Proper school for this tsuba?

[tokashikibob]

   I won a few bids from the recently completed Schultz auction.  Not sure who's collection it was but there were some nice items.   Since I am not a tsuba expert I could not quite make a good read on this one from my references.   Would shoami be proper to put on a card for this dragon?

Best regards,

Bob

 

[ROKUJURO]

Bob,

 

this one looks cast to me. Have a look into the left HITSU ANA. Do I see a casting seam there?

[tokashikibob]

Jean,  thanks for chiming in.  I just took a look under a jeweler's glass and do not see any indication of casting marks in the hitsu-ana.   I did take a few more pictures in case it helps I.d. this tsuba.

 

 

[kyushukairu]

This is what Jean was referring to. It’s most likely a small area of flaking. 

From the additional pictures, the tsuba looks good to me. 
The surface would be termed something like ‘tate yasurime’ (縦鑢目), literately ‘vertical file marks’.
Unfortunately, I don’t know of any group to whom this was an attribute. 

In my opinion, if sent to shinsa, it would most likely receive the attribute of ‘Shoami’, as you suggested .

[Ford Hallam]

I have to say I'm with Jean on this one.

 

The gilding caught my eye immediately, with it's odd colour. Looking closely we can clearly see un under-layer of copper. This means it's electroplated, First a flash coat of copper which bonds well to iron and then a light coat of gold. This is not an Edo period processes, needless to say

 

Apart from the excess flash Kyle has circled there's an area of roughness on the edge of that hitsu, bottom left, that doesn't make sense in terms of the filed ground but is the sort of casting flaw that result from the breakdown of the investment mould at high temperature.

 

Similarly there's a fair amount of poorly defined carving on the dragons body, where have all the scales gone? 

 

And finally theres and area of mould seam still visible inside the nakago-ana at the top. Perhaps they didn't have a suitable needle file to get in there....

 

Someone has gone to some length to make this copy, imo, but filing up a reasonable casting isn't a big deal, it's fairly basic procedure in the trade, so relying on obvious rubber mould seam traces to identify fakes is not reliable. 

 

But these are merely my own observations, for what they're worth.

 

 

[Spartancrest]

We can't see the ura view very well but there are no obvious signs that it has been mounted. No tagane-ato marks. Perhaps a presentation gift?

[Scott Turchin]

I am new to this, not even amateur at best so I cannot offer any opinion, but as I learned from the people on the Tsuba FB group, 10 of mine that were purchased from a woman that received them in 1968 - all fakes/cast copies.

I did learn to check the casting lines, here is a late 1800 or early 1900 fake. Er,let me rephrase that in ebay terms on mine "Tsuba art" 

 

 

 

 

[Spartancrest]

Scott - that is one of the 'better' cast fakes [not saying much]. I was wondering is that a bit of junk on the right side of the seppa-dai or left over casting spill?

Two minutes with a file could have fixed that. [but not increased it's value]

 

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/crane-sukashi-tsuba-Japanese-samurai-135685052

Same cast design, bigger chip under the head and blob lower right hitsu - grainy seppa-dai

Plenty of them about.

 

Real 'quality' piece https://www.jauce.com/auction/u1042220390 - 50,000yen !!!!  [bloody awful]