Gimei Mogarashi Soten ?

[yogoro]

Dear members !

Please look this soten tsuba .

Do you think this mei is genuine ?

Mikolaj

[Brian]

Mikolaj,

As for as Soten goes, and bearing in mind the wear, I don't think it is bad work at all. A step up from the usual mass produced Soten works, but I dont think up to the level of Mogarashi Soten.

However what does bother me the most, is that even when taking into account the fact that the nakago ana must have been opened up later, if you look at how much space the signature would take up if complete, that would leave the nakago ana incredibly narrow?

 

Brian

[docliss]

Dear Mikolaj

 

There have been several previous postings of Hikone-bori tsuba over the past year and, since some of these were fairly comprehensive threads and can easily be referred to, I am not going to repeat a lot of what was said. Suffice it to say that your tsuba, bearing on the omote the inscription SOHEISHI SOTEN SEI, is yet another example of the work produced for export by Aizu Shōami workers in the late Edo period. Your photograph does not show the mimi clearly but, if that is a decorative, gold nunome, diaper design that I glimpse there, this is a further confirmation of its Shōami source.

 

It is inconceivable that a tsuba of such a period could acquire such extensive evidence of ageing, and I assume that the misplaced mei; the sekigane; and the missing, decorative copper plugs in the nakago-hitsu were all placed there at its time of manufacture in order to give a false impression of great age. As Brian so correctly points out, a complete mei would have left little room on the tsuba for its mounting.

 

Regards, John L.