Civilian silver dragon tsuba off WW2 used sword

[phil reid]

Morning Chaps, have this civilian silver dragon tsuba off WW2 used sword,  80mm diameter by 5mm thick. Has a dragon and looks to be a petal mon , the sword its off has this green coating to all metal parts that i was leaving on, tsuba edge is silver black tarnished and its taken a hit which has caused a distortion in the  metal as happens with softer antique silverware so thinking it may be possibly solid silver?? Any help would be appreciated

 cheers

 Phil

[JohnTo]

The mon may be three oak leaves (kashi0 used by the Makino, Horimoto and Kasai families, and others.  To check if it is solid silver you could weigh it while suspended by a fine wire (fishing line) the submerge it in water and reweigh.  The density is the original weight/reduction in weight in water.  Silver is 10.5, copper 8.4 and brass 9.0.  I've done this with a brass tsuba and kitchen scales.

The top photo seems to have a fine inscription of the right side by the mimi (rim) and Inome (boar's eye) indentation..  Can you read it.

 

best regards, John 

 

[Tanto54]

To me this "tsuba" has many signs of possible modern casting (perhaps non-Japanese) - looking at the ground, lack of detail, shape of the dragon and tsuba in general.  It's not military, of course, but I don't think that it is any older than WWII either (and perhaps much newer).

[phil reid]

Wow good eyes but sadly when cleaning that area first with fine brush then needle to remove that section of paint  it turned out to be crinkled paint. Blades ww2 with hot stamp and handles civilian so didnt think tsuba was old just what chap had at hand when off  to war .

 thanks for your help gents.