Higo Styled Tsuba?

[lotus]

The attached tsuba certainly appears to be done in the Higo style. Any thoughts on it? Age and authentic?

 

Thanks!

[raiden]

maybe Umetada School. Not much states Higo to me.

[Soshin]

Hi Patrick R.,

 

I agree with Mike Y. to me it looks like a mid to late Umetada school work and not a Higo styled tsuba in my opinion. The iron looks good in the photos and would be something I would expect for the Umetada school. Here is a good Higo styled tsuba with some age to it from my collection for reference: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14988. I hope you find the information helpful.

[lotus]

The only reason I mentioned Higo is because the seller had it in his description which I no longer have due to a computer crash.

 

Umetada is a very interesting attribution. I am going to have to do more research into that school. I love the feel of the iron and the abundance of hammer work. I have been looking for similar umetada examples on the web without much luck. If you know of any, let me know.

 

In looking on the web, I did also notice the Saotome school did a lot of flower petal rims.

[raiden]

if there was no zogan inlay, pehaps Saotome would bean acceptable idea, but with the inlay i feel it must go somewhere else.

[raiden]

just my 2 cents worth...

[lotus]

Yeah, the only similarity with Saotome seemed to be the rim shape.

 

I also noticed the zogan inlay of the water wraps around the rim and continues on the back side. So, if you were to envision folding out the front and back sides of the tsuba, you would have a complete picture. Not sure if that helps narrow anything down or not, but just thought it was interesting.

[lotus]

Found a couple umetada tsuba that are somewhat similar.