Nice Signed Tsuba

[GetFuzzy2]

Greetings I picked this Tsuba from a good friend years ago and like to share its. I would love to find similar mountings to complete a blade. With that being said can I have some help with translation. Thanks for everything. 
 

God Bless

 

I’ll add the size later today

[ROKUJURO]

My impression is that it is a cast copy, and not even a decent one. Look at the distorted SEPPA-DAI!

The signature seems to be cast in.

[GetFuzzy2]

I’ll send better pictures in natural light 

[Larason2]

I agree cast copy, though I quite like the design it was based on. You can see casting bubbles in the keshikomi zogan (the "dots"), and they forgot to paint one or two of them! The colour isn't right for gold. The "characters" aren't well formed, definitely not engraved, and hard to read because of stray marks, and yes, the seppa dai (part in the middle the seppa sit on) is distorted. Also, the design is identical front and back! You'd never see that on an authentic Japanese tsuba, they always varied the design on the reverse (ura). Not sure we'd be able to get a translation of the mei with the characters being so hard to make out. Thanks for sharing anyway!

[Spartancrest]

Seiryuken Eiju is my guess but not a great piece, that seppa-dai is not right!

 

Quoting Brian from 2019

Posted February 9, 2019

Whether real or not, Seiryuken Eiju was more a workshop than a person I suspect, and churned out some great stuff, but also a lot of $100 tsuba en masse.
This is not one of the masterpieces. May well be cast, I am not sure.

https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/27978-seiryuken-eiju/

 

[Oh and by the way that dragon tsuba was indeed cast - a copy without the corrosion on the right hand side is here https://www.worthpoi...d-by-seiryuken-eijyu ]

 

The mei looks close to this one that was also thought to be cast. 

 

[GetFuzzy2]

Thanks for your insight guys, I’ll post better photos today if it stops raining. Also if a low quality cast why take the time to fit it to a sword? Either way I appreciate all the knowledge.

 

God Bless

[Ford Hallam]

Pity, one of my favourite expressive mei, Seiryuken Eiju, but this is merely a poor cast copy. Google the name to see some much finer examples.

[ROKUJURO]

3 hours ago, GetFuzzy2 said:

..... if a low quality cast why take the time to fit it to a sword? ....

This is sometimes just done to complete a sword for sales purposes (not in SAMURAI days but rather recently!)

[GetFuzzy2]

[GetFuzzy2]

Last pics

[GetFuzzy2]

A few more 

[GetFuzzy2]

Thoughts?

[Steves87]

Well, I'm commenting after seeing the newer, slightly better pictures, and I realise who I am disagreeing with, regardless, I'm not convinced this is cast.

I think this guard has been cleaned from a bad state, and subsequently coated (painted?) with something; hence, making it appear cast. The design is not the same front and back (although close), the nakago ana has been modified on the lower right hand corner (widened), and this is creating most of the visual issues of the seppa dai. I think it is also encroaching on the mei, not the mei encroaching on the ana. The tenzogan looks to not be part of the base material, and I suspect any non-coloured examples are from the coating being missed when they were all otherwise scraped back. This might account for the tenzogan deformations as noted elsewhere. The wave at the 1 to 2 o'clock position on the front, appears to be missing one of the tenzogan dots, leaving a hole. 

The mimi has decoration which if nothing else, shows signs of hand finished work... and back on the design.... I admit I have not seen every single cast example out there, but I've spent a lot of years modifying literally hundreds of modern dojo used swords with "authentic looking" Tsuba, and I've never come across this design before. Ive fitted many antique cast tsuba, as well as some higher end more modern handmade ones. CAS Hanwei did bring out some Tsuba 10-20 years ago with legitimate tenzogan, but most were dragon themed, and none were signed in modern, or legitimate edo smith, mei.

It is always hard appraising through pictures, and being where I am, it's all I can do.... the nearest Tsuba vendor or show, is literally 3000km away

[rematron]

Is it iron? Does a magnet stick to it?

[Spartancrest]

The better images are much more helpful and confirms my Seiryuken Eiju attribution - The small seal or kao easily identifies it in conjunction with the 'grass script' signature, but the seppa-dai is still odd? As Stephen has said the mimi is hand finished and a number of cast pieces were reworked.

The kao is a reasonably common one, see the circled image - these are all seals/kao used by the Seiryuken craftsmen.  I have three with the same seal of the  'Shippo' pattern.

 

 

 

[GetFuzzy2]

Thanks for the positive feedback and I will see if it’s magnetic or not later in the week. I appreciate all the feedback.

 

God Bless

[Soshin]

This was a tsuba owned over ten years ago that has the same signature and copper inlaid kao. The artist Seiryuken Eiju was a member of the Tetsugendo School. I remember showing pictures to Mike Y. and having a nice educational discussion. The tsuba I had was in excellent condition for an antique tsuba, made circa the late Edo Period. @GetFuzzy2 Vern, I hope you find this helpful to your study. 

 

   

[GetFuzzy2]

Thanks so much I do and I appreciate the photos you gave me to be guided by.

[Guest Simon R]

I don't understand the need to check for magnetism. Surely a cast iron tsuba and a forged steel tsuba would both be equally magnetic?

[Larason2]

Magnetism is complicated. Steel, cast iron and wrought iron can all be magnetic, but they can all also be demagnetized. One way to demagnetize a magnet is to strike it repeatedly with a hammer. One way to magnetize something is to strike another ferromagnetic metal with it. So both forging and chasing, which are used to shape tsubas, may affect the magnetism of a ferromagnetic object like an iron tsuba. So I agree the magnet test isn't very useful. Better to use other means of establishing what something is made of.

[rematron]

Fair enough on the magnetism question feedback.  Yeah, my real question is "Is it iron?" (as opposed to kinko) While a magnet not sticking to the tsuba is inconclusive, if a magnet DOES stick to it then we know something.  It's an easy test is it not?  Not like you need to ship it somewhere to hold a magnet to it...

[Larason2]

That's true! You can't really make a kinko tsuba magnetic.