Tcat

Curious statement… it’s a theme that crops up all the time in tosogu.

In the case of the tsuba I shared above, I was informed by an expert that the shakudo plugs and fukurin were likely to be later additions to an existing iron plate tsuba, which previously had some kind of gold decoration that seems unlikely to match with the shakudo. There are still trace remnants of gold visible on the plate. I'm not an expert and have no skin in it either way, though I believe what I was told because I suspected that to be the case already. The pleasures of confirmation bias.

Nice. I like those shakudo plugs. This tsuba reminds me of the first I ever bought..and still have. Pic for ref.

These are worth a look at just for the giggle

Lol - What I meant in this case was this particular seller had a lot of true junk listed. Overpriced low-quality genuine tsuba along with the worst kind of china repro junk, but in among the tat was a nice, albeit not very old tsuba I made an offer on which was accepted. What you are talking about though I see all the time, and it seems to be even more the case with auction houses savvy to what their buyers actually want to get ahold of. Another classic is to throw a real nice menuki in, without its partner of course, or attempt to palm off tobacco pouch ornaments as menuki..

I have found a few tsuba bargains on ebay but in recent years they have been much rarer. One nice tsuba among a bunch of junk tsuba one seller was offering last year turned out great. It is still possible but its not something I would encourage beginners to do because the time spent searching for a deal makes it a false economy...and you have to know what youre looking at.

Nice share. I have seen a few older blades like this but not so many. Handsome blade.

To answer your questions directly, it is best to buy in person in Japan, making purchase decisions based on inspections of swords and related artworks in hand. Not knowing the language shouldnt set you back too far. Buying online from photos is more risky, because you both need to know what you are looking at and rely on the honesty of dealer photos hoping they arnt playing tricks with the light / color / photoshop - which incidentally they sometimes do. Maybe narrow down further what you want from your sword other than TH papers, or perhaps what you dont want, and by process of elimination this can help you decide what your options are.

Ken tail is male. Also, female animals depicted tend to have open mouths...or so I've been told, someone might want to confirm.

It is a souvenir / letter opener. Not Japanese. Has 'Philippines' written on it. Probable place of manufacture. 5 bucks or less.

Yes, as I imagined. But what does it say?

Hi all. Would anyone here be able to please help me read these characters I found under a fuchi, and also if possible educate me as to their significance?

Boars eye form as a decoration on fittings goes back into early koto as others have mentioned, but perhaps I was too “generous” with the age estimate because they are certainly very late and the quality is not exciting..I change my estimate to Meiji or modern.

The top is the tachi tsuba, the lower is a tachi seppa. They look authentic Japanese to me...age looks late edo/meiji.

It looks like its going to be a beautiful day.

IMHO ChatGPT is terrible at providing accurate information / facts and not good at true analysis of abstract information. Absolutely everything it tells you needs to be checked. Its strengths lie in quickly generating high volumes basic format content which can then be checked and refined by a human. Trust the 'facts' it spits out at your peril.

Age 27, while working at Sotheby’s in London in the late 2000s, after they had ceased holding Japanese works of art sales unfortunately. I was only able to handle a couple of old blades which were then stored in the Chinese works of art department… They did however have some fantastic middle eastern swords which I got to inspect up-close. The sword was a beautiful mumei shinshinto aikuchi tanto with Hozon papers attributed to Aizu Kanetomo, which I still treasure to this day.

No words other than - Thank you Ford for all your wonderful teaching and insight over the years. The craft has lost a true master. My deepest condolences to all those affected.

Hand carry with a golf bag is the best current option if youre flying back.

Thank you. It is inside a kozuka-hitsu. Does this refer to the koshirea maker/

Can anyone read and decipher the meaning of this shumei? Thank you.

There are loads of blades around like this, always made from the tip end of broken swords. Avoid them. They are salvage operations in a land of very few resources - serviceable but suboptimal and with little to no artistic value. And to your last question, no.

It sounds like you want to create a beautiful display. If for display then I think the quality of the koshirae is quite important. I also think one sword is not enough but lets not get ahead of ourselves... Daisho is not a bad suggestion... But since you have a nice budget to play with, my suggestion would be to spend a little time looking into fittings schools and extant issaku/matching set koshirea examples and themes. Nothing you have shared so far has been particularly spectacular for the sort of budget you are hinting at. Purchasing a newly made sword will support the continuation of the craft if its custom-made for you by the smith. An option would be to create your own personal koshirea from existing tosogu sets or even have a new set made, however there are extremely few fittings artists operating today and for the most part their scope is limited, wait times long and prices astronomical.

Greetings fellow dark-siders. Does anyone know the correct terms, or if such terms exist, to describe a fuchi with a built-in tsuba, or a koiguchi with the same attribute? These are sometimes found on aikuchi and are/would be hamidashi sized.

Probably the fastest shortcut to peace of mind would be to only buy a sword with NBTHK papers. This way there is no argument, but you will be paying a premium. Very sorry state of affairs in the UK right now regarding issues with the post and laws around swords in general.