Matsunoki

The one you show here is now mine again…..link to when I put it on the forum…..the reverse is lovely imo.

I’m also not 100% but I think Ray is right. The mekugi (cord cylinder) could consist of a female internally threaded tube into which a male threaded bolt or screw inserts from the other side. One thing to be careful with, sometimes they have an opposite thread ie turn clockwise to loosen.

Dan, I’m still not sure if you are just taking the piss and trolling us but I will reply. There is no outer skin on this tsuba. You have a carved scene of people, probably farmers taking buckets of water from a stream. The areas you circle are where the riverbank has been carved in and some simple nunome has been used to suggest the flow of the river with dots to suggest the bank. The figures are carved not moulded. It is just a very simple technique for creating a shallow perspective.…..but I suspect you knew this all along……you’ve looked at and bought enough tsuba to have learned that yes?

All auction houses will sell gimei tsuba, blades, Fuchi kashira etc. Some do it knowingly and tell us, some do it knowingly and don’t tell us, some don’t know what the heck they are doing and just sell anything! Be wary and don’t rely on what they say.

Michael, to train your eye I would suggest (as I often do) that you go onto Bonhams website, search “tsuba” and click on “past lots”. Spend some time (better if it’s a lot of time) looking and learning….you will see hundreds of tsuba together with their sold prices including buyers premium. Enlarge the images, study the detail and the aesthetics. Many are sold in multiple lots so take that into account. You will start to get a feeling for comparative values. That will be far informative than looking at a few images in a few books (which give no idea re value) Look for those that hint at gimei…..”attributed to” “school of” etc….but you will see they can still make big money. If your taste is for Kinko tsuba then it’s doubly important that you can tell bad from nice from good from amazing….because the different in values is equally staggering.

Michael, I think you are correct….gimei. With Kinko tsuba I always first look at the quality of the work and that alone will tell you if it is by someone really good, and sadly this tsuba is not of that quality. A lot of work has gone into it but the refinement and artistry is clumsy especially as mentioned earlier the faces and the way the moon is done. It is very common to find “tribute” signatures of famous makers on mixed metal tsuba. Personally that never worries me if the quality is good enough (depending of course on the price)…..some carrying tribute (or fake to be blunt) signatures can still be staggering quality and that alone can justify purchase…..imo!

It is katana Mei not Tachi Mei

Jean, it’s his first post….lets welcome him.

Hi Charles I think Jean is suggesting that this is the right way up to read a signature…..

Just one more….a nice custom shinshinto koshirae on a big shinshinto blade ….cant decide if the metalwork is very heavily tarnished silver or shibuichi with a high silver content. Plovers and waves. I have found a better tsuba with same subject but can’t bring myself to swap it because then it isn’t original. Even got it’s old collection label.

I will soon make more mistakes and sell these….again, untouched.

Here are a couple of late Edo pieces that I bitterly bitterly regret selling. Totally untouched and not messed with. The blades were superb as well.

Have seen similar lines caused by loose fitting seppa rattling around.

Jussi…..you sure that is a flaw and not some type of impact damage? Is it possible that a glancing blow from something either heavy or sharp or both could have caused it? Or rather than being hit, could it have hit something?….a stone wall corner, a boulder/rock…? Just doesn’t look like a forging problem, one end is very angular and appears to have shock cracks coming off it. Don’t know….can you get better sharper image?

OK Dan, sobriety has returned so I will answer. First I will explain that I am not a purist “blade man”. I collect Japanese swords in their complete state with untouched koshirae. Expensive blades in shirasaya are not my thing. That means I can tolerate blades that are not in perfect polish. I prefer the polish to be Japanese but old and a bit scuffed is still fine. I will also buy swords where the blade has perhaps been cleaned inappropriately at some time provided there is no serious damage and provided most of the detail is still clearly visisble…usually there is a nice koshirae involved to justify the purchase, or it’s a really desirable package….ito maki no Tachi etc. So….to answer….i do not buy blades in the state you illustrate thus I don’t need to do much to them. I have used oil (sometimes WD40 type) and various toothpick type things to dislodge any thick encrustation and then simply keep applying gun oil and eventually the rust becomes black and inert and that’s fine. I have persisted with repeated uchiko but frankly it takes forever and I usually resort to just oil again. I have some success with that method though….recently on a Showa Tanto…but it makes your arms and hands hurt like hell! However, being honest and going back over 40 years in the UK all sorts of stuff went on largely fuelled by the type of ignorance or impatience or over-confidence that is being discussed here. We have never had sufficient polishers over here so you can “fill in the blanks”. However using unqualified “improvers” back then was not limited to the “ignorant”. I was well aware of Token Society members seeking unqualified assistance……and some members even trying it themselves……but times have changed so we will leave sleeping dogs alone to continue sleeping.

I’ll reply tomorrow. It’s Friday night and I can hardly see the keyboard🙂 cheers.

Child helping a heavily treasure laden Hotei cross a river under a full moon. Not sure if it’s a specific story.

That came across wrong!!!! I meant his suggestion was a seriously good idea…..NOT POLISHING BLADES!! I thought I’d quoted the whole post! Sorry folks. I’ll go stand in the corner.

Really wish I’d seen this earlier☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️ Beautiful koshirae. Got any more?🙂🙂 Congrats to buyer and seller!

…….now that is a seriously good suggestion.

Being realistic, I don’t think we as a Forum can do anything that will significantly change things. It is the restriction on the number of swords that a modern smith is allowed to make that creates the difficulty so perhaps we should be looking to lobby the Japanese Govt. to change these restrictions? ….but in reality….it would be to no avail. It is bizarre that artificial restrictions are imposed on some of Japans most talented artisans that are admired the world over. I wonder if the NBTHK or any other Japanese sword organisations have tried?

Dan, there was a time when I half thought of you as type of modern day Darwin with your theories about cast tsuba and battling on in the face of adversity, hostility and ridicule…..but I did admire you for battling….although not when you resorted to KMA etc. But surely, given your experience with tsuba you must realise the vast difference between the finish that is applied to swords compared to iron tsuba. The weeks and weeks of careful skilled finishing work that produces a geometrically perfect highly refined work of art. The knowledge that different stones work differently on different blades. Couple that with the many ways swords are constructed and the assorted steels involved and the different approaches that that requires……again …….surely you can see the difference? Polishers study and practice for many years and even then some never become masters. Put simply, it is very very easy to inflict unrecoverable damage to a blade, nowhere near so easy to inflict that level of damage to an iron tsuba…..unless you are a total idiot. Please convince us that you do have that understanding.

I assume you identified the blade before you set about it? Please tell me the school/age/smith etc involved. …..or did you just set about it in total ignorance?

I believe I have read somewhere on this forum that there is simply no place on this forum for anyone practicing or advocating amateur polishing??????

Do you not have sufficient imagination to make the mental leap to understand that the link I posted is just a simple way to try and explain that treasures can be found anywhere…..including eBay. I believe that blades have been purchased from sellers such as Komonjo (widely regarded as frequently doubtful (sometimes unfairly imo)) that have gone on to gain high level papers??? I can’t be bothered to try and explain further…..you seem to lack basic comprehension skills or you just like arguing for the sake of it.