Gnarly iron tsuba....what is it?

[kaigunair]

Saw this one and had a slew of questions. First off, it is even a real Edo or earlier period iron tsuba? Fake repro? Pulled from a lake?

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Openwork-TSUBA-of-KATANA-sword-EDO-3-3-0-2-90g-/350731465738?pt=Asian_Antiques&hash=item51a939740a

[lotus]

Nice tekkotsu!!! LOL...

[BMarkhasin]

Burned, drowned, beaten to a pulp and molested (not necessarily in that order) .... a very sad, sad tsuba.

[Dr Fox]

Why take so many photos? the first is the giveaway, the rest is confirmation.

Denis.

[Curran]

Wow....

ditto with what Boris said.

 

Like a pool of ferrous cat barf. ~Forensically interesting, but not something I'd go remotely near.

[sanjuro]

Hmmmmm

Is it just me or is the wabi sabi aesthetic just a tad 'over the top' on this one??????

 

Remarkable that the nakago ana is relatively intact and not more eroded.

[BMarkhasin]

Junichi,

Sorry, I think we collectively had to get it out of our systems... You yourself clearly recognized that this poor little tsuba has had the tar kicked out of it. It is real (although low quality even in better days), it is likely Edo but perhaps looks a lot older to the uninitiated due to the severe damage -- and yes, it may actually have spent some time at the bottom of a lake. Actually I have a number of items which spent literally a millennium at the bottom of a lake, and look a lot better than this tsuba... It goes to underscore to some extent that what we find on ebay more often than not is flawed in some way, and you can never really trust the descriptions. Caveat Emptor.

Best,

Boris.

[kaigunair]

Hey boris, think nothing of it. I'm glad I could add to the fun :D . I was thinking this was way over the top wabi sabi, so most likely a fake...was wondering whether this sort of thing appealed to the iron collectors, and I'm glad it doesn't. I recently got a sample of tamahagane so I did wonder if this was supposed to be something like raw tamahagane. A "real" tosho tsuba, where the smith didn't even have time to melt the thing! :lol:

 

I hope Curran's comment makes someone's signature line...hilarious!

 

Iron is foreign to me, so just happy I posted something that got a few comments. I was out earlier spending time with family, hence the delayed response. nothing else.

[Ford Hallam]

I think this tsuba raises some intriguing questions.

 

 

A few have joked about the 'wabi-sabi' being a bit over the top but I wonder then how we evaluate that aesthetic. I think we understand that wabi-sabi is not something that can consciously be created rather that is a quality an object or place acquires. If this piece is in this condition as a result of age then shouldn't it be possible to asses it's present condition and appearance independent of it's origin as a tsuba and merely as a very old object and that now has different qualities. The question is, how much is too much 'wabi-sabi' ?

 

Consider this piece of weathered wood. Originally it was cut even, perhaps planed smooth but certainly presented a uniform surface albeit with the grain visible if not raised. As a result of years of exposure to the elements the original surface has been utterly obliterated and the material of the wood worn down in a way that now reveals the internal structure of the timber. Generally speaking most of us find this appearance very satisfying and have no trouble pointing to this as having acquired 'wabi-sabi'

 

 

Looking at this piece of 'apparently' heavily corroded steel in a detached way, and not as a tsuba in very poor condition, I find the object very appealing myself. The sculpted surface reminds me of certain types Scholars rocks.

 

 

Obviously as a tsuba it no longer meets our expectations in terms of the qualities we usually use to asses them but I wonder if dismissing the piece as it now is isn't missing something else. If this was a Kamakura period habaki that looked like this it would be the subject of much envy I suspect, is it just a matter of age or is the aesthetic being valued also?

 

I find the metal surface very intriguing and I'm not 100% convinced this is all the result of natural corrosion. I actually have a small collection of similarly corroded steel bits in my studio. I study them to better understand the nature of metal but there is always an aspect, no matter how closely I examine them, even under a microscope, that remains mysterious. I might even suggest 'Yugen'. This much maligned tsuba deserves a more sympathetic consideration I think. It stimulates my imagination greatly. I suppose it helps that as a craftsman and artist I do see these things with very different eyes and I never let artificial categories and arbitrary expectations limit what I might appreciate. That's why I was happy to pay £28 for it :D

[Drago]

I feel compelled to give my own two cents...

 

I have to say I first read your comments and only looked at the pictures later. I'm, in conparison to most of you, a noob - but for some reason I think the Tsuba is supposed to be that way. I say that because the nakago ana and the outer rim are rather smooth...

 

Call it wabi sabi, but I'm intrigued by this one.

 

Wasn't there at one time a philosophy like "memento mori" in Japan too? Where even great mansions were modified to look rundown and decayed... I seem to recall something like that.

