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Had a Noriaki with a similar vibe.

Hello, everyone. I am an aikidoka (30 years of training, thus far), and I am here because serious interest in nihonto has sort-of crept up on me in the last ten years. For twenty years, the only swords I used were bokken and shinai, but then one evening a friend who is a blacksmith handed me a katana, and going out into his backyard and practicing some suburi was a revelation. So I started to look into what was involved in acquiring one, and my first inquiry was with a friend I know from my native plant interests, whose late father was an important kendo master. I asked C.--do you know about swords? And her answer... "I know a little." Which is to say, more than a little, but then she said, "I have a sword, I don't know what to do with it and it sits in a closet somewhere, but I will give it to you." She had given her father's swords to his students, but one of those students saw this sword in a pawn shop and told her to buy it, which she did, and she took it to K., also a kendo master and sword polisher, had it polished, and put it away in her closet for decades. I thought that what she really wanted was for me to sell the sword for her, so I took it to K., and asked him if they could help me submit it for shinsa, and then help me sell it for her. He knew I was a musician and that I played the violin, and after examining the sword and showing me some of its features (it is a wakizashi in shirasaya by Hyuga Daijo Sadatsugu--I did submit it to NBTHK and it made Hozon. Image below), he bluntly asked me, "Do you know about violins?" I said, "I know a little." Then he asked me if I would look at a violin for him. Of course. He brings out a very low-quality violin, made in Czechoslovakia in the 1920s. Violins like this were made by farmers in the off-season, and they could hack out a fiddle in a day, sold by the dozen to wholesalers ("dutzendarbeit"--"dozen-work"...like all those Muromachi-era quickly-made mumei katanas, right? Whenever someone finds a "Stradivarius" in their attic, it invariably is one of these with a Strad label stuck in it). I remembered the sword etiquette of not speaking ill of a sword, so I endeavored to describe this fiddle in the most positive terms, stressing the real skills of these makers to make a functional fiddle in a day (true), that the materials were very good (also true of a lot of these), and that some of them sound and play wonderfully (also true, sometimes). But I respectfully pointed out one other significant issue and described it using the nihonto term--"fatal flaw". The violin had a sound post crack on the back. I told him that it is technically reparable but would cost thousands of dollars to have a luthier do the work, so this sort of thing is only done on very valuable violins. So, when I again mentioned submitting the sword for shinsa, and then selling it for C., K. looked me in the eyes and said, very firmly, "No, you must not sell it! You must keep this sword, it has chosen you, and you must learn from it." When I told C. what my plan had been and what K. said to me, she laughed and said, "See?! I TOLD you that this was your sword!" And that is how I acquired my first blade. I don't intend to become a collector (I have that affliction in other areas--antique tribal carpets, musical instruments), though there are now two other blades in my life. But K. was right that C.'s wakizashi (below, and--apologies about the quality of the images) has indeed taught me. And it ultimately led me here. Thank you for all the information! Paul

I read this interview with 大崎靖宗 Osaki Yasumune, and the interviewer is 栗原謙二 Kurihara Kenji, a apprentice of the second-generation 小林康広 Kobayashi Yasuhiro. In the article, some interesting story is mentioned, where 靖宗 Yasumune talks about"In fact,we use oil to soften the blade after water quenching to improve it's flexibility.And this method was invented by Dr.Kuto Haruto 工藤治人(The chariman of Yasuki Steel Mill Company 安來鋼製作所 ）.It was certainly a better method for cooling down the entire blade more evenly than the traditional method."

I was the buyer. As a Naotane collector it was a “must have” . The blade, shipped in April was lost in the mail only re-emerging in Japan October 3. It was immediately turned around and only reached my eager hands October 9. The workmanship is wonderful and I’ve barely had time to study it. At first glance the workmanship appears more similar to Naokatsu. Even more interesting, at least for me, was that Tonobe Sensei recognized its unique importance and applied sayagaki attesting to it as a recognized Kajihei forgery.

