Identify gold seal/kao?

[Brian]

Ok..here is a difficult one. Another of the tsuba I picked up in a small lot.

Very plain, with no decoration besides a very worn mei and a gold seal.

I doubt anything can be made of the signature..too much wear and pitting. But does the seal mean anything to anyone?

Can post a pic of the whole tsuba, but nothing really to see. Plain round wakizashi size with no visible layering, bones or other nice things we look for Nice iron though with a good feel to it.

 

Regards,

Brian

[Brian]

A very kind and knowledgeable NMB lurker sent me the following via email:

 

  Quote

Your tsuba is by SeiRyuKen Eiju who was a student of

the famous Tetsugendo Naoshige. You can find his signature on page 44 of

Kinko Meikan, far left. By the way, the gold seal consists of the two

character Sei Ei, which was his early signature, which he later changed to

Eiju meaning "elderly Ei". It's too bad that your tsuba is in such bad

condition. The Tetsugendo school is well-known for high-quality iron plates

and Eiju is famous for his rendition of dragons.

 

Once again the forum comes through with great info given very little to work with.

Thanks again to the sender of the info.

 

Regards,

Brian

[yogoro]

Hi !

I wanted more knowledge about The Tetsugendo school and his students.

I have 3 tsubas with gold seal kao probability from this school.

[andreYes]

I don't want to make a new topic for my questions, so I'll ask here, if you don't mind.

 

I saw a tsuba, signed "Seiryuken Eiju", with the same design as the last tsuba in Mikolaj's post.

I wonder, is the tsuba I'm posting original (the mei on the two tsubas are similar, but there is a slight difference)?

 

Is it a usual practice, when the tsubako makes a batch of identical tsubas?

[docliss]

Dear Andrey

 

Most collectors will be aware of the large number of tsuba that are inscribed Seiryūken Eiju in sōsho and bear a gold hon-zōgan seal. These were at one time attributed to Okamoto Naofusa (H 06602.0), a student of O. Harukuni and the adopted son of O. Naoshige. But the number of such tsuba and the wide range of quality among them, together with variations in the mei and several different seals, suggests that there were a number of artists producing such work. The better of these demonstrate the high quality of iron plate that characterises Tetsugendō work, while others are of very poor quality.

 

To gather together a number of such guards and to compare their technique, quality and the variations of mei and seal would be a valuable and interesting research project for one of the NMB members..

 

Regards, John L.

[andreYes]

Thank you, John!

I've expected something like this.

The problem is, that I don't understand (yet) what is the quality of iron plate . Is it the shape, colour, density, or something else?

[dirk marshall]

These appear to be Japan's answer to the wooden nickle there are so many.