Why Does This Tsuba Has So Many "silver" Spots?

[Krystian]

Hello, 

 

I am sorry If my question is simple or the answer obvious but why this tsuba has so many places where you can see the "silver" color of metal instead of usual shades of black? I don't see any recent file marks and so on. Was in cleaned using chemicals or ultrasounds? Or it just aged like that? 

 

Best Regards, 

 

Krystian

[vajo]

For me it looks like a cast Tsuba.

[Ford Hallam]

In my opinion this is a perfectly genuine Edo piece (there is visible evidence of layering in the steel in a few places) but someone has subjected it to some sort of rust removal process (perhaps a mild pickle or similar) . The colour that does remain wouldn't be considered an art patina worth preserving.

[ROKUJURO]

Krystian,

I like this OMODAKA design, and the TSUBA is nicely executed. I see no direct signs of being cast, but I believe to see toolmarks, which let me assume your TSUBA is handmade.  Probably it was exposed to heavy corrosion at one time in its life, and was never restored and repatinated. The metallic spots are nothing but the coarse metallic iron surface, I think.

Just my thoughts without having seen this TSUBA in my hand. Ford Hallam would be able to give you a better judgement.  

[Bazza]

A light sand-blasting???  Or plastic ball abrading/blasting???

 

BaZZa.

[Ford Hallam]

boiling in caustic soda would be my first guess. That will also inhibit further rusting to a certain degree as any residue remaining in the iron will be alkaline. 

[Leporello]

Sorry, but I have to disagree, guys ... neither sand-blasting nor chemical treatment could cause this appearance. Looking at this piece carefully it is obviously, that there are only the tips of the former heavy corrosion furbished, but the valleys do still carry patina. In any case of blasting or chemical treatment, the low lying parts of the tsuba would also have been affected. In my opinion you can only achieve this by rubbing it mechanical with some sort of hard to semisoft grinding medium like steel wool or maybe a common grinding sponge (don´t know the correct term, sorry) for cleaning pots and pans.

Well, not that my own first attempts in cleaning cheap rusty tsuba about 20 years ago would have caused exactly the same effect ...

 

B.t.w.: Of course this is an old Edo piece and not a cast repro! This kind of tsuba has been mass produced in various qualities and is very typical for the Kinai groop.

 

Best,

Tom

[Krystian]

Thank you for taking part in this discussion. Each post helped me to understand this tsuba a bit more.

 

I do not think that it was boiled though because there are some parts where original patina was left, particularly those places that are hardest to get into. I made an attempt to take pictures of them. There are also some pictures of places with brightest "silver" parts. So was it just steel sponge after all? 

 

Krystian

[Ford Hallam]

.

[christianmalterre]

sorry ?

 

maybe my eyes are definitely getting older ???

 

 

this Tsuba is cast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Christian

[Alex A]

As above, to me it looks like its been chemically changed, then gone over with a wire brush.

 

Reminds me of what rusty iron meteorites look like after sodium hydroxide treatment, a rust cure.

[Peter Bleed]

gotta vote "CAST" as well/

Peter

[Krystian]

Peter, Christian do you think that it was cast, than someone perfectly removed all sings of it, than put fake patina, than boiled it in sodium and after that brushed?

 

If someone put so much work in to it than I got it cheap:)

 

That was a small joke. But for real. Could you tell me why you think it is a cast? I just can't see any indication of that... 

[christianmalterre]

cast...is sorrowly cast !- my friend!  or not?

 

and, if ? - do you can distinguish melleable cast, -to a decarbonised cast ?

 

- it is but certainly not my problem at all !! ( it is your´s!)

 

just do have a look! onto the" way"  to "cast iron" is done....very old in fact.- multiple ways so to work with it....

"holy" Japanese Tsubashi, very certainly, did but not do such" LOL! !..... ( of course! )

as these were primitive.....

of course!

 

Christian

[Peter Bleed]

Krystian

You are asking the wrong people the wrong question. I respectfully will retain my right to an opinion, but Ford Hallam who really does know his stuff says he sees sign of quality. If I  were you, I'd ask him to point the signs of authenticity. The overall shape of this guard seems pretty good, but - IMHO - the iron looks pulpy, porous , what American wood workers call "punky.". Even if it is "good", I don't think it would be an easy recovery.

