A little help with Tsuba ID?

[SwordGuyJoe]

All,

I was wondering if you could help provide some guidance here. I have a tsuba that happened to be attached to a sword I bought that is signed but outside of one kanji (Masa) I am completely lost. Maybe Sa(shu?) Masa(yasu?).

 

Any help on the maker, age, school, etc. would be greatly appreciated. It looks like at one time (long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away) it was a decent little tsuba. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[george trotter]

Probably safest to say "unreadable'...but here on NMB we love a challenge. I may be totally wrong but am sure I will be corrected...so, as the strokes are very faint etc this is mostly imagination, but maybe as follows...the first kanji on the LH top is almost gone but was there and judging from the next two which are more visible, I think the first may be E as in Edo...which together with the next which seems to be Fu, reads as Kofu, followed by ju. The RH side may be Masahisa.

There is a Kofu ju Masahisa in Wakayama p.344. He lived in Edo...end of Edo period, may be same man as Akasaka Masahisa of late Edo who worked in Marubori on iron.

I don't have books with pics of mei and work, so can't comment further than my take on the readings here.

Hope I haven't led you astray...

err...edit to correct: When I say LH top I mean RH top and when I say RH I mean LH...duhhh...bad day!

[SwordGuyJoe]

I figured the mei was a stretch to get a decent ID. I did a quick google seach on Masahisa and this doesn't look too representative based on that search (I'm not a tsuba guy so I have zero tsuba resources). Does this work look representative to this smith based on real resources and if not, what school/era is this reflective of sans mei?

[george trotter]

Probably this maker (if it is him) is too minor to have pics of his mei and details of his style in print?

Also, maybe one of the knowledgeable can comment here, but to me the rust looks very red...like the rust on the more modern high carbon steel (IMHO)...old iron tends to oxidise in a blackish way...rather than this very fine grain red rust...but then, I don't know when the more modern steels got to Japan...just wondering...maybe I am mistaken?

Regards,