Yagyu/Owari?

[Hector]

On one of the Japanese auction sites there's a recent seller who has either lucked out enormously and found a collection of perfect condition, absolutely textbook Yagyu tsuba or.......?

 

They all appear to be made by the same hand to me. Also, wouldn't you expect exemplary pieces like this to be papered if they were the real deal?

 

Best,

Hector

[Teimei]

Hi Hector,

 

the first one looks really Yagyu to me, the next two i am not sure and the last one seems more Kanayama.

Please have a look at a Yagyu piece i handled at the JAF in Utrecht in comparison:

 

[Manuel Coden]

13 hours ago, Hector said:

On one of the Japanese auction sites there's a recent seller who has either lucked out enormously and found a collection of perfect condition, absolutely textbook Yagyu tsuba or.......?

 

They all appear to be made by the same hand to me. Also, wouldn't you expect exemplary pieces like this to be papered if they were the real deal?

 

Best,

Hector

There's a seller on Yahoo selling these tsuba, they're pretty good copies and they get better year by year, he does also other iron tsuba like Higo. His patina looks off tho, many got fooled by the pics but then in hand it was clear they aren't the real deal

[Lou V]

Here are two that I think originated from this seller.  I also have a Kanayama piece that I think has the same origins.  When you have them in hand they all seem to have something a little off.  I should have known when buying them for the price I did that they couldn't have been real.  But I have bought worse over the years.

[Spartancrest]

40 minutes ago, Lou V said:

But I have bought worse over the years.

Haven't we all!  I sometimes put this little thought in my head - "Could I have made this piece as well as it is, for the price I actually paid for it?" - The answer invariably is NO. Doesn't mean I wouldn't like a better one, but it helps just a little.

[Jesta]

21 hours ago, Hector said:

On one of the Japanese auction sites there's a recent seller who has either lucked out enormously and found a collection of perfect condition, absolutely textbook Yagyu tsuba or.......?

 

They all appear to be made by the same hand to me. Also, wouldn't you expect exemplary pieces like this to be papered if they were the real deal?

 

Best,

Hector

 

 

I can’t see much wrong with the first one, at least from the photo. The other three though… they all look too “soft”. The patina looks wrong, and the edges are too rounded. Where the seppadai has been chipped away to make room should be sharper and cut, not smooth and rounded. The sekigane looks off too. I would avoid the seller. 

[ROKUJURO]

5 hours ago, Jesta said:

..... Where the seppadai has been chipped away to make room should be sharper and cut, not smooth and rounded.....

Hi Justyn,

the iron around the NAKAGO-ANA has not been "chipped away to make room". On old TSUBA, it was pushed/punched in to make the NAKAGO-ANA narrower to fit another blade.

From a technical point of view, this is an indication for very good ductility of the iron.

[Jesta]

16 minutes ago, ROKUJURO said:

Hi Justyn,

the iron around the NAKAGO-ANA has not been "chipped away to make room". On old TSUBA, it was pushed/punched in to make the NAKAGO-ANA narrower to fit another blade.

From a technical point of view, this is an indication for very good ductility of the iron.

Fair point, and well-made… Some do look a lot more gouged than others, and these look like they were cast like that.

[lonely panet]

look for the filo pastary young skywalker.

the filo pastary 

[ROKUJURO]

Hamish,

if you thought of filo pastry, this has nothing to do with lamination or layers. It is just rather soft material that was moved/pushed in a certain direction.

[GRC]

The first one is not like the other three at all.

It doesn't have the exaggerated soft marshmallowy look to the surface.

It has a completely different seppa-dai with no exaggerated crater-like punch marks along the sides of the nakago-ana.

The copper sekigane is not the same and doesn't have the same punch marks as the others.

  

The other three are by the same the same guy and made recently (all three have the same sekigane in the nakago-ana with same punch marks to set them in... except the middle one of the bottom three also has some star-shaped punch marks as well.

 

The first one looks like a proper Yagyu piece to me and the punch marks around the copper sekigane are a lot like the ones in Florian's example @Teimei. The bottom one in particular is nearly identical between the two examples (shown below).

These are the kind of details you have to start observing, gathering examples of and comparing to tsuba that come up for sale or auction.

