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Post by stickem on Apr 19, 2012 3:50:59 GMT
I am here to ask the opinions of my elders on this 1st generation tsuba on the Golden Oriole... It looks like this: Here's a quote which explains the Oriole --> Mantis --> Cicada motif: My guess is the tsuba is made of copper... Did some research on the board and found this review of the sword, but unfortunately that version of the Golden Oriole had a different generation tsuba: sbgswordforum.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=swordreviews&action=display&thread=9701so this review (while quite helpful overall and speaks well of the sword) doesn't address the specificity of the style of the older generation tsuba. Also found a listing where this tsuba was being sold for $150. So my question: Is a tsuba like this worth $150? Seems like Hanwei mass produces its fittings and is a modern forge, so it can't be that rare or that old... is it costly because of the materials it's made of or because of the way it's made? Any thoughts on how this tsuba was made to show its distinctive coloration and whether or not you like it enough to spend $150 on one from those who've seen the 1st generation or bought a tsuba alone (or even a sword specifically because you liked its tsuba) are appreciated. Personally, I've shot my load on swords for the moment and can't afford to buy a new sword, but am wondering how many of you all buy just a tsuba alone to fit on a blade you plan to acquire later, and what you would look for in one when doing so... May be getting tsuba before the blade is similar to putting the cart before the horse... I dunno :? Thanks! Yours on the path, ~ Stick'em
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2012 4:12:00 GMT
I guess it depends on how badly you want it. You're right that a tsuba like that probably isn't worth $150 but I've seen new, mass produced tsuba from Japan go for about that much so it's not quite that unrealistic... it's not like you're going to find it anywhere else if it was indeed exclusive to Hanwei.
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Post by stickem on Apr 19, 2012 11:52:24 GMT
KG ~ How badly do you want her indeed? I like someone who gets straight to the heart of the matter... forum.sword-buyers-guide.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=6148Yours' sounds like a pretty sane take on things. Thanks for your 2 cents. Speaking of cents and sense... Here are a bunch of Paul Chen steel tsubas going for prices of around a $100 or less: www.samurai-sword-shop.com/paul-chen-cas-hanwei-tsuba-33-ctg.htmPlease note I didn't take the time to convert from Euros : $ by hand, but the conversion is about 1: $1.3 if I remember correctly... the synapses get full of peanut butter from time to time ya know, or do they? It's hard to remember... Cue the Scarecrow... BTW, also if you go here: www.nihonzashi.com/tsuba_custom.aspxthey'll make a custom-shaped raised tsuba for you and engrave it with basically any image you can send them a bit map of. All for the low, low price of something in the same $150 ball park. These tsuba are made of brass though...
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Post by deejay on Apr 19, 2012 12:54:32 GMT
You have to decide weather its worth it or not-I myself have spent more than that on fittings just for display.I have had tsubas custom made for me in this price range and looked for a blade and fittings afterward-I had a specific idea in mind when I started out though.To me-yes-I would purchase that tsuba at that price without hesitation-for display only though.
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Post by lamebmx on Apr 19, 2012 13:36:01 GMT
Supply and demand. You demand it, so you are stuck with the most the supply can get you for.
Here is what I did, and may apply to your situation.
I wanted the Hanwei Cherry Blossom menuki from their practical series. I already had a pair on my KC Katana and I wanted a KC daisho. A fellow forumite sent me a set that fell victim to a hungy postal machine. I received no more responses, and a Practical XL appeared in the classifieds here. I snagged it up. Rather expensive menuki, But I swapped it to a battle wrap and traded it for goodies worth more than I paid for the sword.
But, to buy a golden oriole, swap the tsuba and re-sell might pose more of an issue. Might be out less for a 1st gen w/2nd gen tsuba. Just remember your integrity and be open about anything done to the prospective purchasers.
