other Kaga works. f/k are Kaga Kinko. Lots of inlay work, and high polish almost as if it were finished with a painter's coat of gloss. The gold menuki are mine. I like the myth behind these two well known characters. The tsuba is not mine. I've sold all my Kaga tsuba, kinda waiting for a really incredible one to come along. I would love one of the multi-butterfly examples. Common to almost all of the Kaga Goto and Kaga Kinko works is a mix of gold, good to great shakudo, and silver. Every one of these pieces has a fair bit of silver either obvious or not so obvious. Some of it is heavily oxidized, and I wouldn't dare to clean it.

As Ken said, the Kaga Kinko Taikan is one of the best [Tosogu Porn] books. I have to say I paid a lot more for mine than the one Grey Doffin has on his website. The book is good enough that I thought of buying a second copy. @Charlie C You are correct. Top one is Goto Kenjo and bottom one is Goto Tokujo. Though of the same design, when you get to study them closely (at different angles), you begin to sense patterns in terms of how they 'framed' the design and executed it. One thing that I will share about Goto Kenjo is that he liked to recess his works more. If you study these two kozuka at an angle, you will find the walls of the frame of the kozuka higher and the design set a fraction deeper. I am not sure if I have a picture of this, but will post the best one I can find. It should be attached to this reply.

It depends. It can be a hold out "crazy uncle" judge (a bad session or such). @Lewis B you can have all my 7 or 8 Horyu result tags. So far, all have papered the next shinsa where I sent them in [usually the following year]. Many were Middle Weight to Light-Heavyweights. One Horyu is in shinsa_2.0 now and is a heavyweight. When a heavyweight, odds are probably more against a pass. So let us both see. My Horyu were all for fittings.

Goto Kenjo Kozuka next to his father's verion of the same theme. I'll take a quick pick of other Kaga Goto examples later today or tomorrow.

@Charlie C That is a very interesting topic, punching more deeply into the subject than the average thread here. The Kaga Kinko Taikan was one of the first Taikans I ever bought. As you have laid out, the school is an evolution of imported influences as the Maeda gained strength. It is not like there was one center for metalwork in Kaga. The differences are often technical and usually: (1) based upon the technique, [ex. say nanako work for instance] (2) the metal purity [ex. shakudo], (3) difference in reagants for patinas, etc, (4) framing and execution of designs. Just like unsigned paintings, you can tell a lot from various ways of doing things. [I personally believe this to be very true of Goto Kenjo's Kaga work] I have 3 Tokubetsu Hozon works that are: Kenjo, Kenjo, and Kaga Goto [very sure it is Kenjo too] I also have a nice Hozon f/k that is to Kaga Kinko that is more reflective of the painting style inlay that Ken described. If time allows, I will post pics of some or all this weekend. C.C.C.

You can tell a lot from the central peg and the walls of the backside of a menuki. My first impression is that the back of the menuki doesn't look consistent with Goto Kojo work. I will try to remember to look more later today. It is a nice menuki where I think 'authentic' vs 'gimei' doesn't matter much. My gut says 'Goto' much later in the school, with a spurious mei added later.

I posted this several years ago, from an article by an Admiral Edwin Layton and Alan Harvie. According to my old notes, it was originally sourced from "Soken Kodogu Yogo lo Meisho no Kaiselsu". Certain types of nanako are associated with certain schools, and I was trying to learn the differences between the nanako of the various Ko-Goto masters up to Goto Tokujo. I think it is one of my projects that fell by the wayside some time ago.

What I have is probably in excess of your needs. It is very high end kinko and NBTHK papered. Nor did I particularly want to sell it. Since Owari is one of my two preferred areas of study, I will think to throw you a link when I see anything. I see less and less Owari kinko these days, but sometimes something pops up. My interest is more tsuba.

Umetada Duck+Waves tsuba still available. _____________________________________________ Ko-Kinko FK and Kanayama tsuba now sold. --Donation to NMB when transaction is completed.

@Sergio M (1) kinko or iron ? (2) papered or non papered ? (3) particular design ?

Oh, my face hurts from prolonged smiling. This wasn't an April Fools Day joke, was it? We've had a few, like the Cajun and his National Treasure Beaver Cleaver of a tachi.