"Presentation" Tsuba, Mei Translation and Opinions

[waljamada]

Wondering if anyone can translate the mei on this Tsuba.  Also looking for opinions.  It is listed as a presentation tsuba, unknown age....looks Meiji to me which is fine but I lack the eye to tell of this is a hand "sculpted" tsuba or via cast etc...any thoughts?

 

Personal opinion, not sure of the story this comes from but i like it's imagery and it appears well made.  My eye tells me it would be very difficult to cast the hands as they are or hair/mane finer details for example.  But I am so new to this that I can't discern.  I'd be wanting it just for display as decour.

[Tanto54]

Dear Adam, unfortunately it is cast (recently).  The story is explained in this post: 

 

 

 

I think that Dale posted multiple copies of this tsuba in some of his posts - might be in here:

 

 

[ROKUJURO]

Craft-wise not well made, for a TSUBA quite ugly in my opinion, and not Japanese.

[waljamada]

Thank you for your responses Gentlemen,

 

George, was the tsuba in yahoo auction the same as this one, or just the same theme?  The page was no longer available.  Also cool to learn of the story behind the theme as I love hearing the tales.

 

Jean, I will dig deeper to find prime examples of what is a well crafted tsuba to have more examples to gauge pieces.

 

I gotta admit I'm impressed by the cast quality even as a copy.  I also collect bronze statues and this is some pretty good work.  It seemed to have details that would at least require post cast tooling to my eye but I really need to get my eye further honed.  The hands, hair, mane and certain raised portions at first seemed not easily castable from what I know.  Then again since it is a modern piece they've gotten better and designed it to fool an eye like mine.

 

As well as searching out more and more authentic high quality pieces I feel I need to have a side quest of finding some really good tourist piece examples of tsubas to learn how well they can make them.  That "Merry Y" post is a very helpful perfect start in this!  Thank you for sharing that.  Can't catch a copy if I don't know how a copy can look.

[waljamada]

=|:^) Found copies of this exact tsuba in that forum.   Good to know and I'm officially throwing my bronze statue casting experience out the window for tsubas.   Officially down $250 bucks for a tourist decour piece (albeit I do think it looks cool).  My first casting "burn" but luckily not a huge hit the the wallet and will look good as a paper weight on my work desk.  The first burn hurts....

[Tanto54]

Hey Adam, sorry that they got you...  One of the casting methods that they use to counterfeit these tsuba can get all the details down to the level of your fingerprints.  The counterfeits can be made for just a few dollars.

[Tanto54]

Dear Adam, you mentioned that you wanted to train your tosogu eye.  There is a wonderful thread on NMB that has some really great tosogu and is probably a good place to learn what good looks like (as a disclaimer, there are a very few questionable items...)  Many of these are expensive, but some of them could be purchased for only 2 or 3X what you paid for that counterfeit...

 

 

 

[waljamada]

George,

 

Thank you very much good Sir.  I will go through each of those pages and really take a good hard look at them googling whatever terms/words/names I dont recognize along the way.  This board really is a great source of learning thanks to its members.

[Spartancrest]

Adam at least your eye was good enough to avoid the really bad copies that exist. The 'better' copies are designed to fool most people after all! This collection of images shows the deceptive side verses the obvious fakes, have no fear there are even more examples out there! Someone out there is making money from this stuff - it used to be called fraud!

[waljamada]

Dale,

 

An ever so slight silver (more like lead) lining.  I've asked the seller to cancel the order as it hasn't shipped (its listed as authentic tsuba and mei) so we will see how this ends.  If he doesn't it's theme is quite fitting of showing Enma-O (the King of Hell) who would pull out tongues with a pair of tongs for people telling lies having his own tongue ripped off.  I'll make it a general metaphor as false Tosogu ripping Enma-O's tongue out to protect their own exposure and false tongues.  A keen reminder to tread carefully and in reputable circles until one is learned and prepared for the mean Japanese Antiques streets.

[Tanto54]

Hey Adam, I don't know where you are buying, but this is not an "authentic tsuba and mei".  It's a clear counterfeit....  Knowingly selling this tsuba as authentic would be fraudulent.  I hope you can get your money back.

[waljamada]

George,

 

I'm mostly an flEbay-er for tsubas so I almost deserve it.  I am working on purchasing a few simple authentic pieces to decorate my nihonto display area.  Wanted something a little flashy but I'll buy something from a member here once my little burn heals.