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Post by stickem on Apr 20, 2012 4:20:09 GMT
DJ ~ Thanks for the valued opinion. You wanna know what's funny? This whole train of thought process started in my brain after buying my first katana this last week. Got a Raptor Shinogi-Zukuri with a defective saya for cheap $. The original impetus was to acquire something I could use to do the "Hulk Smash" thing on some bamboo growing in our back yard with a blade that was very forgiving if/when I made mistakes in mowing it down. $200 can buy you a lot of fun this way... So then, seeing as how I couldn't actually remove the sword from the saya without it going San Andreas Fault on me, I decided to spend $75 on a silver koiguchi to fix the saya mouth... And as I reaaaaally looked at the Raptor's fittings while searching for koiguchis to fix my saya, I decided I didn't like the aesthetics of the Raptor much. The silver koiguchi, I like. The Sam the Eagle tsuba, not so much. So then, seeing as how I can learn how to replace a tsuba while I'm learning how to repair a saya, I started looking up tsubas with bird motifs and came up with the Ori-Gen Golden Oriole tsuba as my favorite. Figured it's a Hanwei tsuba, should fit on a different Hanwei sword reasonably well... So here I am, spending $225 to fix up a $200 sword to make it look pretty... when all I really wanted in the first place was to find something to hack and slash with I wouldn't mind chipin' and scratchin' to start with. That's the joke! Is that how this sword thing goes for all of you all? What I mean is does it just make you crazy... kind of like a woman does? You love her and all... but somehow you just can't get enough and just can't seem to put it down and so on... even though you know she makes you crazy?!? :shock: If it makes the rest of you crazy too, suppose that means I'm normal :geek: So yes. I did end up buying the Golden Oriole tsuba for $150: www.ebay.com/itm/180862821446 Hey, at least I talked the guy down $100 from what he was originally asking for it, which was $250. I may be some dumb, but I ain't plumb dumb And no, I'm not crazy enough to put it on the Raptor and start chopping down Nottingham Forest with it... And yes, I'll find some way to display the tsuba instead of putting it on my Hanwei lawnmower... maybe I'll make a light switch cover out of it :lol:
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Post by stickem on Apr 20, 2012 4:44:11 GMT
That was part of my thought process. I found a listing that had a picture of the Ori-Gen Golden Oriole here: www.ameurasiart.com/JapaneseSwords.htmlBut I've called/emailed the seller twice about it and got no reply. So that's a bad sign, methinks... plus the guy uses so many different font colors in his website, reading it makes me feel like someone stuck a box of Crayola Crayons in my corneas. Thanks for sharing the experience Lamebmx... which reminds me, anyone have any experience buying from this seller? www.ameurasiart.com/index.htmlFigured him braggin' about Tom Cruise on his home page was a bad sign too... Tom Cruise isn't tall enough to cut a grape with a pocketknife if he stood on a 5-gallon bucket. Why should I be impressed by "his choice" for a katana? So decided to walk away before the Crayon guy in WV did a grab'n'dash on my $510 so he could blow it all on Tom Cruise bobblehead dolls.
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Post by deejay on Apr 20, 2012 13:04:06 GMT
I,myself have never heard of this dealer-nor do I understand how he's managed to hang on to the older gen Oriale kat-(must be part of his older stock) you may have some difficulty finding the fuchi/kashira to match.If I was in your shoes I'd email the dude you got the tsuba from and see if he still has these and buy them from him.I have a Golden Oriale myself which I recently purchased from a fellow member here-hate the tsuka and need to get it reshaped before I will cut with it.As to tinkering with kats-customizing-well....I have 3-three in the works now and am looking to buy another for another project.Cant seem to stop myself once I get an idea in my head.Good luck with your project.I will put this to you also-when drawing your sword-practice slowly-speed will come with time and be sure that your blade clears the saya before you attempt further action.This is sayabieki(I spelt that wrong didnt I)-the action of clearing the saya will stop you from splitting the sayas mouth and may even save your hand some future injury and needless repairs in the future.
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Post by lamebmx on Apr 20, 2012 14:53:13 GMT
Yea, I think its completely normal. I am currently out of sword projects after putting new fittins on one of my dojo pro's, so I diced a musashi up to turn it into a non-folding straight razor.