In any case there are lots of better tsuba out there and we all have to remember that when we are attracted to items that "might" be okay.

Peter

[Krystian]

Thank you all for your comments. I learned a lot and found places to learn even more. 

 

Long way before me:)

[kissakai]

There is so much porosity it can't really be a good tsuba

There is good detail in the form but no surface indications to show it was well worked

[christianmalterre]

i do see nothing good into this Tsuba Peter!

 

i but see, of course, you are very polite

(maybe? you should change herein?)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

up to this spoken "Tsuba" but now....

 

my answer is strict-

 

(do throw it away and do better buy you real stuff!) - Krys!

 

Sorry!...this is a "No-Go".

 

Christian

[Peter Bleed]

Christian suggests I may be too polite. Maybe he is correct

Krystian,

You may want to hold on to this tsuba, if only for a little while. It might serve you (well) as a "drop tsuba." As a police officer's son I grew up knowing what a "drop gun" was, but I became familiar with a "drop tsuba" from a now departed but once well-known sword authority. He always went to places where Japanese blades were being traded (flea markets, gun shows, etc) with a "drop tsuba" in his pocket. This was a big but low quality tsuba that he would use as an expedient replacement. When he found a junk blade with a nice guard, he would buy the unit, switch out the "drop tsuba" for the guard he liked better and then resell the blade for the initial price. Of course there may have been cases where the switch was made WITHOUT the blade ever actually being sold. During disassembly, translation, and reassembly, the drop tsuba may have found its way on to the junk blade without any official change of title - or payment. Of course I do not recommend that sort of behavior.

Peter

[Henry Wilson]

I'm not sure I follow, but the above seems to be dishonest. Hope no one does such a thing to little ole me!????

[Peter Bleed]

Henry,

Maybe I am too attracted to stories of "sharp practice." And I was not at all sure that I I should tell this story. I certainly did not want to encourage dishonesty.  I think there is nothing intrinsically dishonest about switching out a tsuba or other fittings. That happened - and happens(!) - all the time. Obviously making a switch without telling the owner and making fair restitution is dishonest.

I certainly hope that nothing like that ever happens to good ole you. Still, lots of us HAVE seen swords with odd kodogu. How often have you seen a sword and thought, "I wonder why this swords has such a crappy tsuba." I hoped the concept of a "drop tsuba" might help NMB members understand why and how such things.

Again a sincerely apologize if I appeared to be condoning dishonesty.

Peter

[John A Stuart]

I have little problem with collectors that buy swords and take the fittings for their collection and sell the sword on, it is after all their possession. To switch out a tsuba with an inferior one when it is not theirs is a whole different thing. To do it with an old historical koshirae that has significant importance would be a shame though and should be frowned upon. Preservation.

[Curran]

I have little problem with collectors that buy swords and take the fittings for their collection and sell the sword on, it is after all their possession. To switch out a tsuba with an inferior one when it is not theirs is a whole different thing. To do it with an old historical koshirae that has significant importance would be a shame though and should be frowned upon. Preservation.

 

Hypothetical or real?:

 

Museum curator oversees a museum liquidating a number of the Japanese swords they have in storage. They are keeping the good ones.

The blades are mostly no-names, mass-produced Seki works, or otherwise f'ugly. They go off to auction via an auction house.

Blades are in the catalog, but the koshirae is only described- if even described.

 

At the viewing of the blades at the auction house, it is noticeable that many of them have exceptional kozuka, kogai, tsuba, and even taped on menuki- many that don't seem to or clearly don't fit the koshirae.

For example, say the kozuka or kogai barely fill the saya slot, or overfill it such that it is poking past the tsuba and overlapping the tsuka by a good inch.

 

Some of us think of museums as where good swords and fittings often go to be punished. In the above, is it a net-net good or bad thing that these fittings are escaping the black hole of a museum storage space?

[vajo]

Curran i go with you. Nice words.