By cspage April 20, in Tosogu. First of all, I would like to say that I have absolutely no expectations of this tsuba. I got it purely for its oddities at least from my brief experience and hope there will be comments and observations from which I can learn. I changed the title of this post to elicite attention from some metal workers. Firstly, the surface of the tsuba has a waxy kinda of feel to it, almost like someone had taken shoe polish to it.
Secondly, the sekigane at the mune end of the nakago ana looks like someone took a chisel to it on the omote side, very bright and freshly cut. The inside surface, however, shows the a consistent aged patina as the rest of the inner side of all hitsuana.
The ha end sekigane of the nakago ana appears to be silver? Not lead, very silvery. Thirdly, the turtle sukashi looks and even feels like it was removed from another tsuba or made separately and somehow added to this one. And finally, the hexagonal pattern of the surface is carried over onto the mimi which is cool. Colin, unless there is shoe-polish on this tsuba which I doubt, but you can cook it in clean water for a few minutes to check if there is some, the "waxy feel" would indicate good patina.
I don't want to risk the scorn of more knowledgeable people here, but I think that we can safely assume that this is a 19th century Nobuiye style piece. The copper sekigane looks bright maybe because someone, while cleaning the plate, has not spared the sekigane.
I have made this error myself once. Also, the copper sekigane is probably newer anyway that the silver-alloy one. The turtle sukashi is a bit of a mystery, but I doubt someone would go through the pain of having it transferred form another tsuba.
