Damaged rim failed repair.

[Spartancrest]

I came across this iron tsuba that has suffered damage in the past - also what appears to be a failed repair.  https://www.jauce.com/auction/l1093559816

From the rather aggressive tagane-ato around the nakago-ana you would be hard pressed to say it was a cast piece, so how did the rim get the damage to start with? You might also expect the rim to seperate towards the end points of the cut out? I think if the repair had bridged the whole distance it might have held, or by adding a fukurin as extra reinforcement. It was evidently of value to the owner or else why the repair at all?

[The inward movement of the broken rim must also support the idea it can't have been a casting]

I just find the "story" of the piece intriguing.

 

 The repair area has been enhanced for better clarity.

[Larason2]

It could be a forging error. If you get a big inclusion of silica, or a fine forging crack that's hard to see, it can happen. The way to fix it is to forge weld a piece back in, but then you would have to rework the whole tsuba. Best to leave it as it is, I think!

 

The other possibility is damage, battle or otherwise. Wrought iron is tough, but there's plenty of things that can break it, particularly when it's so thin. That's why traditionally the best tsuba were folded 5 times, that increases the number of tough wrought fibres that are holding the piece together. Notice it appeared to break roughly along the grain.

[rematron]

Interesting find, Dale. Is it a possibility that this was originally forged like this on purpose? Perhaps there was some sort of soft metal decoration placed there originally and it was damaged and fell off? Or perhaps there was some sort of implement attached there? Intriguing. 

[OceanoNox]

It looks like both sides of the broken area have the same notch. This looks more like design. There is no info on the auction page, and the price is a steep 6000 yen, so I do not believe it was broken. I agree with @rematron, it was either designed this way, or there was another piece attached that fell off.

[Spartancrest]

3 hours ago, OceanoNox said:

the price is a steep 6000 yen

Yes if it was cheaper it might have been worth either replacing the missing piece [copper or brass would look good] or remove all the rest of the rim like some others have done. But as interesting as it is, I think the cost is too high. Thanks for all the feedback. 

[ROKUJURO]

Carlos has mentioned the possible causes for the failure correctly. Wrought iron can of course break, but will need more impact than cast iron. The notches were made to receive a replacement rim piece; this is done in a traditional forging technique - or almost, as this should have been done with "V" shape connecting ends. Fire-welding would have been possible by carefully cooling the rest of the TSUBA with a wet rag. 

Today, this TSUBA could be repaired by micro-welding and repatinating.