owari, kanayama, shoami, or something else?

[jct3602]

Thoughts on origin?  Two small files are from sale pictures; other is in hand in natural sunlight; attempted to crop but for some reason the program would not show the cropped pictures.  Will send reverse side in following.

 

john

[jct3602]

second picture; tsuba is 7.05 cm high by 6.86 cm wide; thickness is .56 cm at edge and .46 cm at seppa dai.  Listed weight on sale site was 83 grams with dimensions of 7.0 x 6.8 x .5.

 

john

[FlorianB]

My 50 cents: I would go for Shoami because of the rounded rim (as far as I can guess it) and the kidney shaped openings. There’s a spot on the rim about 8 o’clock, but I can’t decide if it is a tekkotsu or just corrosion.

 

Concerning the large box shaped openings there was a discussion of a similar piece about a year ago: www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/32529-cross-shaped-shoami-tsuba/

Much useful information there.

 

Florian

[Soshin]

I would say Shoami School circa the early to mid Edo Period agreeing with Florian statement above. The marks at 8:00 is likely just serious corrosion of the plate. It hard to get a feel for the real age of the tsuba from your photos as the focus is a bit to soft and not uniform across the plate of the tsuba.  

[MHC]

I've never seen chisel marks that far away from the nakago-ana before, is this normal?

Seems too far away to effect proper fitment, just causes damage instead.

 

Mark

[FlorianB]

Those kind of tagane could be found sometimes.
I agree they have none or only a small effect in altering the nakago ana.
Because of this IMHO it is most probably some kind of signature or perhaps refernce marks for a later modification of the nakago ana.

 

Here’s an example out of Kremers’ book “Sukashi Tsuba”. Although the tanghole has been modified already similar tagane could be noticed.

 

 

Florian