Xander Chia

I’m not the most knowledgeable in this but from what I can tell, it’s a type 98 shin gunto with a field officer’s tassel and leather combat cover for the saya. In my opinion, blade is signed Kanetsugu, “兼次”. Edit: Just noticed the tsuba is not the regular gunto kind. Can’t really see what it is. The sword also looks quite short. A wakizashi maybe?

While I don’t know the full story, I still don’t think either of you should be insulting each other’s works. All of us here are trying to learn, that includes attempting to create our own items. Whether due to time, money, or whatever other constraints there may be I understand that not everyone can do things 100% traditionally. I am ok with people selling their works as long as the materials and methods are clearly stated. I however don’t agree with how much they are being sold for and have a hard time seeing how the prices are justified. To clarify, this is not the fault of Teddy, as I am sure there are many others who produce inferior works using less traditional methods and selling their items equal to or more than what Teddy is asking for.

I completely missed a few posts on reddit that were of greater importance to the argument that is going on here. Quite a bit to read, will continue after my sleep.

I might be misinterpreting things but doing a quick search on reddit, it seems like there may be a bit of confusion due to Teddy’s earlier reddit posts. Some of them include wrought iron tsuba. The later posts have iron tsuba made from blanks but it wasn’t clearly stated that they are not the same as the ones in the earlier posts. At least that’s what I think is going on.

Deja vu. Kinda confusing as I can’t type the other “直” on my iphone. It automatically switches to the one on the left.

Saw this on Aoi Art today.

I think the main issue Christian was trying to bring up is the fact that Teddy was selling his tsuba. Of course Teddy has also mentioned that he has stopped selling them which was not known beforehand.

Not sure if this qualifies as scary enough but it’s the only somewhat creepy one I own.

Wow, I would be so puzzled with the bottom one if you didn’t mention it was for a naginata/nagamaki. I do understand that punch marks can cause these sorts of deformities, but I’m confused because that tsuba does not have any.

What’s up with the mishapen nakago ana? Not the first I’ve seen but have always wondered how/why they have an irregular shape. There are also two kogai hitsu ana and the tsuba is thinner around the seppa dai in some parts (irregular), almost as though it is sinking in.

Thanks for helping search up specific examples Dale! However my question was more about all tsuba in general. Are there any resources to help me identify most of the various types? Or do I just purchase more books? I have a few more that I didn’t post here as they are not the best in quality/condition.

How does one figure out the school, time period and approximate price of a tsuba? I’ve tried searching online but I am unable to find anything similar to some of mine. I understand that books can provide a ton of information but from what I’ve seen, each book only covers a limited number of designs. How do I tell if a tsuba is worth what it’s listed? On top of that, I’m trying to sell some of my tsuba but have no idea how to price them.

Managed to get the top one just before 2022 ended. Received the bottom one yesterday. Unfortunately I’m gonna have to sell one of them as my current funds are quite low (too many impulse purchases :p).

Thanks Dale! This is more in depth than I had expected. So people have they been faking this tsuba for hundreds of years? I’ve actually seen quite a few modern repros of this Futen and Oni tsuba before, didn’t know the “real” ones were also reproductions themselves.

My apologies Dale, I thought I sent a reply thanking you but it looks like I didn’t.

I found 3 tsuba which look quite similar to one another. Are these cast copies? The first 2 pictures also look like they are the same tsuba judging from the sekigane. Would be happy to hear everyone’s thoughts on this.

If they are cast I wonder if there are more with the same crooked “記” kanji as mine. I have a couple of them but only one has a “ribbed” pattern on the edges of the leaves. An example of the different “grades”?

Neither does this. I know it’s a bit weathered but I still can’t picture it being a tiger.

Thanks for all the replies! Sorry it took awhile to get back, was taking a break for a short while.

Forgot to add… Came across a sword sold as a Mishina Minamoto Hisamichi dated 1865 but could not find any info of a Hisamichi from this time period.

I only managed to find 3 from Shinto and one from early shinshinto period. The 3 from Yamashiro and one from Iyo.

At first I thought it was suriage by folding the end of the nakago onto itself (kinda like orikaeshi mei). But I realised that it looks too “clean” if you know what I mean. On top of that, if the first image shows that the yasurimei actually changes after the horizontal line.

Most of them use a brownish/orangey thick clay mixture to coat the whole blade. They then remove sections of it to create the hamon pattern. I screenshot this image from YouTube. It’s supposedly taken from the Hanwei forge.

The Chinese do sell differentially hardened blades below that price point. It’s not the same as the ones found on nihonto but there technically still is a “hamon.”

I agree. It seems to be closer on the higher end of things in terms of quality, at least aesthetically. The one I posted above is being sold for about $3.8k including koshirae.