Large iron dragon tsuba. Comments/opinions please.

[Matsunoki]

Hello again from the UK. 

Bought this one recently on eBay. (That was brave of me!)  Reminds me of the large crab tsuba I posted a few days ago. I really like it…..the sinuous “smooth dragons” are beautifully depicted. Very vigorous. The rust isn’t as bad as the images suggest….I’ll sort it out.  H8.8cm W8.8cm T4mm at raised rim
Any views, comments, opinions on age/school etc will be very gratefully received.

Thanks for looking.

All the best

Colin

[Brian]

I think these are water dragon.

[Spartancrest]

Nice bold design - but what has happened here on the ura? - 

 

Tagane-ato way off the mark? Was it done by Jackie Chan in "Drunken Master"? Because the guy who did it was drunk! Lucky it is in the seppa-dai and on the back - it is just . . . ODD [No offence intended but someone in the past did something that detracted from the workmanship]

 

Do you think there was a signature that is now lost or is it just the texture of the metal near the kozuka hitsu [omote side]?

[ROKUJURO]

16 minutes ago, Spartancrest said:

.....Was it done by Jackie Chan in "Drunken Master"? Because the guy who did it was drunk!....

Probably. But I think it is not too distracting, so it remains an interesting TSUBA, I think (AIZU SHOAMI ?).

[Bugyotsuji]

Nice Ama-ryu. I like this tsuba, and the tagane may be hitting on the thickest part of the iron, to help squeeze the walls of the nakago-ana slightly closer together... (?)

[Matsunoki]

1 hour ago, Bugyotsuji said:

and the tagane may be hitting on the thickest part of the iron, to help squeeze the walls of the nakago-ana slightly closer together... (?)

Piers, I would  agree with this. Not based on my non existent detailed tsuba knowledge but on my wider experience with Japanese craftsmen…..they hardly ever do anything accidentally…..deliberate precision is mostly the norm. The tagane-ato (new word for me- thanks) are struck in a trail towards the nakago ana….perhaps to avoid too much hammering in just one spot….to spread the stress? There are other smaller hits that do not show in the images. Or maybe Dale is right and he had been on the sake🙂

@Spartancrest….don’t think there was once a signature…it’s just the surface texture illusion which is pretty consistent/similar all over the seppadai 

The more I look at it the more I admire it. My old  taste in tsuba was for the “art tsuba” made during the Meiji period …big flashy mixed metal pieces but now the quiet tasteful restraint of iron has really “got me”.

Any idea re age?

Thanks guys.

All the best. Colin

[kissakai]

Welcome to the dark (iron) side

[Spartancrest]

On 2/24/2023 at 10:27 PM, Matsunoki said:

Bought this one recently on eBay. (That was brave of me!)

I found this today - You will notice the two dragons are almost identical to the ones in the first post - I have no way of knowing what the ura side is like.

Same artist?  [becoming more convinced "Unique" is hard to find!]

It is the last image on this YouTube site