ivory bone tanto

[Pippo]

Hello, not mine but was a chaps granddads and hes asked me if i know anything about these? I was told they were Meiji made from old or confiscated blades for western tourists? Blades certainly a bit tired. Cant tell if bone, ivory or resin? Any thoughts appreciated, 2 characters at the end of the scabbard.

[Pippo]

[Pippo]

[raaay]

At first glance i would say it is Ivory  , if there is no Mekugi  , most likely a pressure fit or glued into the Tsuka ! so it would be difficult to say much about the blade without seeing the tang . most likely a good quality tourist piece ? IMHO .

[Matsunoki]

Ray is right. It is 100% definitely ivory and a quite good quality Meiji tourist piece. (dating from late 19thC). These hardly ever contain a good blade and likely this is a cheaply made unhardened contemporary one or a poorer quality older one. Again as Ray says, blade usually glued into tsuka and I’ve never handled one with a signed blade - so don’t risk damage by trying to hammer it off!

Apart from the political stigma attached to ivory nowadays, it’s a nice example and before we banned it in the UK it would have fetched around £1000.00

[Rivkin]

I doubt its ivory, most are scrimshaw or walrus. Yes, late Meiji piece.

[kissakai]

Ivory has no 'blood' dots but I don't know if scrimshaw or walrus has 'blood' dots or any other features

 

 

[Matsunoki]

34 minutes ago, Rivkin said:

I doubt its ivory, most are scrimshaw or walrus. Yes, late Meiji piece.

Please look at the cross section of the tsuka just above the habaki. You will see the criss-cross rays that only occur in that form in ivory.

Scrimshaw is usually fashioned from whales teeth …..which this definitely isn’t.

Walrus has a much coarser grain and areas of a more crystalline structure which are not present in these images.

It is possible that they have used a small piece of bone for the mouthpiece on the saya for convenience but you won’t see blood vessels in the main saya or tsuka.

The more modern copies and fakes, mostly from China are sectional bone but the Japanese had no need to use such a cheap material or production method when putting this amount of effort into fine carving. They did make later inferior examples using bone …….but this is not one of them…..they had terrible carving by comparison.

I have handled very many of these both as a dealer and restorer.

 

[Brian]

Agree with Colin. And yes, this is ivory and not terribly done.

[Pippo]

Thanks. Interesting insight jow to tell ivory/ walrus etc. I had wondered how the blade was fitted as no pwg makes so finding that they were period glued as oppsed to' modern glued' as i have seen one example wear the ivory had been broken in attempt to check for signature. Had already advised owner neber to attempted to remove blade. Did anyone have idea on 2 characters signed on ivory?