Folded steel tsuba

[JohnTo]

I bought this wakizashi tsuba amongst a job lot at a local auction (photo 1). Size 6.4cm x 6.0cm. 0.7cm thick at rim, 0.4cm at seppa dai. It’s not a great piece, but has features that I think it reveals something about its manufacture. Overall it looks like just another rather crudely forged, unsigned, iron tsuba of no particular interest. I would not like to hazard a guess as to the school, it’s easier to say what schools it does not belong to, e.g. Kyo sukashi, Echizen Kinai. It probably could have been made in any of many smithies anywhere in Japan. Anyone like to make a guess?

Firstly, the damage to the surface, rather than rusting, has resulted in flakes of the patina becoming detached. I therefore deduce that this thick layer of purple/black oxidation was produced by long exposure in a hot forge, rather than the thin patina seen in many tsuba, which has often rubbed away in parts.

The second interesting feature of this tsuba is what would be described in a sword as mune aware. A definite crack mid-way along three sides of the tsuba can be seen (photo 2). The fourth side has several ‘pock marks’ and may indicate hard steel tearing apart along the seam (photo 3). The inner surfaces of the cut out design also shows distinct lines along the middle of the plate. In most cases the lines on the inner part of the tsuba appear as positive projections from the surface, rather than cracks (photo 4 and also the ‘fuzziness’ along the inner edges in photo 1). These projections may be iron squeezed out from the layers or rust preferentially forming along the seam.

My interpretation of these observations is that the plate was formed by folding over a thinner plate in half. The inner steel may have been softer than the outer steel or possibly a softer steel was sandwiched in (like kobuse sword forging) and attention was focussed on sealing the outer rim of the tsuba. When the central section was thinned the softer core steel was squeezed out in the joins in the mid-section of the tsuba.

I have never seen evidence for such steel folding in a tsuba before (other than tsuba with definite grain patterns), but then I tend to just take superficial looks at tsuba at auctions and only study those in my collection in detail. Maybe many tsuba are made from a final single folded piece of steel rather from cut out from a large stock plate (which may be forged and folded many times) and this example only shows the joins between the layers because of poor forging.

Comments welcomed.

[Brian]

 

Occam's razor?

 

Brian

[christianmalterre]

Occams razor?

 

John,

 

very sorry-everything got missed here-sorrowly!

 

The design is an Yagyu stylism(see Sketchbook)

and the Tsuba itself is CAST....

(maybe you can pick your´s money back?)

 

Christian

[b.hennick]

Looks cast to me as well.

[JohnTo]

I’m sure you’re right. It’s a cast tsuba. Had it been copper based, rather than iron, I would probably have quickly come to that conclusion without your help. Casting would also explain the patina. I’ve always thought that casting iron into a small mould would not have been an easy task (compared to copper) and considered casting iron tsuba to be a commercial waste of effort in the ‘reproduction’ market. For this reason I tend to be a lot less wary of iron rather than soft metal tsuba. Friends often point out Chinese soft metal tsuba to me in antique markets, but I’ve never seen an iron one. Not that I think that this is a modern Chinese tsuba.

One of the likely schools that I had thought the tsuba may have come from was Yagyu (as suggested),or Kanayama, but the quality was not there. In view of the metal (iron) and the similarity to Yagyu, I’m inclined to think that it is a 19thC Japanese cast tsuba intended for the export/souvenir market.

It’s still a useful addition to my collection as it’s an example that I have not got (hopefully) and an educational piece. And don’t worry, I did not pay a lot for it.

 

Thanks for the help.