Hi,
First post here, but I hope this will be interesting for someone here. It's concerning this tsuba:
http://www.shimbukan.se/TSUBA.JPG
So 6 months ago I bought a "sukashi tsuba" said to be from early Edo. Seller is a dealer with vintage antiques from different sources.
I'm an iaidoka in Sweden that wanted to exchange my tsuba on my iaito, and ordering a newly produced tsuba would cost me a lot more than the auction price for this supposedly antique sukashi tsuba (yes it's very likely to actually be a real antique).
So I mounted the tsuba as planned on my iaito, and I have used it for 6 months, and now some silver like patterns have been emergin on the tsuba. So I dismounted the tsuba from the sword and took a microfiber cloth to rub gently at it, and plenty of silvery patterns appeared. And even something that looks very much like gold appeared after some more gentle rubbing.
I asked a guy that studies to a master exam in archaeology with focus on Metallurgy at a Uni in Sweden, and he has check the tsuba somewhat and used a photoscan of the tsuba to perform a "photoshop trick" to enhance patterns in metal. With that method he has seen more patterns and will (when he has time) work with the pictures some more.
Today I took a photo of the gold-like metal through my old (but rather good) Saki mini-microscope, and it was sent by my friend to a colleague of him in Norway. The Norwegian guy says that he thinks that he sees three different kind of metals (copper, silver and likely gold) but also warns that this could be a modern day high quality forgery.
This is what causes me to write here.
So here is the best pictures I have (1200 dpi scan + photo of the gold like metal)
http://www.shimbukan.se/TSUBA.JPG
http://www.shimbukan.se/TSUBA2.JPG
http://www.shimbukan.se/TSUBAMICRO.JPG
Some of us Swedish Japan-nerds are VERY interested in knowing more about this tsuba and hopefully where I can turn to get more information. I want to find a way to determine if it is genuine and if it is gold. I will try to use some contacts to find out more..
Can anyone tell me something about this tsuba and our findings? Any help would greatly be appreciated!
Kind regards - Joel in Sweden.
