Share your early iron tosogu

[Bugyotsuji]

細違い角家紋

Try linking it like this with 'kamon'.

[Bugyotsuji]

Oh, and today I found this one. Iron, ribbed. Acorns?

The togishi asked if he could polish it, so I said ‘sure’! Came up nicely.

 

 

 

 

 

[Brian]

Wow, that's a stunning one! Lovely hada and hamon. Really stunning.

[C0D]

I should post most of my collection, but i selected a few pieces:

 

Ko-tosho, big, early and unaltered

 

Onin, big and unaltered without much loss of zogan

 

And my pride, tensho koshirae from late Muromachi with its original blade still inside. All lacquered black, simple iron tsuba with most of urushi still in place

[Tim Evans]

10 hours ago, C0D said:

And my pride, tensho koshirae from late Muromachi with its original blade still inside. All lacquered black, simple iron tsuba with most of urushi still in place

Nice! Also really rare, especially outside of Japan. 

 

Here is one I have. I date it a little newer, probably late 1500s to mid 1600s, Owari style koshirae. Iron fuchigashira, tsuba, and kozuka. 

 

I apologize for the last image being upside down. It seems the website is ignoring the exif orientation tags.

 

 

 

[Ed]

Ono

 

[Bugyotsuji]

Many of these would appear to be magnetic! 

[Iekatsu]

16 hours ago, C0D said:

And my pride, tensho koshirae from late Muromachi with its original blade still inside. All lacquered black, simple iron tsuba with most of urushi still in place

 

Very nice, I would love to see some more images of your Koshirae.

[C0D]

Here's some more pics, also one of the blade inside, from the sugata it's most likely a late Kamakura tachi. It has a very unique and interesting utsuri as well, still under study

[Tim Evans]

22 hours ago, Tim Evans said:

I apologize for the last image being upside down. It seems the website is ignoring the exif orientation tags.

For some reason I am not able to edit my initial post. Anyway, some images right side up. 

[Tim Evans]

14 hours ago, C0D said:

Here's some more pics, also one of the blade inside, from the sugata it's most likely a late Kamakura tachi. It has a very unique and interesting utsuri as well, still under study

I am curious, is the tsuka-ito lacquered? it looks like the fuchi is lacquered also. 

[Rivkin]

This used to belong to Bob Hanes.

[Rivkin]

I collect iron kozuka and kogai, they tend to be early, these guys are Muromachi, the "namban-ish" style is probably Momoyama.

[C0D]

5 hours ago, Tim Evans said:

I am curious, is the tsuka-ito lacquered? it looks like the fuchi is lacquered also. 

Yes, everything is lacquered, there's also traces on the seppa.

Probably that's why it preserved so well 

[Tim Evans]

Thanks Manuel. One other question, is there a pocket for a kozuka in the saya? I see there is a kozuka hitsuana in the tsuba. 

[C0D]

No, there's no kozuka slot. The saya Is plain with horn koiguchi, kurikata and kaerizuno, kojiri Is missing

[Ed]

Ko-Shoami

 

 

[Alex A]

A lot of desireable goodies in this line up!

[Iaido dude]

On 10/24/2024 at 10:21 PM, Ed said:

Ono

 

 

Fantastic, Ed. I'm a big fan of bonsho and have been waiting to see rarer Kanayama/Ono examples that are more lively than the frequently encountered Owari. What are the dimensions? 

[kissakai]

A bit late to the show but these are among my favourites. I didn't what to overload with images so my two Onin tsuba didn't get in!

 

1    Six Ken            Umetada        Mumei        1550    Papered

 

2    Moon amd Pines        Owari        Nobuie        1600

3    Hanabishi        Tosho        Mumei        1500    Papered

4    Oxalis            Tosho        Mumei        1525

5    Pines and Waves        Akasaka        Mumei        1725    Papered    (late but nice)

6    Crossed hats        Owari        Toda Hikozaemon    1525

7    Rain            Katchushi    Mumei        1450

8    Plumb and Oxalis    Katchushi    Mumei        1475

 

[ROKUJURO]

Grev,

all very nice!

No. 4 is SAKURA (cherry).

[Alex A]

Really like how the pines are done on the Akasaka. Grev.

[Rivkin]

Don't know how far early one wants to go. I guess Kofun is weird copper-iron alloy, with the usual gilding, gold with a large content of tin and other elements.

[Rivkin]

That's something considerably more rare. Most continental guards are Chinese crossguard type until 12-14th century when you can start finding the early "tsuba" form. There are however exceptions - this is 10th century continental tsuba. Its obviously considerably more narrow compared to 14th century examples and bears some limited similarity to Kofun examples.

Of note here the iron habaki bears the same edge decor as the tsuba and was made by the same hand, that of a swordsmith. By comparison soft metal habaki and guards would likely be a specialized trade.

[sabiji]

 

Ono

[kissakai]

Thanks Jean for the correction

 

[Ed]

On 10/26/2024 at 12:53 PM, Iaido dude said:

 

Fantastic, Ed. I'm a big fan of bonsho and have been waiting to see rarer Kanayama/Ono examples that are more lively than the frequently encountered Owari. What are the dimensions? 

2.42" x 2.41" x 0.20"

[Ed]

Another Ono

 

[Ron M]

4 hours ago, Ed said:

Another Ono

 

I have a similar one to yours. I posted this on here before and the lovely Ford Hallam commented that he thought it was muromachi and slightly cut down form it’s original size

regards

[Curran]

It doesn't seem I have any photos of my Bell Owari.

@Ed would like that one. I've been meaning to submit it to shinsa for a few years now, but I'm not so keen on shinsa time and opinions these days.

 

To further encourage the love for Ono tsuba, I'm posting an old favorite Tokugawa mon Ono.

It is one of those with narly woodknot shaped tottetsu along the mimi.