Tiny Tsubas

[peter]

Hello Gents,

i picked up 2 little Tsuba locally and wonder if you would be kind enough ( again) to give me a little informtion on them if possible, age etc. 1 has been reduced in size to fit a tanto as for the other it fits nicely on a small wakizashi i have, i thought at first 'cast' but not so sure.

many thanks,

Peter

[Peter Bleed]

Peter,

I think you have a couple of interesting small tsuba. I'll let others speak to the small sukashi guard, altho is seems to have had an interesting history. Somebody liked it.

The other tsuba is certainly "namban" but smaller than any I have even seen. It fits in the category because of the embellished seppa-dai and the paired dragons. There certainly are lots of cast Namban tsuba, but I doubt that this one is cast. Cast guards were produced in larger numbers and the rarity of this one makes me guess that it is a "one off." I wonder if it might have been made for use as a tanto in a daisho.

This is an interesting piece.

Peter

[peter]

Thank you Peter for your comments , if the Nanban 1 is a rarity i look forward to the comments to come

Peter

[docliss]

Peter M, your Namban, tanto tsuba is most unusual, measuring as it does only 4.6 cm in width. Having studied hundreds of tsuba of this group, I have only seen seven that could possibly be labelled as for a tanto, and the two smallest of these measured 4.7 and 5.3 cm respectively. Most interesting – thank you.

 

John L.

[nagamaki - Franco]

  Peter Bleed said:

There certainly are lots of cast Namban tsuba, but I doubt that this one is cast.

 

Hi, must say, my eye almost immediately began looking for signs of this tsuba being cast, and from the course detail I'm leaning more towards that it is than isn't. Look forward to additional discussion on this.

[docliss]

The question of the casting of Namban tsuba remains unresolved. I personally believe that a considerable number of this group were produced by the lost wax method of casting and, some years ago, Dr Oliver Impey asserted to me, while I was studying the collection at the Ashmolean Museum that ‘they are all cast’. Such an assertion is supported logically by the virtual mass-production of large numbers of very technically intricate guards, many of which have markedly similar physical characteristics and can be put into a number of sub-groups.

 

But is Peter’s example cast? I suspect that, like most tsuba of this group, the ryō-hitsu were probably a later modifications to the original plate. In such a case the edges of the hitsu would be expected to show an irregularity that is not present6 in Peter’s last image. But Franco’s identification of ‘course detail’ as a reason for suspecting casting does not convince me – lost wax casting is quite capable of producing remarkably fine detail.

 

Franco may be correct in his suspicions but, in the absence of any resolution of the general question of casting in this group, to label this tsuba as cast is really not the ‘kiss of death’ it is with other groups.

 

John L.

[Bugyotsuji]

"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a tsuba!"

 

We have to remember that many of these are covered in lacquer, making categorization even more difficult.

[peter]

Thank you all for the replies and comments,

i read on a post recently on the board that cast tsuba where made from brittle metal and therefore no good as a sword guard, if Nanban have been in Japan since 1500's,during feudal times, then why are they made if not to mount on swords? surely if they where all 'cast' they wouldn't last long in battle.

Peter

[docliss]

Peter, your post raises a number of questions, which I shall endeavour to answer:

 

The tsuba that were introduced into Japan from the end of the C16 were imports from China, and from India via the East India Company. Very few of these are extant – I have never seen one, and even the Namban Bunka-kan in Osaka has no such tsuba in its collection. Thus we can make no assumptions regarding their construction. Virtually all of the Namban tsuba that we see are locally made copies from the C18 and C19, a time of peace when swords were worn primarily as fashion statements.

 

For hundreds of years the decarburisation of grey cast iron has been possible, enabling its conversion into malleable cast iron. This process was familiar to Chinese and Japanese metalworkers as early as 1734 [swedenborg (1734)], and could certainly have been utilised in the casting of Namban tsuba, thus reducing their fragility.

 

Finally, you have assumed in your post a protective function for the tsuba. This is a subject that has been aired on several occasions on this notice board and, while the tsuba has been credited with improving the balance of the sword; of preventing the owner’s hand from slipping onto the blade; and of holding the tsuka of the worn sword in an easy position for withdrawal, it is generally agreed that protection was not its rôle. You may care to find some of these discussions on this NMB.

 

Kind regards, John L.

[peter]

Thanks John for the enlighenment always informitive reading your posts. I will look later to find out about different forms of casting.

Peter

[ROKUJURO]

  docliss said:

.....For hundreds of years the carburisation of grey cast iron has been possible, enabling its conversion into malleable cast iron......

As far as I know from my experience as a smith, the carbon content of cast iron can go up to 4%. To convert it to malleable steel you want to go below 2%, so the process should be decarburization. I think this was what you wanted to say.

[docliss]

Thank you Jean; I have corrected the typo. John L.

[kuromido]

Hello all, I am curious why know one weighed in on the little sukashi tsuba? Are these common?

I have not seen many like this, Has anyone else?

PeterD