New Tsuba

[Dr Bob]

Hello everyone.  I was vacationing in northern Idaho and happened to be in the right place to drop into a local gun show.  Found a nice Nihonto collector there and enjoyed visiting with him and looking at his wares.  We had a bit of problem in that he didn't have a price tag on most of his stuff and after several rounds of "make me an offer" and "how much do you want for it" I determined that he really wasn't ready to sell a lot of the things I was interested in.  I took photos of his tsuba, kogai and kogatana and may get back to him if I find some missing parts on a batch of swords I haven't gotten around to yet.  I am not a tsuba guy, unless I need one to complete a mount; but he had one interesting tsuba in particular that I ended up purchasing.  To both the seller and myself, this appears to be an old tachi tsuba.  It is a relatively large and heavy iron tsuba with mimi, and a figure of a Nezumi and Masu.  The mouse is peering over the edge of a box used to measure out the rice that samurai were paid with.  A couple of texts on Japanese art motifs suggest rats and bales of rice together indicate the need to safeguard and not squander your resources.  My deceased Japanese mother had a decoration of a bronze mouse on a winnowing basket with a few grain of rice.  (I sure hope I kept that somewhere.)  Anyway, her interpretation was that the Nezumi was a symbol of prosperity, in that if you had a mouse (or rat; Japanese don't distinguish between the two) and a tiny amount of rice, the mice were going to increase in number.  I've always liked that explanation better.

 

The tsuba is 221.6 grams in weight.  I would say the shape is maru-mokko.  It measures 86.6 mm vertically, and 84.4 mm horizontally.  The thickness at the nakago ana is 5.5 mm and the rim is 7.7 mm thick.  I haven't worked all the red rust off yet, but some time working on the nezumi with a toothpick is bringing out details.  There are brass highlights on the mimi.  I have no idea what the bright metal used at the top of the Masu might be.  Nakago ana measures 7.7 mm vertically and 5.5 mm at widest.

 

All comments about this tsuba are welcome.  Hopefully the first one won't be "Chinese fake."

 

Bob Gilmore

[Tanto54]

Dear Bob, sounds like a lucky find while you were on vacation.  I like the shape and think the metal will look very good when you finish working on it.  Loved your writeup and don't really have anything to add except that I agree with everything you wrote and don't let the knuckleheads tell you that just because it has a mouse/rat it has to be from a merchant's sword (that's a very incorrect myth that just won't die...)

[Spartancrest]

Robert there is another interpretation of rats and rice : "Prosperity implied by absence"

"Since ancient times there has been a belief that a house with rats must be wealthy. After all only the wealthy had excess food that the rats could eat. The very poor peasants had no excess food and hence no rats! It developed that the theme of rats (or mice) rummaging through the rice sacks meant prosperity even though no obvious display of wealth was portrayed."    

As you have said the guard must have started out as Tachi otherwise the design makes no sense with the mouse hanging upside down relative to the blade edge, correct me if I am wrong but tachi koshirae did not incorporate kozuka or kogai so the hitsu-ana must have been added at a later date to fit a Katana.

 

Is this similar to the winnowing basket ornament your mother had? [this one is mine I purchased recently from Japan]

 

[Dr Bob]

Dale,  I do believe the hitsu ana must have been later additions.   My computer is unable to display the image you posted.

 

Bob

[vajo]

Interesting.

Normaly it should look like this. 

 

[Spartancrest]

Bob try this link and attachment  https://www.jauce.com/auction/e443156025

This tray is in coloured iron and was made by one of the 'nambu-tekki' companies.

[Dr Bob]

Dale, this is very similar.  Mothers was slightly different in detail, and was purchased in the late 1960's.

Bob

[Dr Bob]

Chris,

the mouse and masu having a definite up and down orientation is why we are sure the cutting edge was down when this tsuba was originally made.  Therefor it was for a tachi.  Now after they cut the two hitsu ana and put it upside down on a katana, it must have looked pretty odd.

 

Bob