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We must distinguish between the oldest physical manuscript copy and the oldest content. The oldest manuscript copy of the Ki'ami Bon Mei Zukushi is from the early Muromachi period.

Hi Howard, your cabinet is, as you say, Japanese and dating from the mid Meiji period when such things gained enormous popularity with both the gaijin in Japan and worldwide via a buoyant export market. Some can be mind boggling quality. Yes I have (now retired) spent years restoring such things (as a hobby, not a business) for some of the UK dealers. Missing inlay is obligatory on these! I used to actually carve whatever was necessary….be it shell or coral or ivory etc but it is very time consuming and therefore rather expensive. You need a specialist workshop set-up. I doubt you will find anyone to actually carve replacements nowadays but another trick is to search for simpler panels (made in their 1000s) and very often heavily damaged and thus very cheap. It is sometimes possible to “harvest” elements of inlay that can be adapted far more easily to either fit in or even stuck straight over the top of missing areas. Flowers, leaves etc are common and thus quite straightforward. Faces are a real pain, they hardly ever fit, usually looking the wrong way or the wrong size which usually means a lot of hard work or a vaguely acceptable compromise. The best advice I can offer is to look for panels (auctions etc) in the hope of “do it yourself” repairs.

I have a single signed Echizen piece with a similarly constructed seppa-dai: Certainly uncommon for pieces from this area, though, so not suggesting yours could be Echizen. Damon

Just as a point of interest on the marks, the two seen above on 11157 (possibly Koide) start arond 9536 and are the only ones seen until around 12000 or 13000 when the marks changed location to the guard. Prior to that, there were 6 or 7 different marks used in several different configurations. We now have 49 on file. John C.

I looked at this and I too thought it was a bit of a dead end due to the corrosion, but yes Heianjō (平安城) is plausible for the first three characters. The one after that is... maybe Hiro (廣), or something else. It doesn't look like Masatoshi (正俊).

I think the missing character you refer to is Rai (来), which the 4 generations of Izumi-no-kami Kinmichi smiths used in their name, so the usual mei is Izumi-no-kami Rai Kinmichi, which makes the mei on your sword an outlier. Of the 4 generations, the mei on yours kind of resembles the 3rd generation (late 1600s). I don't know if the lack of "Rai" automatically indicates a fake signature, but...the sword world doesn't much like outliers. Be that as it may, and ignoring the signature, the sword itself looks OK - I mean it looks like a well-made Japanese sword probably from that time period of late 1600s - 1700s.

Ron, in some cases, when corrosion has eaten away too much material, signatures remain guesswork. In this case, I also thought the first KANJI might be TAIRA, but I have no books on blades or signatures to check that. What you could try would be making photos on a plain dark background, in a dark room and spotlights (not too strong to avoid glare) shining from the side. I found that extreme magnification often does not help much.

Hizen is a good call, in my opinion.

Back in 2017 there was a discovery by Yoshihara Hiromichi of the oldest sword book, the The Mei Zukushi from 1351, discovered in the Saga Prefecture Library. This book was discovered on some of the the back of the 277 pages from the Ryuzoji family Documents. In 2021 the documents were restored and put on display - the above video was released then. Here is the original article written by @Markus back in 2017: https://markussesko.com/2017/12/26/the-new-oldest-extant-sword-document/#:~:text=The Mei Zukushi is dated,to reward allies and vassals. The links to the documents and transcripts in the article no longer exist as such I have also included the link to the documents in the Saga Prefecture Library: https://www.sagalibdb.jp/komonjo/detail?id=60657 for future reference.

It is a RJT blade and belongs to the initial Type 100 production run. These were made to the highest standards.

#9 Description repeated + photo attached: 9. 26" katana of WWII origin. Mumei, no stamps. No mounts but habaki and paper tube saya. Unlike #6, this one is clearly a gendaito. It has evident particle activity in both the hamon and hada scattered about. The gunome pattern is much more orderly and well-arranged. There is no evidence of the characteristic dark shadows that one would see in showato. The blade has a nice gold-plate habaki. Condition is solid but with several nail catchers and a solid patina covering the whole blade. A Mino-Seki blade with the appropriate yasurime. Strangely two mekugi-ana, with the top one showing a rough burr that would make it unlikely to be used; my theory being that this blade was ordered for one set of mounts and then changed before final fitting to another mount set. No partial trade on this one. Asking price is $1300.

Unpapered komonjo blades are almost always gimei but it s a nice looking blade regardless. Im not a shinto person but I always recall kinimichi kiku mon being very intricately and beautifully done. The one on this one looks a bit strange. If im not mistaked, faking a mon was a serious offense punishable by death

I have a piece with a similar wavy shape around seppa dai, but not the hitsu anas. One person mentioned to me mine was possibly Nanban with a bit of Hizen influence if that makes sense… Jason

In case some folks are interested https://www.czernys.com/cat/Asta158/

Naze saita sakura ni Koma tsunagu Koma ga isameba hana ochiru

I first was thinking the bling was hurting your eyes, as it does many...but still I enjoy Inside is a very sturdy nambokucho blade with a length just a hair short of katana. The nakago is a keisho style o-suriage.

My Tomita Sukehiro is a sword with a flamboyant hamon. It has some scratches and would benefit from a polish. However there is a lot to be enjoyed without. Date: koki ni sen roppyaku ni nen gatsu (1942) Nagasa: 68,58 cm Sori: 1,27 cm Sukehiro was trained by his grandfather Kato Sanekuni and worked as a Rikugun Jumei Tosho during WW2. He was rated 1 million yen. This sword is in need of a New home. It is priced at €2100,-

Very cool - 876. I also have a Feb 1942 blade of his stamped 875! Yes, very early in the contingency model production and probably just prior to his acceptance into the RJT program. Good luck with the sale, Leen. Nice blade.

Time for another sword crossword! Thanks to those who did the easier one posted on Izakaya. This one focuses on Nihonto and is a bit more challenging. Indeed, I suspect no one can complete the whole puzzle without looking up at least one of the answers (the gauntlet has been thrown). I'm also including a screenshot version for those who are leary of downloading stuff. Enjoy!!! John C. Sword Crossword_3_A.docx

John, Awesome job. You should consider offering these to the JSSUS for publication in their newsletters. @Grey Doffin?

https://www.czernys.com/catalogues/

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I was enjoying my kaigunto last night, and thought to count the rays of the daiseppa. There are 32, just like the 32 petals seen on the Imperial chrysanthemum. Maybe this is common knowledge, but I've never realized it before.