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Post by stickem on Apr 22, 2012 4:04:19 GMT
Quick update: Golden Oriole tsuba arrived in the mail today.It is definitely made of solid copper (or some alloy consisting almost entirely of Cu) as it is very heavy for its size. Definitely not brass nor iron... and I'm not going to bother to throw some NaOH on it to figure it out if it is zinc-plated like pennies :ugeek: The copper has been blackened in some areas, and my guess is the Oriole itself is painted in 14K gold, hence the sword's name. In this case, somewhat like an airbrushed photo in Playboy, the advertisement often looks a bit better than the model herself does first thing in the morning without all the paint covering up the strechmarks on her hips... Overall, the heft of it, engraving, and detail work are rather good considering it is came from a modern factory. Dunno that I would spend $150 on one again, but methinks I certainly didn't get really ripped off... Nor did I make out like a bandit on some eBay scavenger hunt for a fantastic, one-of-a-kind, Holy Grail of tsubas on this one. The truth is somewhere in between - it is what it was represented to be: a Paul Chen 1st Gen - and I'm cool with that. IMO, it looks classier than this: which I think is either a later generation version of the Oriole tsuba... or else is found on Hanwei's Praying Mantis line... or maybe the Rainbow Coalition has decided to include a Japanese sword-maker under their umbrella and entered his tsuba as a float design in the Pride parade... And is a helluva lot better than this one: which really looks rather like a claymation movie still of two bugasauruses fighting on a planet made entirely of elephant dung... or some sort of Godzilla vs. Mothra spinoff... or A Nightmare on Bugstreet horror flick for entomophobically-challenged, Ajax-snorting housewives to bid on at 3am on the Home Shopping Network :shock: And I did ask the seller if he has any of the sword's other fittings handy... no reply yet, but just sent email today, so... Anyway, if I ever decide to go Fred Sanford on it, copper is up to $3.70/lb www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/metals/cu/cu.aspAlways smiling, ~ Jeff
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Post by lamebmx on Apr 22, 2012 15:32:08 GMT
ummm, where are the pics of the one you received?
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Post by stickem on Apr 22, 2012 15:52:17 GMT
Apologies for not being clearer. I was having some fun last night rather than KISSing (Keeping it Simple, Stoopid). The two pics of the tsuba first posted at the start of this thread are from the actual eBay listing itself, so what I received (the lighting in the photo makes it look a little different and more "coppery orange" than it appears in the lighting in my house; however, it is definitely the same tsuba as advertised) and it looks just like this: What are your thoughts, my friend?
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Post by lamebmx on Apr 22, 2012 16:49:10 GMT
oh sweet. so it looks darker IRL? I like the concave/raised rim thing. sweet
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Post by stickem on Apr 22, 2012 23:41:14 GMT
Ya never really know what someone else is seeing on the other end because of the monitor settings and so on... To me, the photos look somewhat orange-ish. Perhaps this is an artifact of the environment used to take the photos. Or perhaps the artifact is specific to my monitor settings. Dunno. The actual tsuba in real light is the color of three metals: copper, iron, and gold. The copper is not the really bright copper color you see in zinc pennies; moreover, the thing is heavy, and if I remember correctly, the zinc pennies are lighter than the older solid copper ones. This leads me to believe the tsuba is solid copper. The thing looks and feels rather like a giant copper penny with a scene from Animal Planet on it rather than Abe Lincoln. If you've ever done any electrical work, you know what copper wires look like. That's the color I see IRL. However, these same areas appear orange to me in the pics. The tsube definitely is not orange. Baltimore Orioles = orange. Golden Oriole = copper. The other areas visible are all blackened copper (which gives the appearance of it being composed of new iron upon first glance) with the only exception being the oriole, which is gold. Although I can't find the specs for this Ori-Gen tsuba, my guess is the oriole is painted with 14K gold because the whole tsuba looks very much like you would expect of the 3 metals. I can't be absolutely certain whether the oriole is hand-painted or done by a machine by eyeballing it. I think I can make out some brush strokes, and because it is just a small area to cover, my guesstimate is the gold paint was done by hand. The rim, the center, and the 3 animals (cicada, mantis, and oriole) are all raised in relief. The leaves on the obverse side and the lone mantis on the reverse side are deeply etched in the metal, which helps give a 3rd dimensional appearance of depth, the 3 levels being carved/etched, surface, and raised/relief. It is not signed nor did it come in a CAS-Hanwei box, but I