Overheated tsuba?

[PietroParis]

Hi All,

 

A dealer of Japanese art that I recently visited in Paris had his tsuba arranged in a vitrine under strong spotlights. The ones that lay closest to the light bulbs were almost too hot to touch. What do you think, could this treatment damage the tsuba in the long term?

 

Cheers, Pietro

[vajo]

I think not more than 70° C.

From my point of view not.

[Ford Hallam]

Perhaps. if they contained organic material inlay like mother of pearl and coral, gemstones like malachite or urushi.

[ROKUJURO]

As Ford mentions, URUSHI may be a problem. In many TSUBA, the metal plugs in the HITSU (ATEGANE or UME) are glued in with URUSHI.

All depends from the temperature, so it's difficult to talk about the hazards when you don't know exactly how hot the TSUBA were.