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Grind away!


Spartancrest

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In a previous post I had some help tracking down the manufacturers of some unusual tsuba, that were mass produced castings. Steve M. was kind enough to translate a boxed example I managed to find, as made by  Nambu Tekki (南部鉄器) a cast iron consortium in Japan aimed at the tourist trade. I found this pictured example on-line and you can see from the inserted 'tsuba' how it may have got to its present shape. The only odd feature is that the 'cut down' guard is in 'bronze' whereas all the other examples I have seen are the cast iron ones. Has anyone seen other soft metal examples?

what you can do with a good grinder.jpg

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Personally I think that they are dreadful things and completely unattractive in all ways- but to each his own.

Lacking in so many ways (to me, anyway) their existence surely has the effect of debasing tsuba collecting  to some extent ? Top end tsuba will always be top end - I suppose meaning great works of design and skill or history will be secure but more utilitarian pieces might suffer by comparison ?

A question really.

 

Roger j

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Roger 

What fascinates me is the price I have seen the 'uncut' ones being sold for - they were meant to be cheap souvernirs but have gone ballistic because the sellers often believe they are real. $800 US. plus, price tags I have on record. I have one myself but I paid the true value of 25 yen about 30 cents. I saw one very recently that had been broken into four pieces and glued together [very badly] still being offered for sale being described as "rare". They were originally sold in a cardboard box, but that evidence would be a dead give away of what they were, so out of hundreds now that I have seen only one was ever with its original box.

Yas 

The same one is also for sale through Jauce. https://www.jauce.com/auction/f458746654 

One of the iron castings also on Jauce. https://www.jauce.com/auction/c853489148  [Already up too high in price in the auction]

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