Curran

Tsuba #4: This is a good large one, I think around 8cm. I intended it for a koshirae project for one of my swords, but gave up the project during the Pandemic and have since sold the sword. The Nishigaki f/k, kogai, kojiri, and other parts are available to anyone seriously interested. The kogai is NTHK papered circa 2004. Attached is an image of the tsuba next to a shodai Kanshiro in the book. Is the tsuba Kanshiro? Shaaaa. If it were, it be much much more. --No. I think it either later Nishigaki (Higo) or possibly a very good Tosa Myochin. $295 This is a *very* good tsuba, but there is a hairline fracture in part of the sukashi. Look for it. I never saw it until someone showed me, and it doesn't bother me. Still, it is there and priced accordingly.

Tsuba #3 This one is a 5th gen Hayashi. Strong opinion on that. It is photographed with the 3rd gen example from Ito-san's book. His iron tends to be a bit more sandy and the patina more black than the first 3 generations. $275 I'm pricing these "to move" for what I think they are. This would be a good one for mounting.

Tsuba #2 This is one of the sakura tsuba for which the Hayashi and Kamiyoshi lines of Higo smiths are known. My gut feeling is that it is Kamiyoshi, though it could be 5th gen Hayashi. Safer to say Kamiyoshi, given the stamp marks on the seppa dai. Compare to a fancy overpriced pair here: https://ginza.choshuya.co.jp/sale/higo/067/index.htm $595 On the larger end of katana sized. I will add measurements this evening.

Tsuba #1: Katana sized Akasaka. I feel this one is Ko-Akasaka, but I cannot guarantee the NBTHK will agree. I believe the theme is the Buddhist Fire Sermon (google it). It was a favorite theme of the nidai, but I am not sure which generation on this one. It is an earlier Akasaka. $650 I know the photos are so so. It time allows, I will try for better ones this evening. Anyone interested, please PM me so I have time stamps of priority.

This is probably a foolish idea, but there is something in Japan I want to buy and don't really need. I figured to list a few tsuba and leave it to fate whether it gets finance. I will post several tsuba today. Discounts: 5% if you buy 2. 10% if you buy 3. 15% if you buy all 4. Also % Donation to the NMB.

LOvely sword. I was looking at an Omiya Morishige O-tanto (Oei 26) on Yahoo!Japan.

**** Trying to edit my error in above post, but the system freezes up any time I try to edit it.

tachi-shi ones tend to be design oriented edge down. You're dataset runs much larger than mine, but most of the ones I have seen were oriented that way. Example attached. Tachi shi tsuba NBTHK papers.pdf

In principal, I vote for edge down. That being said, I have a ko-tosho that has strong evidence it was worn tachi style. The NBTHK reflected this in their photo for the papers, showing the tsuba flipped right to left, front to back. However, the cutting edge remained up. On the pure tachi I have had, the cutting edge on the NBTHK papers was presented downwards. So it depends a bit.

PM Sent.

yep. Vertical nanako often seen on ko-Mino, but NBTHK would probably say yours is ko-kinko. Half way to being ko-Mino.

Harry Watson never finished that 8th volume of the Nihonto Koza translations. People would come at him for a long time about that.

Wow Kyle- nice write up!

Well, yes, seen a lot of that on Yahoo!Japan Total BS pump n dump situations. Rather a lot of them. Yet once or twice in a while, something goes under radar. To my own surprise, I picked up a rather excellent Rakuju last year. Someone did far better than me, picking up a Hayashi Matashichi at about 1/8th what it would go for if the NBTHK papers it correctly. That is a big IF these days....

HI Ron. Lovely earlier example. It is as you say, a Momoyama ko-kinko and close cousin to some of the Ko-Mino examples. The butterflies are more distinct than usual, and what makes this an interesting piece to me. Attached is one I purchased in 2014, papered TH and sold about 5 years later. The more I see, the more the early tsuba interesting examples like this are rare. In one of the Ko-Mino books there is a nice diagram page that breaks down the evolution of the rendering of the flowers. From that, you can hone in on a more specific date. I believe it is the 1990s Gifu Museum Catalog-Book on Ko-Mino. At present, I cannot find my copy.

There was a lot of spin on that one. Proper to call it some wicked googly?

This was a good read. Nice to see a Kunitomo, as I know their tsuba.

All those years knowing DB, and I never knew he was a fellow D&D geek. Hey DM, another roll of the 20 sided dice? I was always afraid he'd die on one of those dirt bikes. I always wanted one myself, but that ended one day when uncle's bike had a sudden mechanical issue and flung me head first over a hill into a full grown corn field. By the time I met DB, he'd already had two or three concussions from dirt bikes accidents. Montreal cops just loved him.

Ah. Good link by Geraint. In response to the question: I don't know. The few I handled never had any sense of looseness or give to them. If with pitch or pins, they seemed secure sandwiches.

It is a sanmai. Bob is correct. I owned a near identical one many years ago. Attached is another of this sort of 3 piece construction. Top and bottom plate are pressed or hammered out and then finished, often including addition of gold. Often held together by a little shakudo fukurin, and sometimes two discrete pins through the seppa dai area.

I was told the link isn't working. Trying it another way: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xl9u44b855x6tvo/gojo.pdf?dl=0

Hi Bob- glad to see you here. I remember Darcy was already flying along back then and learning from you. He was already writing and having me proofread some of it. Especially on Masamune's 10 students. I have a lot of them saved down. For the sake of memory, I've attached one of his early writeups from 2003. About Gojo instead of Masamune and his 10 students, I went up to Montreal to see this one. I'd never seen a Gojo before. **heck... it exceeds the maximum file size. Edit: Thanks to help from another member, trying a Dropbox link https://www.dropbox.com/home/darcy?preview=gojo.pdf

Hi Joel, Sorry that we make introductions this way. I've known your two brothers for a long time. Just let us know how we can help. Curran

I remember arguing with him about those funds. I thought they were too leveraged and concentrated. I told him to avoid. I'd make the same mistake before the Pandemic. Karma is a bitch.

Darcy grew up in Windsor, Canada. He was one of 3 brothers. When younger, he worked in an automotive plant there. He would go onto McGill in Montreal to study Computer Science. He would start his own company and sell it to INTUIT during the Dot.com era. He bought a red Ferrari thereafter to impress the girls, but he rarely drove it. He preferred his dirtbikes, for which the local police gave him hell. He’d give them hell back. I’d visit him in Montreal. Generally, he was interested in the science of finely made things. Be it Scottish whisky, the chemical composition of rare gemstones, or nihonto, we would stay up late talking. When I went to Scotland, I’d bring him back some good stuff not available in the USA back then. He helped me design the wedding ring for my wife. We set it with a diamond he owned and I believe he was keeping for his own marriage. There was a pretty long haired brunette girl for him back then, but it didn’t work out. One of the many random memories I have is that he would do things like get a bunch of sleeping bags and give them to the homeless on the coldest nights in Montreal. We’d be friends for 20 years. We would meet up every few years and have a meal together, starting up again as if we had just seen each other last week. In recent years, life took us further apart- but I will miss the guy who could brutally argue statistics with me while we made hamburgers on a flame grill at 2 am. Curran