rematron

Thank you for asking this,@FlorianB. I've been curious about this design as well.

Colin, my non-expert opinion is that I really like it. It's a strong piece that invigorates one's imagination and it has a feeling of movement, which I'm assuming is even more apparent in hand.

I’m swamped this weekend but def looking forward to future meetups. Good luck on your photo shoot!

Congrats, Sam!

@ChrisM and @GeorgeLuucas, that makes three of us! I'm in Mountlake Terrace about 20 minutes North of Seattle.

Looking on the brighter side, it could be much worse.

Yeah, I’m only trying to clear up the confusion on who said what. The implications of something being mass produced is a whole other conversation. “Mass produced” doesn’t equate to “bad”. It just means something for the masses and not special order.

I think Sesko could probably translate it himself, being a studier of Japanese language. However, here's what the web says:

I wish I could make it. I hope everyone has a blast.

Sesko did not say "just good enough for one battle". That quote is from studyingjapaneseswords.com which appears to be run by Yurie Endo Halchak. 23| Sengoku Period Sword　(戦国時代刀） – Study of Japanese Sword (studyingjapaneseswords.com) Sesko's literal translation of "kazuuchi-mono" is: 'made in large numbers', as @Gakusee pointed out above.

The minimalism is almost charming. Almost.

I really wish there was a sword club in the Seattle area. I'm surprised there's not.

Hi Vitaly. I was in the same boat myself with this one below. The difference with mine is that I didn't pay much attention to the mei and didn't even try to translate it. Actually, I thought it was by someone other than Nobuie as per the seller's posting and I sort of wish that had turned out to be the case. However, I don't regret buying it at all. I just liked the tsuba. I got an opinion from @Spartancrest as to whether or not he thought it was a period piece (sometime before Meiji) or not and then I jumped on it. He's been a great help to me and others who are beginner collectors. It was actually up for auction twice. The first time I was about to nab it for about $200USD but the seller didn't like that and pulled the auction with only 5 minutes left. A few weeks later they put it back up and I ended up spending about $300USD on it. Later in the translation thread I was trying to find out what the writing was and only then was I told that the mei was Nobuie. I guess it's possible that it was a later Nobuie that made it but even if it's a complete forgery, I still like it a lot. It looks like somebody liked it enough to mount it (or perhaps the sekigane were added to make it look that way) and then someone else had a custom box made for it. Someday I might send it through shinsa but I'm relatively sure it's a 'tribute' piece or straight up forgery. Anyways, the one you posted and mine have a lot of similarities. The photo isn't great but I can definitely see strings of kanji carved into it. I wouldn't be surprised if the same artisan made both of them. Good job for setting a price limit. I'm not too great at that. Incidentally, I saw a NBTHK papered Nobuie on auction last week starting at around $23,000USD.

No joke!

Great collection, @Torrez! Your sixth example has a striking resemblance in composition to mine. The tea house is very much the same and placed between the same shoreline embankments. And there also is the flag post up near the temple. Your seventh example has that curvy sail/shade on the boat again. But this one looks more like a sail just because of the placement. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Anybody recognize and know what this plant is?

This thread is a good read. Not really sword specific but definitely sword related. There are some good references as well.

https://www.jauce.com/auction/q1094817983

Thanks Barry. I had looked there first but didn't see it available.

I'm looking for this set. Thank you, Jeremy

Not that it would be appropriate or desirable to actually do this, I like how this tsuba could be used as a belt buckle in real time without any alteration.

The shipping price for weight definitely could be a factor. Do you mean kinko in the sense of soft metal? I know that George used Meijitaikei to look at Choshu signatures which I thought were mostly iron. I wish we could chat with someone who actually owns the 8-volume set. I'm under the impression that the 3-volume set deals only with mei and doesn't even have full photos of tosogu (or not very many), just the signatures.

Ah. Okay. I suspect then that the 8-volume does not have the same info as the 3-volume. Maybe @Grey Doffin can confirm this. I would like the 8-volume set some day as well.

I won the 3-volume set (Meijitaikei) at 57,000 yen (about 20% less than what @Grey Doffin sold them for) but I was willing to go up to Grey's price range. The 8-volume set was up for auction also and ended at 24,321 yen (刀装小道具講座！全８巻揃い！後藤家他！佐藤寒山 (著) 若山泡沫 (著)　　　　　　　　検赤坂甲冑師透鐔鐔目貫縁頭日本刀鞘鍔小柄短刀脇差 /【Buyee】 Buyee - Japanese Proxy Service | Buy from Japan! bot-online). I suspect that the seller won their own auction on that one, especially if the 8-volume set does indeed include all the same info as the 3-volume set. It could be that the eight-volume set just isn't in as much demand for some reason. @SteveM, do you own the 8-volume set? Perhaps people don't know that the 8-volume set contains the same information as the 3-volume set. I very well could have been bidding against the seller for the 3-volume set. Anyways, I'm happy I got it. It will help me learn kanji and will be a valuable tool for collecting.

Brian, your set sounds interesting. I wonder what the differences between the two sets are.