No not really - but it does look similar.

This Ichijo School piece by Norimoto also has my vote

@Spartancrest Added some waves..you'll see it better now

A great deal of information about the production of machine made blades can be accessed via Nick's WRF thread below. System Kaizen behind the Type 32 Gunto production of the 1930s

Also as it is signed item NBTHK is stating they judge it as Seki Kanemasu (兼倍). So it is authentic signed wakizashi by very little known late Muromachi smith.

Yes Jussi - right up your alley: old, long, ubu tachi. Kimura san sometimes has OK prices so worthwhile a check. But come on - even you must acknowledge that a possibly fake Nisshu sayagaki to Sanjo Munechika or some other potentially lofty signature (attribution?) on the nakago is too far-fetched. The removal of the signature is old - predating Showa 28 as on the torokusho they show two empty squares, therefore clearly there had been characters on the nakago but illegible or merely remnants.

While completely out of my level and out of reach here is bit additional info on the 2 above items. They both passed Tokubetsu Jūyō 28 shinsa and were sent in by same person. Both swords were re-evaluated at Jūyō 49 with added on Kunzan kinzōgan. I believe at Jūyō 49 there were 4 previous Jūyō that all had Kunzan kinzōgan addons (since their original Jūyō pass) that were sent in by same family (however different than submitter at TJ28). The Yukimitsu originally passed Jūyō 8 as mumei Yukimitsu and the Norishige was originally passed Jūyō 24 as mumei Norishige. These are top tier items for top tier collectors. However I think personally I would rather have 10 good items compared to 1 top item. It is a choice of preference and unfortunately I probably will never achieve either one. Apart from those 2 items there are lots of items in the catalog that I find much more appealing to my own taste. There will be wonderful items at DTI, happy for everyone who will get a chance to visit there.

It is very interesting item, thanks for posting it Gerry. Unfortunately I have no clue about the price it will reach but as it is Yahoo auction by Eirakudō I am pretty sure they pull it off and don't sell it through Yahoo JP. One note about the sword, that is my speculation is that I believe the mei that it had was removed. At least it looks like that when looking at NBTHK paper. There is a Hon'ami sayagaki for Munechika (I think dated 1982 [Shōwa 57]) and I think it may have originally been signed Munechika. I would think the signature would have been thought to be gimei and it was possibly removed to achieve NBTHK papers. Now if this has happened like that I am very sad. I would rather have the tachi with gimei signature and no appraisal papers, than mei removed and with NBTHK attribution papers. Of course the second option is financially much more desirable but now the sword is forever altered.

I believe it's just plainly written "We certificate this tanto, attributed to <Kanemasu(兼倍)>." No gimei mentioned. Don't know why the seller listed that blade as Kanenobu(兼信)'s work though.

What little exposed steel there is that can be seen in these images looks like what Yamanaka describes as "lifeless." If that's indeed the case, it makes the question of polish moot.

The new generation of Japanese swordsmith by Tomio Tsuchiko

Done

That looks great! I love the idea of including lighting with different color temperatures. The supports for the swords look very interesting, too. I really like the minimalistic style of back wall mounting, so that nothing in the display is distracting from the art. However, for more flexibility I decided to go with regular stands, but now I feel some doubt again. I have put in professional rail lighting from UFO (Ionic SX series, https://www.fiberopt...-lighting-system.php), they make fantastic bulbs. Super small, individually dimmable, several lenses and snoots, etc. I have a set of 3000K with a variety of lenses (mostly 16 and 20x50 degrees), but I might swap a few out for 4000K after reading about two different temperatures. The glass doors are 6mm extra clear double-sided anti-reflective, with anodized aluminium frames (https://www.vitris.e...and-furniture/Supra/). There is currently a brush in between the two doors to minimize dust coming in, but I don't like the looks of the vertical aluminium element in the middle. Might go for something more subtle, but I'm not sure about an alternative that would be a) pretty dust-proof or even air tight, and b) very subtle. It is a lot of fun to do this project: not knowing beforehand what it will end up like, but step by step ending up with something really nice anyway. Thanks for all these great bits of information and wonderful ideas. I'll post updates as I go. Mark

Thank you Jean, seems like an especially challenging task to photograph blades (especially swords because of the length), I am sure it drives people nuts that are trying to photograph a beautiful sword and have it look like an old polaroid (makes me appreciate the craft behind good blade photos).

