Jesta

Raise to $190

Then, I will go to $160

$140…

Yeah… that’s what I did when I saw it. It felt off, so a reverse search and so many examples come up. I am very surprised that an auction house like Christies would allow this sort of crap to go on sale. Again, a little bit of research would show that it’s at the very least suspicious enough to pull…

Thanks… I was just doing a reverse image search, and came across one of the discussions… I came on here to edit my post The one for sale now at Christies looks almost identical to the one Dale posted, it may even be the same one…

What do you all think of this one: https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/art-asia/soft-metal-inlaid-metal-tsuba-shoki-652/260894?ldp_breadcrumb=back It is a design that seems to come up a lot, both Bonhams and Christies have sold (or are selling) tsuba with this exact design. Looks fairly suss to me…

$100 from me

Alfred Church’s words hit hard… I reckon that a 1000 would be a reasonable number to end up with. I shall continue working towards that goal

Post some more photos, close-ups and other side. Also search up the terms that Dale mentioned. There will be a lot of info in other threads on the board.

My initial instinct was that this was a modern copy. I’m glad to have been wrong 😀

For some reason, this design seems quite popular. When I do a reverse image search it turns up quite a lot:

I think that on some of the higher end pieces the sekigane was applied very carefully, and even smoothed back to blend with the main body of the tsuba. I have a couple of examples of this, one with the sekigane in place (but you can clearly see that they are copper and not coloured parts of the main body), and one with the carefully carved spaces for the sekigane left unfilled (shot upside down so that you can see it clearly). Looking at these it appears that the smith (or person who out the tsuba onto a blade) had carefully carved spaces for the sekigane (rather than just chopped the usual holes we see so often) into the nakago-ana. These were then filled with copper, and then the copper was carefully ground back to a smooth finish, and fit with the tsuba.

I am sure that Dale will have some examples, but I have not seen any obvious fakes with nanako looking that clean. This is especially true of pieces where the nanako goes over a rounded mimi. It may be possible to cast something like this, but so far every attempt I have seen at mass-produced nanako has ended up with muddy and relatively large nanako, which don’t look convincing. The figures and clouds are too low-res for me to make any other comment, except to say that to my eye they look ok. The changes in colour in the sekigane are likely to have been caused when the piece was removed from the blade. The friction would have scraped any patina off.

The design, as Geraint has noted, is probably the rays of the Amida Buddha’s halo. Given the religious theme, I would suggest that the negative space could be representing incense smoke. Here’s one of mine with similar rays:

I got this as part of a set - I just wanted the tsuka and fuchi and kashira, but this came along too… I am trying to stabilise the rust, and get it cleaned up as much as I can, so any advice on that would be appreciated. Has anyone got any suggestions as to the origin, school, theme, etc? Also, why is the kogai ana so small, and then blocked off anyway? Seems like it would be too small to do anything with to start with.

Not necessarily, the Great Kanto Flood of 1742 was caused by massive amounts of rain falling from a pair of typhoons. This overloaded the rivers and caused their banks to break, flooding the area.

Mist would make sense, now that you suggest it. There is a different depiction of water under the bridge, so the softer lines could well be mist. I remain unsure about the Torii depiction, but the shrine roof is also at an angle, so it may be a stylistic choice for perspective…? Mist would also make sense where the sails of the boats can be seen, but not the boats themselves, implying a kind of dreamy atmosphere where taller items like Torii, shrines, trees, and masts all poke their heads above the clouds. The signature is Gotō Etsujō (1642 - 1708) so it can’t be the 1742 flood, although there were certainly floods before that one…

I recently acquired this daisho set. I love the look, and the execution is excellent, but I am a bit stumped by the theme. It appears to show a flood (?) with the tori gate on the shoto, and the shrine on the daito submerged, while the bridges and trees remain above water. There are boats sailing by in the distance. My best guess is that this is the Great Kanto Flood of 1742, although I am not sure why a natural disaster would be a suitable theme for tsuba… Can anyone shed any light on this? Are there other examples of flood motifs?

I was just thinking about this, and wondering if it would be a good plan to get rid of them. I am not a fan of the stickers, but you raise an excellent point about provenance. I will keep them on…

I believe Quixotic might be a good term Something that is done from time to time on the board might be valuable if it was collated is to provide a list of red flags, with examples, for people to look out for. This is something that you do here for individual pieces (and in your books). Rather than try to find all the examples of all the fakes it might be better to find examples of the all the typical features that fakes tend to have. With the understanding that not all fakes will have all, or even any of them, and some real tsuba might have one or two. But… if a piece has too many red flags then probably better to walk away…

Thank you. I find your work in this area incredibly useful because I get so much education from reading the descriptions, and looking at the pictures. For my own collecting, I am back to exploring the concept of “fake”. I can certainly say agree something can be old, and yet be judged to be without much merit in terms of its rarity, craftsmanship, etc, but then it is down to an informed judgement about what appeals or not. So, when an Edo period tsuba is mass-produced I would tend to say that it is not a “fake” but it might not be considered as desirable as something that was handmade and largely unique (although the concept of “unique” is a hard one to nail down since themes and styles were much copied during the Edo period…). This makes starting a collection pretty hard, especially when pieces are sometimes described as “fake” with little real clarity on how they are labelled like that. Which is why I appreciate your detailed work so much… (this is off the top of my head, so take it for what it is worth) I wonder if a possible way would be to create a taxonomy to help new/existing collectors understand how things might be perceived by the wider community. Something like this: Main families Edo period Meiji period Modern Sub-categories Deliberate attempt to deceive (gimei, modern copies, etc) Handmade Mass-produced Created for use Created for art Created for sale to “tourists" Artistic merit, perceived craftsmanship quality would have to be a personal judgement, I think, with value determined by a willingness to buy it at the price offered. On a personal note, I have started to record the provenance of items that I buy, if there is any. This is (much like in the fine art world) to help provide a paper trail for the items to help future collectors know at the very least how long this piece has been in the hands of other collectors, or passed through auction houses etc.

Given that some tsuba were mass-produced in the Edo or early Meiji periods, is there a consensus on what qualifies as a “fake”? Is there a cutoff date that is generally agreed up as the point at which authentic becomes fake? I know that some modern tsuba are still being made, and may be collectible in their own right, but I am referring to purported antiques.

I am always worried by antiques being advertised as “authentic” and “genuine”. It screams “honest, guv, no word of a lie…” to me. That, and the extremely low quality pictures, makes me very wary of this one. I can’t bid on something that I can’t see.

I don’t like to talk about expense… Personally, while I haven’t really fixed on a preferred style I am increasingly in love with good nanako, and I love wave patterns, so this set hit all my weak points.

This set is beautiful. The detail is amazing, and I love how the creator has fitted the action into such a confined space.