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Last picture...

Too me it does not look grafted. In my opinion it looks like that might have been were a second branch grew but was maybe pruned back and got frost damage or just infected

It just seems rather odd that a 2-3 year seedling would have those problems. Also, it does appear that there is that yellow bonding stuff(no idea what it's called) near the upper wound that you can see in the pictures I posted before, and the second to last picture(posting it again) you can see a tiny bit of it near the lower wound, which has that gash of wood coming off of it. Still confused.

Looks like rootstock with failed graft and damage at graft site, IMO. The yellow is grafting sealant as you thought.

Keith

Yes, I am going to agree with you Keith. Looks like two failed graft attempts to me... one below and one with worse damage above... thanks for pointing that out!

That's annoying. Not sure if I want to plant this in my garden now.

It should be ok in one growing season. Why not grow it and see how the Fall color turns out?
Almost all of my Japanese Maples are grown from seed. I don't keep the ones I don't like.
Mike

Here is a link that might be useful: Fall color in my garden.

Holy cow, awesome yard Mike! I wish I had that Seattle climate. I'm slightly north of Dallas, boy do I love the watering in the summer. I also like the seed grown palmatum species. Cultivars don't interest me that much, only a few.

That was actually my idea too, to leave it potted and see how it grows/it's fall color.

I bought around 10, 1 year seedlings last year. We had too warm, and then too cold of temperatures too early for many to develop full fall color. Out of those and all of my other maples, only one small seedling turned entirely bright red, and did it early and for what seemed like a month. The only other maple to fully change was Sango Kaku, which is early changing/reliable... the rest of the whole batch, including a couple other cultivars never changed completely, and the leaves froze off in an early December ice storm. This year I'm finally in my new house and able to plant in the ground.