Carved in relief with a three-flower wisteria crest, which was the kamon of the Kuroda clan (who were famous for building Himeji castle and fighting for Tokugawa at Sekigahara). Possibly Bushu-Ito school, which excelled in carving in relief. 75x72mm £250

Hello NMB, I would like to sell this Hozon papered Wakizashi Tsuba here on the forum. I posted this tsuba on the forum before to inquire about it in general, here is the thread: SOLD I am not really a tsuba expert at all so I will let the NBTHK papers talk for the tsuba as for description. Any questions are welcome.

All types of strange things were done post-war. It is likely this is the same, a post-war modification. That said, the tsukamaki looks like the type we see in Satsuma rebellion koshirae and the habaki may date from that same time (it appears to be a makeshift piece formed out of a wrapped band of metal).

unf(a/i)nished? Holding it for a while and still no clue about the school.

Please keep your eyes out on government auction sites as often the stolen swords will end up here. A trick that seems to be employed by criminal postal workers and their contractors is that the delivery label is intentionally destroyed and then the package is placed in a bin ready to go to auction. In reality, a package with a damaged label is supposed to go to a special office where it should be inspected to find information about the shipper and/or the recipient so the package can get back on its way. The USPS has 90-days to do this. After that period of time, the package is considered "lost" and becomes the property of the Post Office and can be auctioned. But what we are finding is that the packages end up in bins that are heading for auction in less than 30 days and are picked up by assumed accomplices for a song. You will find police and agencies like the FBI will not touch these cases because the only U.S. law enforcement agency with jurisdiction is the U.S. Postal Inspectors, and from my experience, I have found them to be absolutely not interested in these cases, especially if there is insurance coverage. The other place to keep an eye out for stolen swords is on the Reddit Katana pages as I have discovered that on several occasions the purchaser of the sword from the USPS auction will post stolen blades here, asking for information about the value of the swords for resale. From what I hear from custom brokers and Japanese dealers, these crimes are on the rise and as I said there is zero interest in combating them. When it comes to very very rare and valuable pieces, I urge you to ask the dealers to ship your swords from Japan by UPS. It is more expensive and will almost always involve extra charges for inspections by CBP and Fish and Wildlife inspectors, but in terms of peace of mind, it is money well spent. Hope this helps.

Thanks for posting this. It looks like there were some engravings on the tang, but they were scratched off? The tassel is very interesting. It looks like it was fieldmade and wrapped around the wrist to prevent slipping, rather than to indicate rank.

There are over 350 types of clematis flowers globally. There are dozens of types of flowers that are possible, and adding in "artistic license" the design may just be generic - also were these made in Japan, China, Vietnam or somewhere else? I think we are getting dangerously close to

Lotus clematis What I need is to see what the design was like for the middle part of the flower - I can't imagine I will find it.

