Soshin

Dear Ian, Is the fukurin glided in gold? I can make out what looks like a gold glided fukurin from both photos of each side of the tsuba. A silde veiw photo might be helpful as well. If it is then that's really impressive and it adds a nice contrast to the dark iron patina of the body of the tsuba and matchs some of the highlights. David

Ian, nice tsuba. Do you know what the mei reads? I can't see the mei from the photo you have uploaded. A close-up of the mei area would be helpful. Thanks for sharing photos of your tsuba with us.

I had to fix a few display boxes that were broken in a similar way your photo shows becasue the person selling the tusba to me shipped the tsuba inside the display box. Luckily there wasn't any damage to the tsuba(s) themselves.

Looking at the tusba I think you are correct about the inlay work of the pine needless. It is completely made of silver. Given the fact that for a large part of the medieval period in Japan Kyoto and other parts of western Japan were on a Silver standard it would be very expensive to make inlays of pure silver. In regards to the mei in my original post I was simply trying to say that the mei says the same thing in Japanese as the Kaneie II and Saga School not that my tsuba has a authentic signature of either the Kaneie II or Saga schools. I didn't pay very much for the tsuba in Japan and I wasn't expecting very much in the first place. I just wanted to post the picture for research and discussion purposes. Thank you John for the information about my tsuba was many Shoami style gimei copies of Kaneie common in the 19th Cen.? I still find the idea of a antique fake kind of interesting.

Thanks docliss for information about the Saga Kaneie school. I am new to the Nihonto Message Board I have another Kaneie tsuba obtained from Japan signed in a similar way as the tsuba list in the post and in the same way as the original second Kaneie (i.e. Meihin Kaneie). "Yamashiro kuni Fushimi ju Kaneie" I am thinking it could belong the Saga Kaneie school or if I really lucky made by the second Kaneie. My tsubas is a really nice looking tsuba and it likely the best I have in my small tsuba collection. The color might be a little off because I did the photograph with a scanner. Here is a small photograph for comparison and discussion purposes enjoy.