am almost 100% certain the designer Paul Chen and it was taken off a Golden Oriole katana rather being sold as a separate item originally. Since the motif comes from the teachings of Chuang-tzu, overall the tsuba has more of a Chinese~Taoist feel to it than it does a Japanese~Zen vibe. You can read more about what Chuang-tzu was getting at with the story here: chineseaesop.blogspot.com/2010/05/mantis-stalks-cicada-unaware-of-sparrow.htmlStill no word back from the seller on whether the other Oriole fittings are available from the partsed katana. In any case, I am very satisfied with the piece at the price I paid for it. The more I look at it, the more it grows on me, and the more I appreciate its elegance. Although it obviously is cast rather than carved, this tusba simply looks classy. I may or may not have been able to find the same piece elsewhere for cheaper, but sometimes it is worth spending a little extra cabbage just to get it done instead of devoting a couple hours to scouring the internet for a deal. I'd rather drop a little extra loot and go outside and play than sit and watch an eBay auction. And remember, it was originally listed at $250, so I did get the seller to drop his asking price by 40%. I definitely like it better than the tsuba which is going around on the current generation of Golden Orioles, which appears to be cut-out iron, and looks like this when viewed upside down:
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Post by lamebmx on Apr 23, 2012 0:28:51 GMT
Personally I prefer the new version. That pic of the new version is right side up btw. Auctions are not bad if you decide how much you are willing to pay and set it as your max bid. ebay used to only increment it by 1 if someone put something higher than your bid. Say it is at $100. You are willing to go $250. You put in $250 for max bid and dont look back. Someone puts $150 as their max bid, page updates with you as the high bidder for $151. Some else stays up all night at the end of auction constantly putting in +$1. You appear to instantly outbid them and the auction ends. If they did that enough times to get it for $251, you lose. Otherwise you win, and got a good nights sleep and did not go over what you decided to pay. Auctions work cuz when you bid you are vested, you want to win, so you go a few bucks over what you should pay, just to win. The real winner is the auctioneer who gets a cut of what it sells for.
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Post by stickem on Apr 23, 2012 1:00:26 GMT
No worries. It'd be boring as hell if everyone thought the same way and liked the same things as I do. Right side up it is. Thanks for the correction on the typo. I got confused for a moment - told you those neurons get peanut buttery at times - because the image of the tsuba I was trying to post was actually this one: You'd think the oriole would be perched in a tree above the insects so it could swoop down on them, rather than looking up at them as it appears to be doing in this image. Hence, the tsuba looks upside down to me from this perspective. Not to mention the giant bug (cicada?) on the fuchi kashira looks like a housefly that got jacked up from mainlining growth hormone through a McDonald's straw. YIKES! The fly looks almost as big as the oriole, at least from the perspective of this photo. Some folks might like the fact it looks like a fly landed on the end of their tsuka... no worries. I'm used to seeing horseflies which look just like the one on the newer Oriole landing on the @$$ of my fiancée's mare (she's named Kailash.) Since I associate flies with heaping piles of horse dung, my first impression is the kashira makes what otherwise is a beautiful piece look like a piece of cr@p. Anyway, perhaps the reason I like the Ori-Gen version of the tsuba is I get the feeling I am in one of those Chinese watercolor paintings where everything is very natural and in its proper place relative to everything else... gets me that whole harmony with nature thing going on. In the newer version, it somehow loses this naturalness and gains a bit of aggressiveness by being all black iron instead of the softer looking copper. The relative sizes and positions of the animals just seem unnatural to me. It looks like the mantis and oriole are both staring at a horsefly, rather than the mantis being after a cicada and the oriole being after the mantis. The bird in the current version of the tsuba looks more like a crow or a raven to me than a golden oriole (probably 'cause its all black). Again, I like ravens too. They are just different than what I was after when I bought this tsuba. To me, the newer tsuba looks Edgar Allan Poe and the Ori-Gen one looks Chuang-tzu. I like Edgar Allan Poe (head's up: if you haven't read them already, check out Poe's stories Hop-Frog and The Cask of Admontillado when you get the chance. They are hella-good tales of vengeance). I have a big volume of Poe on the bookshelf and have been to his house in Baltimore. That said, since its spring time and been really fantastic outside lately, I've been in more of a Taoist state of mind lately than being in a horror yarn mood.
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