A few questions about these Tsuka

[Fire Spirits]

Hi all, I am extremely new to collecting anything nihonto related, but I was curious so I attended a show nearby to me yesterday. Fantastic show and it really kickstarted my interest in them.

 

I picked up two old incomplete or damaged tsuka simply because I liked how they looked. However, I had a couple questions about them I'd like help with.

 

First, the first one is an odd skin to have wrapped around it, so I was wondering if anyone may know what kind of skin it could be and what the significance would be with that.

 

Second, I am wondering if there's anything I can do the assure the wrap on the smaller one does not unravel, I don't necessarily want to tape it like someone did to the larger one.

 

Third, if there is any way to know the approximate age of these? The person I bought them from said likely late 1800s but I would definitely like to try to pinpoint it a bit better, especially since the smaller one appears to be significantly older.

 

Any help is appreciated!

 

Link to photos in comments due to file size limit.

[Fire Spirits]

Here are the rest of the photos!

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_VYBE-Z_rgaOCQBjsCXSfrTC7koWxCO6

[Spartancrest]

Hi Tim welcome to NMB. Do they have Terrazzo corn snakes in Japan or something similar?  

No menuki on the tsuka?

[Fire Spirits]

11 minutes ago, Spartancrest said:

Hi Tim welcome to NMB. Do they have Terrazzo corn snakes in Japan or something similar?

No menuki on the tsuka?

That is definitely a possibility! Hard to say, but i know these scales look a bit smaller which is kind of odd.

 

No menuki unfortunately. Possibly removed if it was re-wrapped? Was kind of odd to me as well.

[Matsunoki]

The wrapping (and skin) on the longer one suggests strongly that it is not of Japanese origin but more likely from a Chinese fake.

The smaller one is Japanese but impossible to give a reliable date beyond saying  Edo period. 

[Fire Spirits]

2 minutes ago, Matsunoki said:

The wrapping (and skin) on the longer one suggests strongly that it is not of Japanese origin but more likely from a Chinese fake.

The smaller one is Japanese but impossible to give a reliable date beyond saying  Edo period. 

Good to know, thank you! I had spoken with someone a few minutes ago actually and they said the larger one is definitely post-edo and likely rewrapped in the US based on this as well. Good to know of possible Chinese origin though as well as I didn't really consider that a possibility before, but it does make sense.

[Fire Spirits]

So someone brought up that it appears that its likely tegu belly skin based on shape and coloring, which I agree with. Tegu are native to south America.

 

This creates my theory that a Japanese immigrant living in South America (also learned today that there were MANY) needed to restore his sword and did so as an amateur without the proper knowledge on the wrap.

 

Just my two cents, please reply if there are any other theories!

[ROKUJURO]

Tim,

the skin on the longer TSUKA might also be iguana. It is a possibility.

It is quite unlikely that a Japanese immigrant brought a sword to his new location in South America.

[Brian]

4 hours ago, ROKUJURO said:

It is quite unlikely that a Japanese immigrant brought a sword to his new location in South America.

Why?
Brazil has the largest population of Japanese people outside of Japan.

[ROKUJURO]

Brian,

as the Japanese immigrants mainly came from rural Japan to address Brazil's labour shortage following the abolition of slavery in the early 20th century, I cannot imagine

1)   those poor people to have swords, and
2)   if they even had a sword in Japan, they would go to the trouble and risk to take them to Brazil.

Of course we cannot exclude that 100 %, but I think it is much more likely that the amateur ITO MAKI was made in the U.S. where there was an abundance of swords, and Tegus also live in Florida and Georgia.  

Just my opinion....