Tsuba off a WW2 bring back

[Stephen V]

Hello all

 

A friend has asked if I could find out a bit more on this tsuba that was on a sword brought back to Australia from the Borneo campaign.

 

The sword itself looks very interesting (I have no pictures yet) it is in a leather covering and the menuki and kashira are of a very intricate design, not standard Gunto issue. The quality of these pieces are in the same ballpark as the tsuba.

 

Possibly a venerated family piece taken to war.

 

The only thing at this stage that I can say about the sword (wakizashi in size) is that the tang is extremely rusty (red rust) and the owner has been firmly told to leave that alone apart from a little light machine oil to stabilze the rust. There does seem to be the possibility of a mei but for now that is somthing to wait to see if the stabilization might give a little better view of what is under the rust.

 

I can also advise that the tang is single beveled and possibly in the kata-Yamagata style.

 

The sword looks to be very tired and in fact would seem to be very roughly over polished although nothing has been done to it since brought back in 1945 so possibly the rough polishing might have been done during the war on a needs basis unfortunately.

 

Sorry about the overload of info with an exasperating lack of extra pictures at this stage.

 

However here is the tsuba, I am awaiting on further pictures of the obverse (there is no mei) plus a side on view and dimensions. I will add these to this post ASAP.

 

I will also post pictures of the rest of the sword furniture and the sword itself if and when to hand.

 

Cheers

[Higo-san]

Hi Stephen,

 

looks like a beautiful Kaga Yoshiro tsuba; more common are those which had some kind of mon design - however this piece clearly shows the typical brass inlays and iron surface; plus there are other sukashi tsuba like this one recorded e.g. in the Moslé collection.

 

Great item which could well be Momoyama.

 

Best,

 

Chris

[Stephen V]

Thanks Chris.

 

As promised I have attached a picture of the side on shot as well.

 

The dimensions are 68.10mm high, 65.72mm wide and between 3.8 to 4.25mm thickness.