What Do You Make Of This? Junk Or Not?

[Mark]

I have a tsuba, please see pictures.... At first glance i thought it was a junk Showa cast tsuba, but when i looked closer i am not sure. I am not a tsuba collector or expert, but i have seen quite a few. This has a sort of "soft" metal look, a bit like Yagyu or Norisuke.  I would appreciate the thoughts of more knowledgeable NMB members. Any comments, good, bad, or ugly are fine

 

Thanks!

[jlawson]

Certainly looks yagyu in design but in my opinion it is to sharply cut in areas (specifically around the sukashi parts of the mimi) for me to think it that school and the bones don't look right. I don't necessarily think it is a cast copy but that is often hard to tell from photos like this. Bring it to Tampa and lets have a look at it. 

[Fuuten]

I don't know a lot about tsuba, I can't judge whether or not this was cast, but although the design seems genuine, I'm not sure whether or not it is. If it is its not a great piece (in my view)..

 

Lets wait for someone who knows about tsuba

[MauroP]

Hi Mark,

after all Yagyū tsuba are not famous for their high quality of iron, so Yagyū school can just be the right answer.

From Sasano:

Bye, Mauro

[rkg]

Mark,

 

The piece does look yagyu-y, and some didn't have the laminations (later work, pieces contracted to the Ono group to make,etc), but its maybe a little large for a "real" yagyu (usually they are smaller ~70-71mm max , this one looks like its about 76mm?)?  The size of the one that Mauro posted its arguably atypical in that respect. It doesn't look cast to me, but you have it in hand, so maybe you see some of the telltale bubbles, slumps, that funky cast surface, mold lines, etc  that aren't visible in these pictures?  I'd bet on it being a copy of some kind, but what do I know.

 

James is right - it might be best to evaluate that piece in hand..

 

Good Luck,

 

rkg

(Richard George)

[Mark]

Richard

 

It is about 73cm. I do not see any signs of casting. It came on a Showa sword and i first thought it was just a Showa era junk tsuba (most are cast i guess), but when i looked a bit closer i thought "maybe" it was something better. So  i wanted to ask some opinions. I think i was predisposed to judge it was poor or junk because how it came to me, but i  need to look at things twice as you never know what happened years ago.

[jlawson]

Mark as you know there are no absolutes when it comes to Japanese swords and dismissing tsuba that come off of not so great swords would be a mistake for sure. I have personally seen one VERY good tsuba popped off of a civilian mounted showato that was used for military service. Remember that it was not just swords that were passed down in families and in fact if you think about it since most samurai had different rigs for their swords there undoubtedly were handed down kodugu. For a young man going off to war that did not have an ancestral blade he may very well have placed his ancestors Jingo tsuba on his sword if it would pass for appropriate. 

[Curran]

Concur with James.

Possibly '2nd period' Yagyu with some scaling or condition issues. Needs a better look-see.

 

I believe it was only a few years ago at the Tampa show that someone brought in a very nice early Jingo on a sword. The owner was befuddled by the fact that people didn't really want to buy his sword, but wanted the tsuba.

He managed to sell it and the dealer who bought it quickly separated the two, selling off the sword.

[Mark]

thanks for the comments. I will bring it to Tampa

[Mark]

Richard mentioned laminations, so i thought i would take a better look at the inside and i see some lines in the steel, maybe this is  laminations or forging lines....    maybe something else??

[Pete Klein]

http://www.japaneseswordbooksandtsuba.com/store/holbrook-tsuba/h363-papered-yagyu-tsuba

 

You can see the mentioned laminations in the picture set in the link above. 

[Brian Ayres]

Very nice forging. There is a couple ways to expose the "bones" like this in iron. If you heat the metal after it has been carved and is "finished" and quench it. Depending on if your forge was oxidizing, neutral or catburizing it will effect how much the steel scales and flakes off. It can clean up faint tool marks and give the metal the soft look, and expose the forging details. It's how I heat treat knives with a "forged finish".

In a more controlled way, and traditional of course, is the iron patination processes that Ford has chronicled so well and teaches in his classes and is covered on his websites and will be in his books.

I wouldn't be surprised if the soft look is also a product of working the steel hot, when they use a chisel to hot cut the basic design.

I don't know enough about schools to make much more of a judgement than saying that the additional photos are great. Their detail helps a lot.

In fact the lower pic if you zoom in to the inside of the rim almost appears to be growing lichen or moss.... Seriously great photos. ????