The nakago-ana, tegane (punch marks) and copper sekigane (if still original and not replaced later!) are really important details...

Tsuba smiths were quite particular and consistent with the way they would execute these actions when they produced their tsuba.

Edited Wednesday at 05:04 PM by GRC

[Lou V]

7 hours ago, lonely panet said:

look for the filo pastary young skywalker.

the filo pastary 

Oh, you mean this that they replicate on these tsuba too.  This is the tsuba on the left in my earlier post.

[Spartancrest]

What do we think of this one?    https://www.jauce.com/auction/x1233653264 Repro or the real thing? 

[lonely panet]

20 hours ago, ROKUJURO said:

Hamish,

if you thought of filo pastry, this has nothing to do with lamination or layers. It is just rather soft material that was moved/pushed in a certain direction.

you can try and argue though the language barrier but its not going to get a big from me.  ill just repost this for the better education for the topic then forfill your need for attention

 

Tsuba Kansho

 

Thinking about Japanese sword fittings, randomly

This gets lost in later examples, often certified as kodai (later generation) Yagyu, but then comes back in force in the late Edo period where the copies made by the two Norisuke and their followers have prominent masame in the rim and even on the faces that look like a fine pastry dough. While the designs are faithfully followed, the overall appearance is quite different.

Edited Thursday at 07:14 AM by lonely panet

[ROKUJURO]

Hi Hamish,

you seem always very grumpy if someone has a differing opinion about what is discussed, or if you misunderstood a post. My English may be clumsy but I understand the topic very well - it is my profession!

To explain: In pre-industrial times, ALL iron had to be refined by folding and fire-welding. This ALWAYS lead to a laminated iron/steel structure. Many folding/welding cycles lead to a more homogeneous material where the lamination was less evident or even invisible (as in HIGO TSUBA, e.g.).

Of course YAGYU TSUBA and others were made from laminated iron, and your photo above is showing that well, thank you.

In my post, I was dealing with the wrong assumption that "material was chipped off the SEPPA-DAI to make room", and I explained that the ductile iron was only pushed by punching it towarsds the NAKAGO-ANA, not removed. No contradiction to the iron being laminated!

I hope I got your attention. 

[FlorianB]

What about the smooth surface of those Yagyu-pieces?

Shouldn't be there a "sandy" texture?

[FlorianB]

Tsuruta-san offers a suigetsu-Yagyu:

https://www.aoijapan.com/tsuba-mumeiunsignedyagyunbthk-tokubetsu-hozon-tosogu/

[Curran]

I've been traveling a bit away from home and am checking in on this thread late.

 

On this laptop, I thought tsuba #1 looked rather realistic and wasn't sure.

The others, as @Manuel Coden has the right of it that there has been a steady stream of these for years and they have been getting better.

 

Also, @lonely panet cited a good work and the truth that the early ones often (not always) have a nice filo dough layering in the mimi.

Then in the 2nd period some do and some don't. If it is a unique seeming design that strongly represents the philosophy of the school and the iron is correct, you don't always expect the mimi to have those layers. It happens for a variety of reasons.

 

The kodai ones are often of famous designs and yet lack the full feel of the earlier ones, or their tell tale elements.

Yet the late Edo Norisuke ones are something entirely else. They are like 1st period ones on steroids, but usually under 5mm of thickness.

The Norisuke ones aren't trying to be deceiving, as much as retro-revivial. They really are their own thing, and I've long hoped to find one of the signed Yagyu waveform ones. Either they aren't for sale, or the condition is poor. The good ones are almost as rare as the originals.

 

I've previously posted a good image of the filo dough mimi from my best 1st period one. 

I'd bought it unpapered from a private collection, so YES sometimes real ones do pop up unpapered.

Though I didn't think it needed NBTHK papers, I eventually submitted it for Hozon.

Whether agent error or some confusion in our communication, it ended up going TH. I didn't want the extra expense, but -hey-  I'll live.

Still, good earlier period Yagyu and of either provenance or published such that they don't need papers.

 

The first tsuba is curious. The rest are heavily -Nah... avoid--

Everyone be nice. Yagyu can be a confusing school to know what you are dealing with. I think it took 15 years before I really got into them.