Yes, kinzogan-mei were very expensive. If a blade had a Hon'ami kinzogan-mei, especially from an old judge, it was almost certainly the collection of a daimyō (though which family specifically is often lost). And in general you are correct, that kinzogan-mei were only applied to mumei nakago. But there are examples where the Hon'ami applied kinzogan-mei to ubu blades. It is exceptionally rare and all the examples I can think of are from Kōtoku (more on him in a moment). Hon'ami Kōsatsu was in charge of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's sword maintenance. But the appraisal process really seems to have started started with Hon'ami Kōtoku around 1600, which the shōgun granted the Hon'ami family a copper seal to authenticate their origami. This continued through a long and convoluted family structure until the modern day. Old Hon'ami records — kinzogan-mei, origami, etc. — are very, very rarely overturned by the NBTHK. Part of the reason is respect for the old judgements, and part of it is that the old judges had access to original signatures that have long since been lost to us through suriage. Anyways the first five judges are the most important. (The Hon'ami family was around for a long time before this, but this is the important part of the lineage for our discussion here.) 光徳 Kōtoku (1554-1619) has about 10 jūyō, but a mind-blowing 13 jūyō bunkazai 光室 Kōshitsu (1583-1625) and 光温 Kōon (1603-1667) have about 10 jūyō and 2 jūyō bunkazai apiece 光常 Kōjō (1643-1710) has 120 jūyō and 2 jūyō bunkazai 光忠 Kōchū (Hon’ami head 1697-1725) has 200 jūyō and 3 jūyō bunkazai 光勇 Kōyū (1704-1770) has 35 jūyō Kōtoku's judgements are absolutely ironclad. You will almost never see any of his kinzogan-mei on the market, they are priceless. Kōchū and Kōjō are probably #1 and #2 that you will see commercially available, and they are both extremely reputable and legitimate appraisals are almost never overturned. After Kōyū the appraisals start to get weaker... The short version is yes, attributions by later Hon'ami judges are much less reliable than earlier judges. Outright forgery was fairly rare, but inflation of appraisals happened — if you need a Masamune for a gift for the shōgun, but you don't have one or don't want to give yours up, maybe you can pay the Hon'ami fee in advance and get a Shizu re-appraised as a Masamune after "very careful appraisal." Or turn a Naoe Shizu into a Shizu Kaneuji, etc. You do also need to be aware of fake origami. There are quite a few floating around and some of them are very good forgeries. The best ways to tell are a malformed seal stamp on the back, a misshapen kao, or the paper not feeling right. The paper was very tightly controlled and quite consistent, and it has a particular feel to it. The gold (ha) standard reference book on this is Markus Sesko's history of the Hon'ami family, and I would encourage you to buy a copy — it's a great reference.

If anyone is wondering about the price of the TokuJu Norishige and Yukimitsu, they are 36mil and 38mil Yen respectively. I guess that illustrates the power and influence of NBTHK's papers on the market.

For old Honami, only the Shogun, the Kyoto Aristocracy, and some Daimyo families had access. A sword with a Kinzogan mei by one of the old Honami was, at some point in time, in the collection of the Tokugawa, Kyoto Aristocracy or one of the major clans. The Umetada family did the inlay work for the old Honami, and the costs involved were extremely high. I recommend this book from Markus Sesko. Old Honami attributions are considered highly reliable, and in fact form the basis of the NBHTK's attribution tradition when the corpus of a smith is largely mumei. The reason is that they had access to swords that do not exist anymore and oversaw many shortenings of previously zaimei blades. Kinzogan by Kotoku, Kojo, Kochu in particular are held in the highest regards. You bet. After Kochu came Koyu. While he is still considered reliable, the NBHTK has overturned a small number of his attributions. After Koyu, the Honami family essentially started to "print money" in order to relieve the economic burden of the Shogunate and their own. The Honami family needed to find new business models, and the reliability of attributions came down substantially. In fact, some later Honami are so unreliable that the saying goes that the smith is 'anything but the Kinzogan' Yes, although little is known on the topic as these Kinzogan generally do not bear a Kao. The exception is Honma Junji who did a few Kinzogan mei, inlaid by Gassan. Today, the NBHTK is essentially the spiritual descendant of the Ko-Honami.

With apologies to all interested parties, many thanks for your interest but this amazing gun has just found a new owner.

Hi guys thought I would share my gunto although I'm not sure how high class the fittings are made by Shigetsugu 1938 on the 8 month at the estate of Toyama Mitsuru

Something you don't see everyday; all four major tassel types. The Colonels sword has an aluminium Saya, all have high quality Koshirae. No doubt a few of you have this setup already but it's been a personal milestone of collecting to have all four on high quality examples.

