Steffieeee

What does this mean?..

Any idea about age and school? It's iron actually not bronze

Hi can anyone give information about this tsuba? Age/school. The sword has been in some action with blade nicks saya damage, and I assume this huge whack/scrape to the side of the tsuba. I assume the tsuba is shakudo, looks like a lump of chocolate, pretty thick. Thanks for any help Stef

I assume they aren't that common? Or are they?

I guess it's the right shape for a handle. There is a standard kogatana space on the other side of the sheath. I guess it could be for a spare kogatana handle but why make it inaccessible and why make this piece of brass to fit exactly. Myochin. That looks very like what is here! I think you're right! Thanks!! Although good knows how he would have got that out without some special tool. I guess you could just about pull it out with the kogatana blade..

Interesting idea. The problem is it's almost impossible to get out of there. I could only remove it with small pliers because the strap loop is missing.

This is a very thin piece of brass bent at the edges to form a 'tray' . No weight to speak of. Yet a huge amount of work to carve out that hidden slot.

Hi can someone tell me what this is? A piece of brass carefully fitted into the sheath. ? Totally flush and I guess when the loop was still present pretty difficult to retrieve?..

My point entirely. A tooth in your body is a working thing with no intrinsic value. Obviously you'd fix it. Just like changing part of a car. When the armour etc was used it would have been the same,obviously with value and craftsmanship considered. You can apply the same thing to anything historical. It's only in Japanese tradition it's acceptable it seems to renew based on condition rather than age. Personally I'd prefer to keep the historic stuff as it is without imposing my personal tastes on it. Totally different things to compare. If you were running around fighting in it you'd have a point

That's exactly right. I see relacquered items as having no soul. If I wanted something that looked like a helmet did 509 years ago I'd buy one on fantastic condition or get a repro. Yes relacquering and relacing were done when the item was in use for practical reasons. That's not the case now they are historic items

And so a lot of this is about wanting an item to look as it might have done originally, and about aesthetics. Which is fair enough. But not necessarily the same as best preservation of the item for future generations. Which in the extreme would be keeping the bits of armour with degraded silk in a dark dry box for future generations to decide what to do with. I would suggest removing entire original lacquer because of one unsightly bit is a personal preference, it's wholly irreversible, which is generally the museum tenet of preserving original items in their original condition. It's a balance I suppose. I would never have any interest in buying armor which has new lacquer on it however authentically it had been done personally. Relacing old silk, sure why not if it's compromising the condition of the rest of the piece... Generally it's because we want to handle these items and that doesn't really work with loose bits of old silk.

It is interesting. From a museum background as I am, the idea of ripping off original lacquer from an item and relacquering it with new stuff sends shivers down my spine, whereas it seems commonplace practise here. But the reaction to some easily reversed slightly naff overtight binding seems slightly out of proportion. Personally I would much prefer to see stabilised old original lacquer with a bit of damage and history, than pristine shiny new lac

Great thanks Steve. It's just a piece that came on a sword, thought it was quite nice

Hi if anyone can translate this guy, would love to know when it was made tyvm

Ah of course that explains it ty Stef

looks impressive. As a newbie ignorant trying in vain to learn I would have looked at the nagako here and said right way too clean and not enough patination for a sword of that date. MOst of the other tangs of this date I have seen don't show sharp filemarks? I guess thats just a guide and tang colour varies.

This topic is a minefield and even in the short time I have been learning about this stuff especially the blades, I have had many literally directly contradictory opinions, and seen stuff that instantly makes me realise something I thought I had a grasp of, I didn't.... As with all this stuff handling the real thing is probably, at least in my case, the only way to learn and understand properly, but second best is this online forum with decent photos of stuff, comparing things is really helpful which you actually don't get with books very often. So I'm grateful for any advice or replies to my enquiries as well, ty

That appears to be an incredibly long nagako what on earth is that sword?

Yes I've got one of these hence my questions, wasn't sure if it was a legitimate thing or not, horimono seems to apply to any blade carving, bonji or actual writing. And they always seem to have Buddhist or zen reference? Seems pretty incredible talent to be able to carve into steel so easily. One wrong move and that's a lot of work down the drain..

Woah that's great thanks! Which apparently seems to be a line from a Chinese Tang dynasty Buddhist Zen Master joshu

I thought I found one of them as the number 46 so maybe a date? but possibly thats totally wrong.

Is it worth posting the blade of this sword here to see if it matches the Mei? As a description I can see the boshi has a very long kaeri-tsuyoshi and a broad widely undulating hamon.

That's kind George. I have pretty much all of the books that were recommended. They don't answer the questions I've asked. And I like to have the input from the people who have various experiences and levels of knowledge on here. Opinions vary. Sorry if the questions irritate you

So would these things be commissioned by a particular customer? or would the smith just get creative suddenly, or see a blemish that he thought he could cover up with a nice carving suddenly? or feel the blade required a little more power from the spirits? I guess another question I'm asking is were the better blades comissioned for specific purposes and customers, or smiths just made blades as they were, which would be bought or gifted to wealthy samurai etc?

thats a very cool sword, I've never seen that before, what date is that? Is that red lacquered script?