Shugyosha

Hi Leo, Welcome to NMB. The signature is 石原兼直 - Ishihara Kanenao.

Hi Ian, You could try dropping Paul Martin a line, doesn't look like he's updated his "services" page recently though. https://www.thejapanesesword.com/

Patrice, you made a big mistake and you own it. A little more contrition and a lot less of accusing those that drew attention to your failure would go a long way towards restoring your reputation.

Hi John, It's 九百十 - the middle one isn't very clearly carved.

I've just booked my flight for next year...

Hi Athanasios, Welcome to the forum. Unfortunately, (and I don't mean to be dismissive, so please don't take offence) you might already know as much about the blade as you are going to. The problem with shinshinto, and to some extent shinto, blades is that they often lack any distinguishing characteristics that can help to place them geographically or within a particular school so it is going to be difficult to tell you much more about an unsigned blade from this timeframe than you already know. If it helps, there's nothing there that suggests that it is anything other than as described so you at least have the genuine article. Did it come with any kind of scabbard or other fittings? The habaki looks like it is better quality than normal so that is encouraging as someone thought enough about it to give it more than a basic outfit and I find the overall shape quite graceful and easy on the eye which is not the case with all blades from this period so I think that those are positive points. What might help when you have a moment is if you are able to take some photographs of the blade as scanned images tend to obscure details. If you are able to do that in a darkened room with a single point of light, place the blade on something soft and on a flat surface and you will be able to move the blade around in the light to reveal the details that are there. If you are able to post some pictures of the detail in the hamon, hada and boshi you may get some better comments. Apologies for not being more helpful and, once again, welcome to NMB and this fascinating hobby and congratulations on your new blade.

Didn't you hear about the ronin in the gloaming?

Another reason for the number might have been that a local lord ordered a number of spears for his armoury and each one got a number on the tang.

What happens in Vegas...

Hi Jean and Glen, Many thanks for your comments.

It’s very clean, absolutely no stains and the colour of the meatball is very red and the ink is very black…could have been made yesterday.

Hi Piers and Jean, Sorry, I'm late to this but my interest was piqued. So a related question for Jean, we are always told that a punched mekugi ana is an indicator of an older blade and that of a "drilled" peg hole is suggestive of a later blade but I've never really known where the cut-off point was and in my head (more than likely incorrectly) had it down as later koto period because: I'm pretty sure that I've seen "drilled" mekugi ana on shinto blades (but I'm working from memory, so I may have that wrong); and I recall Darcy writing that the scratchy signatures on later Bizen blades were done in that way to avoid work-hardening the tang, which would (I assume) be done if the mekugi ana was punched - and I guess that might be applicable to armour plates too and perhaps make them too brittle (again beyond my metallurgical knowledge so nothing I can back up with evidence); also I recall Ford saying that sukashi work was done by drilling a hole or holes and then joining them up with a file or saw. On earlier katchushi/ tosho tsuba there is often very fine sukashi - I had what I believe was a ko katchushi dragonfly tsuba (I have an old photo which is too high resolotion to upload) and there are others out there where the delineation between the wings and the design of the head is very finely done (in the sense of it is small) and would have been hard to achieve by punchwork rather than drilling and cutting. With regard to swords, I guess that it would be possible for the peg-hole to be created by punching prior to final hardening and tempering of the blade but there is the risk that the work would be wasted if the blade cracked on the quench? So, I don't know what the answer is, I'm just throwing stuff out for discussion and I don't want to get down to the level of the cast tsuba/ moldings debate but it's certainly interesting to discuss and any insights would be welcome.

Hi Peter, The title of the first one is tricky due to the position of the mekugi ana. It’s (?) (no) Suke but there wasn’t a Yoshimasa with this title relating to Kazusa or Kozuke which are the province names starting with the 上 kanji - so I think you’ll need to wait for better help there. The title of the second one is Izumi (no) kami.

Hi Zachary, I don’t think that old papers attributing a tsuba to a generic school are a problem. The issue was with old papers and swords being attributed to big-name sword smiths. In this case it would probably cost close to or more than the value of the tsuba to re-submit to shinsa so that bit isn’t a concern - it’s the multiple listings that might be a problem.