Curran

Thank you gents. I thought it was "Sada", but I really wasn't sure from the eccentric strokes. Glad I at least got that right, but I totally didn't get "Sadayoshi". I was way way off base with that second character.

On HOLD {pretty sure it is sold} This one was a partial gift. :-) NMB contribution after payment.

And no idea why the pictures are rotating. I will try and fix that tonight. Last one.

Up for sale is this large honking Myochin or Haruta armor maker style tsuba. [that is my best guess] Sunlight style texturing to the plate. 8.49cm high. 170 grams. About 5.5mm to 6mm depending where you measure it. Armor maker style, so obviously thickest at the mimi. I saw a very similar one attributed to Myochin in Chicago. This one is up for $250 + shipping to your country. It is a perfectly find big tsuba that came +1 as part of a two tsuba package where I wanted the other tsuba. ---The one in Chicago was $600. Nothing at all wrong with this wee beastie. It just isn't in my Higo and Owari interest areas. Otherwise, I believe it a perfectly good tsuba. Donation to NMB if it sells via NMB. Feel free to ask questions. Patience if I am slow to reply to PMs. It seems my mailbox fills up sometimes. Curran

I don't own the kozuka, but I do enjoy studying such pieces. What is the correct reading of the signature? This one isn't easy for me. I've come up with some weird sounding readings.

As someone who has been in this for 25-30 years, finding pre muromachi kinko is going to be hell of a longshot. I've owned one silver+tin+bronze+???? tachi tsuba of that age, and really shouldn't have sold it. I own two iron tsuba of that age, and kick around the idea of selling the ubu one of simple design. I keep putting it off. Maybe next year, maybe next year, maybe next year. Many years have passed. Good luck on finding kinko tsuba of that age. Most of the very old Ko-kinko tsuba of that age that I have seen are Juyo.

@rkgHeavens to Betsy.... that is a huge Shingen in you Facebook post. Pretty sure that is the King of Shingen tsuba.

To my eyes, both appear to be the same tsuba. Different locations and photos during its 150-175 years of existing. Pinning down a specific Yoshioka generation might be as difficult as pinning down a specific Hoan attribution. Maybe there is a text or two out there that has done it, but I either (a) have not seen it or (b) do not recall it. I believe I have seen the various generations of the Yoshioka laid out before, but I am not sure if anyone has built an answer key to which one is which generation.

Wow! Size? Like how thick?

Nambokuchu or earlier tachi tsuba at about 350-400g?

COmmon tachi tsuba design. Especially for Efu no Tachi, as Colin said. Arnold Frenzel would call them hair-pin tsuba

@OceanoNox These little exercises often teach me something too. Thanks for sharing that.

Steve nailed it fairly fast, and Peter posted a writeup that I didn't even know existed. Top marks to both of you. This little session went down a lot faster than I thought. If work allows, I will post another one tomorrow.

Peter: Good detective work. I didn't know that write-up by Jim Gilbert was online.

Pics attached. Identify: (1) School (2) Period and bonus (3) meaning of the theme Curran

Ono is one of the hardest, because different scholars have sliced and diced in different ways over the years. Even Torigoye+Haynes said there were "two different types of Ono" with the subtext of Really Good Ones, and not so good ones that got put there because scholars didn't know where else to place them in the Owari area pantheon. I also had a well recognized Temple Bell 'Kanayama' (Nihon to Koza) that was both thin, small, yakite, etc., but the NBTHK went Hozon to Ono. Not sure why?? In my particular case: I simply exclude the underwhelming "Ono" (placed there by NBTHK) and focus on the Owari To Mikawa book type examples. I know this is unscientific, but I cannot be bothered by the boring ones the NBTHK wants to call Ono. A little arrogance has its time and place in the Art world, though perhaps less in the medical world.

I bought a better example of this design, though it would be nicer if I had just bought Jim Gilbert's back in the day. Mine has NBTHK papers to Ono, which was nice- but I would have bought it papered or unpapered. The one that is currently up is with SWLibro seller? Some minor things about the patina and the seppa dai give me pause. If the seller is whom I think, yes I too would be cautious.

What does the guy do for a living, and does it involve any attention to detail? If it is a public company, please let me know the stock symbol.

Grey dark metal on the rough wet sand side of things? Nice tekkotsu on the outside and possibly one or two divet fissures? Partially due to hunting porcini and other funghi when I was younger, this remains one of my favorite designs. It almost always gets attributed to Ono, and I have seen 3 or 4 Ono papered examples over the last 20-25 years. Jim Gilbert offered me his 'hammer' water wheel Ono when I was relatively a new collector. Like a dummy, I passed on it. I'd been waiting for another of these "mushroom" or one of the 'hammer' water wheel ones to pop up. I finally bought one of the 'hammer' water wheels last year.

No, not quite. What started out with very good iron outside and a thin core layer of lesser iron would eventually become a thick core of lesser iron and the better outer iron would be very thin. In the earliest use of it, it makes for quite a good robust tsuba in the 3rd and 4th generation. The Nihonto.com tsuba is a very good tsuba, but I think the NBTHK papers to Ono are daft. That is my opinion. To me that tsuba was screaming 3rd or 4th gen Akasaka.

https://nihonto.com/1-4-20/ This one is likely not Ono. I was able to study for a long time. It went to shinsa in that 2014 year of NBTHK tosogu team buggery. I still think Probably 3rd gen Akasaka. Possibly 4th. It is sanmai construction and has Akasaka color/patina and texture outer iron. Generally: Be careful of old green papers for swords circa 1976-1979. Be careful of tosogu Hozon papers from 2014--> (?) . Especially when it comes to Higo fittings. They've gotten better, but sometimes there will be a tosogu shinsa with a lot of huh, what???

As [more fluent in Japanese] Steve said, "The hard "k" sound changes to a hard "g" sound when the word is used as a compound word, and is attached behind another word. " Conservation of pronunciation? Korean has a lot of that too. In Korean, it is more the K<->G in depends on whom you ask and in what dialect. The Korean Surname "Kang" is more "Gang".... but Kang looks better than Gang to most westerners. Same with "Kim", that some would pronounce more like "G(h)im", but Kim sure is easier than trying to hit between the K and G sounds.

That is more like it. D@mn nice example too. Lines between Kanayama and Ono often seem to blur. Another Ono-Kanayama attached.

Somewhat striking. I didn't know him, but impression is that he was too young to pass from illness. Sad to lose another artisan. RIP.

Jah. It has been mounted and could use a little basic TLC. But otherwise it is a CLASSIC Echizen example, and a seemingly nice one. Looking past the orange light that makes the bits of rust look hot and difficult to see the iron, -- it looks very legit and nice to me. I've rarely owned an Echizen, but this would be a nice reference example even to me. Depending on the price and the amount of rust on the mimi, even my jaded self would consider buying it. Good newbie question that makes me glad to help.