[Curran]

I said it was forensically interesting, because despite its decrepidation- it has either had removed or simply lacks some of the signs of true neglect. Looks to me like a meteor fragment.

 

Yet this meteorite like scholar's stone of a tsuba has minimal wabi-sabi for me. It has led a disgruntled confused life, long ago having lost its purpose or ability to function. It has aged with lack of pattern or grace, with no sense of its life as it once was and how it came to be as it is now. It has simply continued to exist, without the conviction to die.

 

It does not serve as an object with which to contemplate the accumulation of time and redistribution of life over time, but rather something that lost its way and plods towards decay without hope- yet never quite died or was buried. It has all the positive charm of a Doskeyevsky novel.

For £28, perhaps such a homeless tsuba is worth it to others to contemplate of poverty, death, and dying. I've had my full share of it from cadaver class (anatomy), scraping motorcycle victims off the road, and the bagging of young suicides who decided to blow their heads off in their parents bedroom. At a certain point such death just ceases to be interesting, and how something chooses or manages to positively live with what I will only call a subconcious sense of 'grace' (whether a genetic print or learned aesthetic) becomes infinitely more fascinating.

[Pete Klein]

Curran -- don't talk about me that way...

[cabowen]

This proves my point that the difference between "wabi-sabi" and "boro-boro" is perspective.....

[Ford Hallam]

Cheer up Curran

 

I enjoyed your take on this, although it seems to me it tells us far more about you than the tsuba itself :D

 

The first point I'd challenge you on is function. It still appears to be perfectly functional from I can make out. In fact the nakago ana and sekigane are tellingly 'fit for function' and appear to have been spared the ravages of time.

 

You project an interesting quality onto the piece when you claim it "has led a disgruntled confused life" , this is an inanimate object but why assume, were it sentient, that is is confused or disgruntled? Surely an ancient one might have come to gracefully accept, even embrace, the teachings of the eternal Tao and to see it's existence as part of an endless cycle of life and death. Isn't the melancholic recognition of exactly that at the heart of all great art, especially that which we recognise as quintessentially Japanese?

 

As for "plods towards decay without hope"; couldn't that describe much of human kind's own existence? But in any case, what is there to hope for as one ages and eventually dies? Surely the most we can hope for is a calm equanimity in the face of the inevitable.

 

But ultimately, as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We all 'see' in things much of ourselves, and in that respect this unfairly maligned tsuba seems still to be working. It's very existence seems to be an affront to you when you say; "It has simply continued to exist, without the conviction to die." Isn't the function of some art to challenge and provoke exactly such philosophical musings?

[Ford Hallam]

Perhaps Curran is feeling a tad 'boro-boro'

[Curran]

At first glance, it would seem to say something about me- but I think that is a bit of significant misdirection.

But I don't seem to mind it, so sure.

 

Following what Tobias said, It simply isn't for me. It is as inorganic as inorganic gets, and looks like a hand grater if mounted, no matter where your hand goes on the tsuka. Eventually it contacts with this deathstone.

 

I appreciate artwork like "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living"

, but don't want it taking a 1/4th of our great room. I also don't want to flick on the lights at 2am on the way to the kitchen for a late night snack and hafta look at that looking back at me as if I am a late night snack.

 

We each have our own taste, and the short version is I tend to like that with some organic Fibonacci numbers to its design, as balance to the inorganic base. My most recent pick-up is attached. It is a little crude, but I've been into wave themes recently.

Not sure what it is: ko-kinko or possibly early nishigaki- but works for me/ wabi-sabi or bori-bori aside.

Have a go at it the wabi-sabi and/or skill or lack of skill. I've showed it to two people before now. One loved it, and the other quite did not.

 

As long as we're in the wabi-sabi or bori-bori end of the pool, I might as well throw on a Hazama I picked up a while ago. Only Skip Holbrook seemed to appreciate it before it got papered. Was interesting to see people's like or dislike.

[cabowen]

When I lived in Japan I had an older, rather beat, 4wd Suzuki Jimny (called "Samurai", of course, in the Western market) vehicle that I simply loved. All of my Japanese friends would tell me that it was not becoming of a university professor to be seen driving such a "boro-boro" car. I always told them it wasn't "boro-boro", it was wabi-sabi". That never failed to get quite a laugh....

 

I also remember asking several antique dealers, when presented with the description of something in a rather shabby state as "wabi-sabi", what the difference was between wabi-sabi and boro-boro???....They usually laughed and said nothing but one once replied: "Wabi-sabi" is for when I am selling. "Boro-boro" is for when I am buying...That time, I laughed.....

[Curran]

How dare they knock a Suzuki Samurai

Those were the divine winds of the 1980s, whipping around. They and the Ford Fiero "Go Grasshoppa!" were the dragonflies of that season.

[Pete Klein]

The Hazama is awesome.

