Mark Green

I feel that in times of war, or a big order from china, many swords were not signed. If you have a town full of smiths, cranking out dozens of swords every week (or more), I'm sure most of those swords went unsigned. That is likely, one of the reasons why we see so many unsigned swords. Most sword makers were businessmen. If a sword was a bit "off", as long as it had no fatal flaws, it would likely be assigned to the "bin". To be sold as is, to whomever. Forever unsigned. They still worked for what they were intended. Once in a while you see that wonderful, ubu, unsigned sword and it makes you go hummmmmmmmm?? It is likely, that even some of these "bundle" swords were very pretty, even flawless. Just another reason why.

Stephen, Guido, and gang, I understand why they do things like that, but it just seems crazy. Say some samurai takes the slightly beat up old nagamitsu to the local smith to get cut down into uchigatana mounts so he can carry it around town. The smith chisels a two kanji mei of the correct smith on the newly made nakago that he has done this wonderful job fixing up. Why on earth, would the shinsa team pink that as gimei, and pass the lacquer signed Honami next to it. If the steel matched up with Nagamitsu, why would that "gimei" not be as valid as some attribution? It just seems very crazy! If they were sure it was a nagamitsu, couldn't they just pass it as such, and state on the papers that an attribution mei was added at a later date? Not destroying part of the swords history. It just makes you wonder what the hell they are thinking sometimes.

I doubt there are many Gemei Yari out there. Although, anything is possible. I love my Sukitoshi Yari, it is one of the prettiest pieces of Japanese steel I have ever seen. Roy, Can we see more pics of the blade of your yari? There were a number of generations.

I would have to agree Pete. You may want to contact your polisher. It should be like Chris and others have said. It looks to have been moved forward some. Take a look from the edge side. Do they line up? Mark G

Looks very nice Pete. Got to love those Bungo Tomoyuki!!! :D I bet it looks great in person. I have never seen a crapy Bungo Tomoyuki. Enjoy.

To me, it looks like a well made modern-steel blade. perhaps made in China, or Spain. It does look to be tempered. Perhaps even water quenched? I have seen dozens that look just like this. Can we see the fittings? That would likely tell us. Mark G

J, That is Shinki. Next to Tadayoshi, The most Gemei

Those ugly drilled ana!!!!!! and the aborted ones. Ouch. I would love to see some pics of the blade.

It looks like a sea turtle to me.

I'm with Ron, that's looks to be a very interesting sword. I would like to see more of that as well, and measurements, whatever.

Hi Yumi, That looks pretty nice. When you post tsuba for people to look at, it is good to add the size. It could help the people that know, be able to figure it out. You should take some better pics of this. From some angles as well, and closer, much closer. Mark G oops, Bob beat me to it. :D

There are no seppa spacers. The fittings are recessed into one another, about 4-6cm. I am sure there are some pictures somewhere with a good view of open pieces. If you can't find any mail me, and I will take some close pics of mine. Mark G

Here are a couple repo castings. I'm not sure if these are from some famous origionals or not. You see very few, but they are out there. Mark G

I think Chris has it right on. It looks to be a plain shakudo plate with a copper applied rim. Likely edo. Very dented up, and the rim looks a bit wrecked, but a nice little tsuba. Mark G

Yes Carl, It is a very ugly cast copy. Mark G

It was just a guess. That 3 leaf holly design seems very common. Mark

I think those may be holly leaves. I'd go for snowflakes.

I agree with Jason that this tsuba is likely 'real'. Surly not as old as thought by the seller. Being in very ill shape, and badly rusting Jason was a bit over zelous cleaning it. Down to the bare metal in many areas if I recall. So yes, I did re-patina it with a period patina method. The cleaned metal re-patined very well. I felt it would be better then leaving it at the bare metal stage. I do have a bit of metal patina experince. It may have been 'treated' to look much older then it was, but my guess was that it just had sat somewhere very damp for many years. But who knows? I think it came from a seller in Japan, is that right Jason? And to me, it was hard to tell if it had ever been mounted. It didn't look like it. I wouldn't normally work on an old tsuba, but Jason wanted to mount it soon. So, I helped him out in preserving what was left of his tsuba. Mark G

YES! Great link Steven. Thanks for posting. Mark G

No doubt there. What a pile of add on Sekigane around that Seppa-dai. Obviously for fitting to a new sword size. Good find Lorenzo.

Blade pics????

Thanks John, That is a nicely done copy of the original. Is that B&W pic, a shot of the one I heard about done in iron? Anyone got a better pic than that

I love that one Reinhard. Is that silver inlay? Everyone loves Amida-yasurime. Thanks for the pic. That is simple elegance. Cheers, Mark G

Hi Jason, You see many Kogatana with fanciful signatures! It seems that 80% of them are signed by some no-kami from the shinto period. I feel there is no telling how many true signatures there are on these. They were made for cutting your apple. I doubt that many of them were signed in period. I would think most of the signatures were done in late Edo, to sell them as something special to people that didn't know any better. Mark G I love the bo-hi cut in yours as well. That just cracks me up. I'm sure it helped in it's balance. :lol:

So Dave, Can we see some pics of the sword? Please. mark G