Gunto Tsuba

[Chriso]

G'day

I would appreciate your comments, good, bad or otherwise on a Gunto Tsube I picked up the other day, it seems a bit out of the ordinary, although I guess it may have been made to fit the Koshirae of a specific blade.

The rim has been repaired at some stage, and If I didn't know better i would suggest it was produced with a Kozuka Hitsu-ana.

 

H. 72mm

w. 63mm

Thickness is 10mm at the Mimi

 

Many Thanks Chris O

[loiner1965]

http://www.k3.dion.ne.jp/~j-gunto/gunto_003.htm

personally i like it.....here are some more from that link we have at the top

[Lee Bray]

If it's not fake, it looks fairly well butchered, to be honest.

The shaping of the seppa dai is wrong.

The mimi has been rounded off somehow and poorly done.

The rectangular latch slot is either missing or filled in.

 

Possible work done to disguise the tsuba as civilian after the war? Why?

 

Looks rough to me, I'm afraid.

Poor work done to a possible gunto sukashi tsuba and I'd still lean towards fake.

Sorry.

[loiner1965]

yes it as been altered but not everyone sees them as antiques and collectables as we do....

[Henry Wilson]

I am not sure I would say it has been butchered. I think it was made quite hastely and not finished off properly as a lot of gunto were, especially towards the end of the war. I also can't see why some one would want disguise it as civilian after the war either. All swords were banned for a number of years not just "military" swords.

[loiner1965]

henry if you look at the link i posted in this thread and scroll down to the tsuba section you will see the same or very similiar one untouched

[Stephen]

dont know why in my mind it looks to be a copy of the likes on Omura sans page. maybe im seeing everything as a fake of late.

[Hermes]

dont know why in my mind it looks to be a copy of the likes on Omura sans page. maybe im seeing everything as a fake of late.

Maybe because they are fake Stephen, this one sure looks like if fits you statement above.

[Chriso]

Thanks all very much for your comments. You are right I's not in very good condition and the latch slot has not been filled in, it was either never there or the larger slot was used for that purpose????

 

I originally thought it may have been cast fairly recently but the previous owner stated that it had been taken off a Gunto which was being converted to civlian mounts. If it is cosha, it has certainly had a rough life but the thing that most interests me is the thickness 10mm which is nearly twice the thickness of others I have seen.

 

I'm thinking that this may be on of those tsuba that was produced towards the end of WWll when the fittings being made were fairly average to say the least.

 

Looks ok in the display case though.

 

Cheers Chris O

[zuiho]

This gunto tsuba resembles those used on Chinese fakes.

It certainly does not conform to the proportions of regulation gunto tsuba.

It may be of a type used on last-ditch

gunto distributed late in the war for civilian defense in Japan. In that case, I would want a

provenance, to know it was on a sword taken by a GI back home. Barring that, I would not own it.

It is poor work. Bad when it was made. Bad now. Bad forever.

 

William G.

[Chriso]

Thanks for that Bill. I won't put it in the bottom draw just yet though.

 

Cheers Chris O