tsuba help please

[maris]

hello to you all,

I'm new to this and as I read in all of the messages on this board ( and i've read them all) it is appriciated that someone does a search to see what he can find before asking questions and that you do not look for the sword but the sword finds you when the time is right.

So here I am not looking for any swords of all but given three.

And searching the net to see what has been given to me I discoverd a new( but very difficult) world.

I would like to ask you something now just to see if I'm heading in the right direction.

One of the swords has this tsuba.

As far as I can find out so far it could be a heianjo-zogan tsuba with a hira zogan diaper design and

it has sekigane at the kozuka hitsuana.

Am I somewhere near or looking in a wrong direction?

I would like to thank you if you would give me a hint how I'm doing so far.

 

 

thanks very much and if there are some wrong words in my english, please forgive me. I'm dutch.

Maris Temminck.

[Henry Wilson]

What you say seems to me to be pretty much correct if the cross hatching has brass inlayed in it.

I am not so sure if I would call it Heian jo zogan though.

Have a look here to compare: http://home.earthlink.net/~jggilbert/heianjo.htm

 

If we ignore the hatching it reminds me (but is not) of some YAMAKICHIBEI tsuba that have been discussed.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6937&p=55274&hilit=yamakichibei#p55274

[maris]

Mr Wilson, thanks for your answer.

Yes the cross hatching has brass inlay. I'll put on a picture with a better vieuw of it.

 

I was wondering if the tsuba could be from the same time period as the blade it is on.

The mei on the blade is could be Bizen kuni ju Osafune Sukesada.

I am not sure if that is correct because it's all very new to me but I'm trying.

Then of course I'll have to try and find out wich of the many Sukesada's comes close.

I hope someone can tell me if I read this mei correct.

 

 

 

Thanks, Maris.

[Grey Doffin]

Bizen no Kuni no Ju Osafune Sukesada.

Grey

[Henry Wilson]

The tsuba and blade could be the same period, but I have feeling the tsuba is a bit younger as it does not look older than mid Edo IMPO. Try comparing the colour and amount of rust in the sword inscription with the rust in the cut outs on the tsuba as it might give you a sense of comparative age (but also remember that they are probably made from two different sources of iron)

 

The sword could well be late Muromachi (the Sukesada group) but I am not a sword guy.

 

TFI