Marketing ploy?

[Spartancrest]

A recent auction sale https://www.jauce.com/auction/d477991218  had, what you are led to believe are a daisho of tsuba. From what I see they are totally unrelated, the smaller of the two pieces looks ok [a bit of an indent at the bottom] A very fine fukurin, the sukashi look ok [a bit dusty]. But check out the larger piece, that full flower head, the 'kebori' on the leaves - all a bit off. But the ura side is where the game is up!  The lower stem of the Chrysanthemum has casting bubbles but the fun inclusion is the Chinese star on the flower head - I know a star is a star and the symbol is common in many cultures, but that is my take on it. Now another intriguing feature are the ategane/ume, they don't look like they were made to fit this guard at all, but came from some former jewelry piece - the detailing on them out weighs the tsuba. I would be interested in others thoughts.

[Infinite_Wisdumb]

I too was curious about the ategane/ume.  Like it is a bead or something!

[Spartancrest]

I think I have found the origin of the ategane plugs - Japanese 1950s Amita jewelry, common just after the second world war. That would make the piece at least that recent. 

[Infinite_Wisdumb]

You need to change your screen name to Matlock

[Spartancrest]

I look more like a cross between Columbo and Patrick Stewart from Star Trek! My hair has 'boldly gone'

[Spartancrest]

I have an image of what the fake was trying to imitate it is from an ended auction and I can't find the ura view. The finish and quality is far better.

 

[Spartancrest]

Looks like these are starting to come out of the woodwork!  https://www.jauce.com/auction/g500974278

 

At least the ura does not have the communist flag on it like the first example. You may note the leaves overlap the rim on this example.

[Steves87]

Here is another Dale, you probably haven't seen this from me as I no longer own it

[Steves87]

[rkg]

I got one of these pieces as part of a "package deal" (I only wanted one tsuba in the group offered) not all that long ago:

 

 

Best,

rkg

(Richard George)

[Spartancrest]

Richard, It has the same features as the last one I posted with the leaves overlapping the rim - what do you think cast or utsushi? I am not a big fan of package deals they always contain some form of rubbish you don't want. [Not saying that guard is rubbish but you know what I mean]. Thanks for posting the image.

[Spartancrest]

A few more designs thrown in - seems to be a popular theme, I am sure there are plenty of other utsushi out there.

[rkg]

  On 1/21/2021 at 11:15 PM, Spartancrest said:

Richard, It has the same features as the last one I posted with the leaves overlapping the rim - what do you think cast or utsushi? I am not a big fan of package deals they always contain some form of rubbish you don't want. [Not saying that guard is rubbish but you know what I mean]. Thanks for posting the image.

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Dale,

Sorry not to reply earlier - too busy...  Just for grins I overlapped my image with the one from the jauce auction.  Its not the best job, but you can see the pattern is different, just not by a lot. (Dicclaimer: I don't own the copyright to the image from Jauce - it is presented here for educational purposes only).  It interesting that the corners were staked kind of in the same way (angled at corners) and that there is what looks like a squared off copper sekigane in the bottom only.  I guess they both could be from the same "factory", but I don't think (at least mine) is modan or something,

 

 

 

 

This seems to be a pattern that is often attributed to ko-hagi (which Torigoye claims is actually  just another variant of kyo sukashi tsuba rather than being some kind of early choushuu work), though I think this is later than that (so you'd call it what, Edo period kyo sukashi work?)

Best,

rkg

(Richard George)

 

 

[Spartancrest]

School utsushi - like the many Kinai school examples? Those two examples are close but as you say not the same. That is a good trick to flick from one image to another- would come in handy very often detecting mass produced copies.