[cabowen]

How dare they knock a Suzuki Samurai

Those were the divine winds of the 1980s, whipping around. They and the Ford Fiero "Go Grasshoppa!" were the dragonflies of that season.

 

What made it even better was the "K" car classification (660cc engine) which meant the registration hassle was small, as was the fuel consumption (when gas was about $6 a gallon).....I wish they would allow these on the US roads...

 

Sorry for the off-topic....

[Brian Ayres]

It's an interesting tsuba,

 

I am still learning how various tsuba were forged and this one has intersting bones to examine. And, I'd venture to guess this was mounted while it aged. The seppa being non-ferrous didn't digest in the ferrous cats stomach protecting the nakago-ana from corrosion.

 

A different iron content in the rim could have prevented corrosion. Or, maybe a Mimi formed with non-ferrous metal like when San-Mai tsuba are made that came off in cleaning the loose corrosion? Or, maybe the rim was covered in lacquer?

 

I believe that objects made by hand often "feel" like they have a piece of the original artist left in them. Maybe it's this "soul" that refuses to die?

 

Best regards

 

Brian Ayres

[sanjuro]

Having been one of the people to originally state that the wabi-sabi aesthetic was a tad over the top on this piece I feel compelled to add my voice to Curran's. There is a point at which wabi -sabi ends and pure decrepitude begins. I think for me at least this tsuba has passed that point.

Someone has said it is still functional. A matter of opinion of course, but I certainly wouldnt mount it and expect it to function as any other than a negative cosmetic appelation.

As an artifact it has a certain charm and even an artistic merit as something that has been embellished by the cruel hand of time and the destructive hand of the elements. Thus it is a work of many sculptors and only one of them human. The work of the human agent is all but obliterated, and is evidenced only in the shape and what remains of his chisel work. As a work of nature it stands as testiment to the temporary nature of all things and thus it is wabi- sabi. As a tsuba however, it is a tragedy.

[Soshin]

Hi Currran,

 

I love the new wave tsuba. I am thinking Ko-Kinko but it might be Higo. Either of which I don't know much about but I am sure you can teach me a thing or two. The Hazama tsuba which I saw at the Tampa show is not my thing but to each his own this also applies to the gnarly iron tsuba that is the subject of this thread.

 

 

 

Yours truly,

David Stiles

[Curran]

Bowen-san:

 

I thought they were allowed in the USA? I knew of one deemed okay in Georgia.

 

David: I think you saw the Kunitomo Teiei Saku in Tampa. Close, but not the same thing. The Hazama didn't make it this year. No one except Skip wanted to buy it before it was papered. Everyone doubted it was authentic and just saw a less than perfect tsuba.

 

Yeah, I like the new copper wave one too- but am undecided. I've got 1 vote for ko-kinko and one for early Higo.

I'd like to see early Higo, but that may be wishful thinking.

It is a bit small and tad crude to be early Higo, but there are some aspects that are more early Nishigaki. I just wish the carving was a tad bit deeper and more rounded. This one may go into shinsa, since yen is getting weaker.

[cabowen]

Bowen-san:

 

I thought they were allowed in the USA? I knew of one deemed okay in Georgia.

 

 

They have been importing the little K trucks for a while into the US but last I heard they are not allowed to be licensed for use on the highways....maybe that has changed????

[rkg]

Curran,

 

What's the inlay metal on your Hazama?

 

Thanks,

 

rkg

(Richard George)

[Kevin Adams]

What's the inlay metal on your Hazama?

Sahari?

[kusunokimasahige]

He should have named it:

 

Battlefield relic. Dan-No Ura.

 

That would have upped the price.

 

 

KM

[sanjuro]

He should have named it:Battlefield relic.

 

Now there's an interesting line of speculation. I have wondered why such a battered and decrepit tsuba has survived and been preserved so long. It is not beyond possibility that this old tsuba has been preserved because it was indeed a relic of some note or of some significance to someone. Perhaps even a battlefield relic. God (or probably more appropriately Buddha), knows that Japan is littered with old siege sites, temples and battlefields. There is nothing to tie it specifically to the Edo period as the seller supposed, beyond a similar speculation on his part, and indeed it could be quite a bit older.

Pure speculation of course, but at least a positive light in which to contemplate this piece beyond Ford's esoteric aesthetic proclivities.

[Ford Hallam]

There's the thing, Keith, if we knew that it had in fact been excavated from an ancient battlefield how would present company regard it then? If it was reconsidered as a venerable artefact of some or other battle the only thing that would have altered would be one's imagination. I chose to go directly there via my own esoteric proclivities £28 was a cheap for that 'ticket to ride' :D

 

But I also have a more mundane interest in this piece. A microscopic examination of the actual corroded surface structure can tell me a great deal about the make up and composition of the tsuba. So without having to perform any destructive (some would say that's already been done :-) ) analysis' I can 'see' inside the material.