another eggplant tsuba, help with the school/style?

[chris covington]

Hello all,

 

So I went against my usual rule about ebay (don't buy nihonto stuff from ebay) and bought a tsuba from ebay anyway. I got it for a couple reasons: 1st it has an eggplant on it (yay!), 2nd (and most important) it was cheap! I got it for $38 so if it turns out to be worthless no huge loss. I liked the way it looked. I might fit it to a sword I'll use for budo anyway so no big deal.

 

I've seen several tsuba on ebay that look a lot like this one (there are three up for auction right now, although none have eggplants on them). I'm not sure what school they belong to or if they are Yokohama dockside pieces, Chinese made or Japanese made for iaito. It looks like katakiribori (?) and if you look close enough you can see some remains of the chisel work. There is also yellow soft metal inlayed in seemingly random places (two piece of inlay are missing on mine). There is some slight wear at the seppadai so it looks like this tsuba has been mounted before. Any thoughts on what style/school this is?

 

 

Best regards,

Chris

[Brian]

Chris,

I think it's a real tsuba, of mediocre quality...but for that price I think you did ok...even if just for mounting. I don't think this would fall under any particular classification or school.

 

Brian

[chris covington]

Mr. Robinson,

 

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah I don't think it is very high quality but for the price, why not; plus it has a motif I like. It must be a fairly common style since there are several just like it on ebay right now.

 

Cheers!

Chris