Does Anyone Know?

[seattle1]

Hello:

 I have a Daigoro sukashi tsuba which appears to be copper. It has been suggested that it might originally have been shakudo, and the shakudo treated in some way to appear as copper, shakudo after all being a combination primarily of copper and gold. Daigoro tsuba are extremely rare in shakudo, so why would that be done? In this case it is part of a high quality koshirae with entirely copper fittings, so I suppose that might be a rationale. Does anyone know how that conversion could be made without showing any remaining trace of shakudo? There is kebori on the tsuba but no shakudo can be seen in the deepest recesses.

 Thanks for any help.

 Arnold F.

[MauroP]

Alchemy or high energy nuclear reactions, I suppose...

[Ford Hallam]

I would suggest you ask the person who suggested that it might once have been shakudo but now appears to be copper explain how that transmogrification might have taken place.

[Brian]

But doesn't all shakudo look like copper until chemically patinated?

[Ford Hallam]

But doesn't all shakudo look like copper until chemically patinated?

 

 

To the untrained eye perhaps 

[Brian]

Pfft!  
So..what are the chances it is unpatinated shakudo Ford, and what is the likelihood it is just copper?
 

[Ford Hallam]

Well given that shakudo is apparently rare in the school and the rest of the koshirae is copper I'd guess it's copper.  I know of no way to patinate shakudo to look like patinated copper and as many will have seen left alone most un-patinated shakudo will turn black eventually.

 

There is actually a colour difference between un-patinated copper and shakudo, it's slight, but next to each other it's enough. The shakudo is ever so slightly less red than the copper.

[seattle1]

Hello:

 Thanks for the replies; I've been our of town or would have chimed in sooner.

 The person who made the observation is Bob Haynes and it arose from a photo I sent him in an inquiry of how similar mine was to the shakudo example, rare indeed, found in his Catalog #7, pp. 80-81. The designs are identical, the sale tsuba being 7.4 mm high and the seppa dai 5.5 mm. Mine respectively 6.5 and 4.5 so perhaps they were once a daisho pair. Photograph inferences by way of comparison are always limited but naturally I take Bob's first reaction as likely, but I cannot imagine how it could be done, surely not by some manual rubbing, so I thought someone on the NMB might know if a wash of some sort would do the trick. I can see zero trace of shakudo and the piece is not abused in anyway. I will show it to Bob at the first opportunity, perhaps in SF for this year's show, and report back.

 Arnold F.

[Surfson]

Any photos Arnold?