REMARKABLE SIGNED SOMIN TSUBA

[1kinko]

Uh, several members specifically asked for Ford’s opinion and those who wish to learn, learned something that was not obvious, particularly to non-practitioners of the craft. If you want comments like “ cool”, perhaps the Nihonto Fittings website would be more appropriate for you.

[DirkO]

I've seen the Yahoo! Auction where this pair of tsuba sold. A few things:
- the seller has a good reputation, regularly also sells papered items
- seeing YJP is one of the biggest Japanese auction sites for this kind of thing, chances are zero this would pass by unnoticed by big Japanese and international collectors. Sometimes you see bidwars going well into the 10,000's USD.
- unpapered items will require you to do your homework. Big names even more so. The bigger the name the greater the risk.

 

The signature should confirm the work. Now the work has been discussed at length here, so let's focus on the signature. In your mei you'll see some oddities I couldn't confirm on any of the papered reference mei I have (or published in Wakayama):
- at the 2nd kanji on the right you have 2 parallel lines, however in all other mei the top-stroke is right of the one below it and far more stylised. 
- the kao itself is missing strokes to the left and to the right, again present on all reference mei.

 

Probably there are more differences that I haven't picked up on yet. The differences in mei cast serious doubt. The fact that a papered Somin kozuka will sell for 7 times the price than this pair of tsuba went for is another red flag. Why wouldn't the seller try for papers, knowing that a papered tsuba would fetch him probably 10x more than what it did now? It doesn't add up. I hope you can still appreciate it for what it is - being a very nice tsuba. 

[Infinite_Wisdumb]

great post @DirkO