Tempo Tsuba with Interesting Kokuin Kanji design..

[Soshin]

I obtained this tsuba with a complete matching uchigatana koshirae. I will post the other parts of the koshirae later. The tsuba is displays all of the characters of the Tempo school. The strong tsuchime-ji, sukinokoshi mimi, and kokuin. The iron “bones” tekkotsu are granular and linear on the mimi. One of the more interesting things about the kokuin of this Tempo tsuba is the Kanji character that is used in the kokuin design. I think the character is 幸 which means fortune. Can anyone else identify the Kanji character? This is different then the common characters of dai 大, chi 地, ten 天, or kin 金. Has anyone else ever seen this Kanji in others works done by the Saotome, Tempo, or Heian-jo schools that use the kokuin technique in iron. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. The tsuba is large measuring 7.20 X 8.20 cm with a 0.3 cm thickness at seppa-dai and 0.4 cm thickness at mimi.

 

Yours truly,

David S. (Soshin)

[Toryu2020]

I think you have the right translation but maybe not the right kanji - I see it as 寿　JU...

-t

[docliss]

Is not the stamp on David's tsuba that for 'kotobuki' - one of the recurring kokuin on Tempo tsuba?

 

John L.

[Brian]

John,

Nice worksheet. Thanks for sharing, is it one you put together?

 

Brian

[docliss]

No Brian, I cannot claim to be the originator of the Tempo chart, and I regret that I am also unable to acknowledge its creator since I cannot recall from whence I downloaded it. My apologies to whoever it may be.

 

John L.

[Soshin]

Is not the stamp on David's tsuba that for 'kotobuki' - one of the recurring kokuin on Tempo tsuba?

 

John L.

 

Thank you John, It looks like it is the Kanji for "kotobuki" stamped twice on the front of the tsuba. I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to answer some of my questions. I have another Tempo tsuba with the common kokuin design of the dai and tsuchi Kanji together along with the crosshatching design also displayed in the chart.

 

 

 

Yours truly,

David S. (Soshin)

[Toryu2020]

FWIW - and for the benefit of those like me learning the language SU, JU, AGE (寿)　is the simplified version of the same kanji (壽)　which is also read as Kotobuki...

-t

[Akitombo]

Hi,

Just a note.

The Tembo worksheet is from Shibui Swords/Nihonto-no-Bi, google this then, Yamashiro Tembo.

22 pages on the subject.

Regards

David