Thought I would share old family blade (Echizen Seiki circa 1684 papered) in Gunto mounts. Retention strap and Kuri-Gata still attached.

I am still taken by the minute detail found on some Gunto. This a 1943 "98 MASAYUKI showing clearly the gilt highlighted components, and clearly the two metals (brass and copper applique) on the Kabutogane and Sarute. Probably not high class, but high quality and workmanship for WW2. Gunto stuff took years to be appreciated for what it is, and I for one am thankful some beautiful stuff is being preserved and cared for.

Brandon, I did see your Easter Egg and had a question about it, but I am slow off my fat hakama. I'll get there later today - have to go outside now and continue beating back Mother Nature (the cruellest bitch of all!!!). Watch this space. Barry "Gunnadoo" Thomas.

Gendaito by Akinori Forgt to add the link to more photos: http://yakiba.com/Kat_Akinori.htm ** Damn, trying to remove the extra post or the photos. Not working out!!

Here's a few. 1) Type 94 with mumei blade that was beat up, but mounts were minty. Regrettably let this one go. 2) Type 98 w/ mon. Seller was so kind to shine up the fittings for me before shipping it out. This one also has shrapnel damage to the scabbard & tsuba. The blade just has some minor pitting from the opening and was fortunately not damaged itself from the shrapnel. 3) Type 3 with copper fittings & nice star stamped blade.

Of course! Slip of the brain there!

Shamsy. The knots on Kaigunto’s dont tell rank. They where solid brown.

It is interesting that Naval officers in Submarines still had full size Kai Gunto, even with the size constraints of the vessel. I have seen crew refer to tank crew, aeroplane crew and submarine crew. So I think "crew" swords are post war marketing jargon. The shorter blades were often worn by non-combat office and administration staff, who, through rank or status were entitled to carry a sword.

I think this is again a case of you could order anything that you could afford at the time. If you brought a blade from home, you could pay to have it put into custom mounts. Maybe this guy had a regular Kai Gunto and wanted his ancestral tanto in similar ones. We have seen various custom mounts and fittings, so I find examples like this logical if not unusual and basically one offs.

First of all Steve, like me, your sentiments about keeping this thread "alive and kicking", echo mine. I get a great kick out of seeing other's GUNTO. Your question on the "silvery" metal, it is more than likely GERMAN SILVER, as mentioned in Dawson's book. German Silver is 60% copper, 20% nickel and 20% zinc. It is easily worked, shiny, can be joined and is cheaper than real silver. It is corrosion resistant so ideal for Navy koshirae. And of course, nice little wak, and worthy of posting on this thread.

A couple. One more.

Not sure if this belongs here since I'm not a gunto collector, but here's something that snuck in many years ago among the koto stuff. It's been "tarted up" a bit, either during the war or after, I suppose. The ito has been re-wrapped, the fittings all silver-plated, the saya repainted or re-laquered, and the tsuba replaced with a civilian one. I was told it once held a Yasukuni-to, long gone.

Some GUNTO that are nice. This is why they are being sought after by collectors.

Well spotted, I actually did a post some time last year asking if any one has ever seen the closed boars eye, as seen on this KAI. Basically no one has. This is a stunning KOSHIRAE, and the closed boars eyes add some rarity.

Hello all. Unusual ito on the tsuka ? Has anyone seen one like this before ? Civillian tsuba and a fully wooden saya lacquered in a rough brown colour with the remains of a navy tassel. This ensemble housed a koto blade norinaga that I am still waiting to arrive ! Chris D.

Hi Hamfish, yes the 94 is pinned, the 98 is drilled, do you have any thoughts on this> Neil.

Acquired this Kaiken tanto recently. Struggled with the lighting a bit... "Kaen no naka no Fudo-Myo-o". Yanagimura Senju, on blade by Tosho Kanbayashi Tsunehira. Nakago signed Senju. http://www.nihonntou.net/newpage5.htm