Curran

Better images of my one example. Not sure why it rotates like that. I've always enjoyed the Korean influence and nanako on this one. I'd date it to 1600-1615? Naturally, I prefer the pre-1600s ones. The earlier the better. Those like Les' don't seem to appear very often. The last Muromachi one I saw, a few guys ended up in a bidding war at the end of the auction. Though under the radar of a lot of people, they are still very hard to catch.

Yes. Ditto. I too would appreciate it more than a little.

Very well said by Colin. Though not something that gets me to put down my beer, the flashy post Edo stuff has found an appreciation base the last few years. Several of us had noticed the recently over the 100 year mark had been gaining a fanbase at the auction houses. Maybe tech-bros and crypto-kings be searching for bling?

I hadn't really looked deeply at the offerings. Someone I trust said there was a lot of "lipsticked pigs" (from the phrase, "To put lipstick on a pig."). A quick look seemed to confirm that. Decent things do come up in Auction Houses now and then. I did pick up a good Hayashi Shigemitsu at an auction house last year.

Yep. It is more pleasant than obvious in the photo. The patina is particularly nice. I'd rather own this one.

caveat emptor https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/caveat_emptor

Only one that I own

And vice versa from early philosophy to present. Dear wife comes from a Buddhist --> Christian family. Personally, I ended up somewhere in the middle after having explored both for quite a number of years. Put another way, I was not particularly good at being either. Still, both are knowledge through stories.

It took me a long time to fully appreciate these Kirishitan tsuba, though I am not Christian. With enough time and understanding, I too appreciate them. I gauge mine to be around 3rd gen.

I regret letting this one get away about 15 years ago. I have my personal favorite Kanayama now, but this one was On Par. I am glad to see it again.

Ditto

I was unaware there was an unofficial translation. I picked up that book this year, as I have one Kagamishi that I much like and have seen photos of an early Muromachi one in Japan that knocks my socks off.

From prior experience helping with the deacquisition of about 140 tsuba from a small museum, the first two numbers (28) usually reference the year it was taken in by the museum. Then pull the old books kept by the museum and look up acquisition item 722 from that year. The collection I helped with was largely taken in 3 waves during the 1920s and 1930s. I still have two of the tsuba that I bought from it. Over the years, I have had other tsuba with Museum #s. Currently the only one I have is this big thin Ko-shoami or Ko-Kat. For various reasons, I know what country it came from but not what museum. Anyone have anything similar and information to share, do let me know.

Same opinion. Most look real, but 1 image is not great. Rough look to some of them.

Interesting theme. I learned something new today. Thanks guys.

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

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.