Henry Wilson

I have just sent him an email about the discussed term. Thanks Rich. Good idea. See you on Oct 18th!!!! :lol:

Hi Stephen I have just double checked in Nagayama and the spelling seems to be correct. There is no kanji which makes it a bit more tricky to work out too.

I am doing a bit of research on Sanjo Yoshiie. From p129 in the Connoisseurs Book under the entry for the said smith it refers to "nioi kogori" Doe anyone know what "kogori" is?

Thanks Rich Nice piece but to my untrained eye I cannot see much of a christian influence. :? Could it be that the reference is very subtle? As it does not bear the resemble of a cross. Also what do you think of the the piece I posted before? Any good for the price?

Could this be a christian motif? http://www.aoi-art.com/fittings/new/05278.html

Hi Ann Marie It is in WW2 officer mountings whose general conidtion is not very good. The blue tassel indicates the rank of the office which I think is a junior grade, but I am not sure. I imagine that the sword probably belonged to a family who passed it on to their son for service in WW2. It was then probably taken by the US forces during or after the war. To me it looks like a real Japanese sword. The blade looks quite old and was probably made in the koto period, before the 1590s. I think this is so becasue of the shape of ther blade and also because it has been shortened. You can tell it has been shortened because the very end of the tang or butt (nakago is the correct term) is straight like a section of it has been cut off. Apart from that I can not say much else other than the two holes in the nakago also suggests age. The condition of the sword is not so bad (no chips or holes in the blade surface that I can see) but I think that it needs a polish to be sure. However the question is "Is the sword worth the money for a polish?" as a polish is very expensive. Just my pennies worth

That is great. You could fully arm a garrison of hamsters in a couple of weeks.

Why is there red laquer in the hi of this blade? http://www.aoi-art.com/sword/katana/06141.html Or could it be blood?

Also I think in the days gone by a smith signing a sword would suggest that the sword belonged to him where in fact he was probably a subject of a lord or monastery so him not signing the bladed was resepectful if that makes sense.... I think that this is very much true for early Yamato blades where the early swordsmith schools were branches of monasteries.

The pointy birds A-pointy-pointy Anoint my head A-nointy-nointy :lol: PS Swords have points don't they?

That is an interesting thread. Can anyone point me the direction of finding out more about habaki schools? What about during WW2? Was there a particular style / school that was used for by the military?

A bit of a kanji lesson http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/5337374.stm

This is good for crunching the kanji http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1R :x

Yasunori and Takenori were the same person. When he made swords out of the shrine or swords for awards he used Takenori. What I think is interetsting is that the nakago is not kijimono but a futsu (regular shape). Yasunori started to use the kijimono shape after his nephew of the same name (different kanji) joined the shrine in 1935 and after that date would only use the the regular shape on award swords etc like the one in question. I went in today to have a look at the sword. It is quite big with a broad imposing sugata. The kissaki is very large too and there is lots of activity which the smiths were discouraged from including when producing swords in the shrine. The hamon is very lively and interesting. The hada is a very tight itame and typical of Yasukuni. The nakago felt very dry and chalky and there was a good bit of active red rust there and in the signature. The sword (descrided as in polish) is not so in polish but nearly sort of 85 to 90 towards a full polish. The habaki is nice and the shirasaya is a bit special too. To sum it up it I think it is a Yasukuni sword that does not intially look like one. On the whole I feel that it is very expensive and the money could be better placed. Saying that I am very tight with my money when it comes to old bits of metal and I shy away from shops as I am aware that price mark-ups can be quite steep. I feel that this sword has been marked-up quite a bit as it is nice and slightly unusual made by one of the top smiths from Yasukuni. Just my two pennies worth.

That is nice but I don't fancy that price

I think Darcy has summed it all up. The second pic of the mei looks older but I too think the mei looks slightly odd just by comparing with documented examples. Just my two pennies worth.

Hi Martin Sorry I was thinking of NTHK / NBTHK papers. Do you mean the torokusho (not the tokorusho ) which is the paper / license issued by the Japanese prefectual education board? Either way what ever documents connected with the sword you have would be interesting to see. Regards Henry

Hi Martin Can you post a picture of papers if you have them? Thanks Henry

From Hawleys there appears to have been about 15 smiths from Bizen that signed MUNEMITSU dating back from 1233 to 1966. The most celebrated was the 5 th generation who worked from around 1478 to 1526 and is described as being extra sharp. He is listed in Fujishiro Koto volume and some oshigata are included. I don't have a scanner so I can not enclosed the oshigatas but here is a transaltion of the text To be honest by comparing your mei with the oshigata in Fujishiro I think that they are not the same as the strokes sizes are quite different. However your tanto could be work by one of the other smiths. I could be wrong thought as I am a newbie too but just my two pennies worth. Hawleys is a dictionary of sorts that lists most if not all known smiths and is a good start in pinning down a smith. Fujishiro is a 2 volume book set that has examples of oshigata and text on the better smiths for the koto and the shinto period. The Fujishiro koto volume and Hawleys are the sources of this info. They appear for sale sometimes on ebay or on this board if you are interested in buying them and are highly recommended.

Thanks everyone. I think that these kind of motifs are not very common and don't seem to have been popular with people in the past. Does any one know or can speculate why? Thanks again.

I have never seen a whale or a squid too. Any ideas why?

Has anyone seen examples of whales or squids being used as a motif / theme for fittings? I have seen a few for octopus, starfish, shellfish, fishermen etc and feel that whales and squids may be under-represented.

Thanks a lot. Very interetsting.

And also look at the chart at the end of the link http://www.nihonto.com/abtartyasutsugu.html It is from Fujishiro and there is the 六代 (I think :? )

Hi Richard I think there is an example on p295 of Fujishiro shinto.