Kronos

1) Stop bumping 2 year old threads. 2) No one cares.

Page 26 right to left (the actual nakago's are unclear) : Bizen Kuni Osafune Ju (Katsu?)mitsu something Tadamitsu (maybe a joint work?) Bunki san nen ni gatsu hi (1503 2nd month) Left hand side is too complicated for me :/

On page 4 left hand side: 勝盛 Katsu Mori I believe. Edit: this is the Taira Katsumori from Bungo according to the notes by the oshigata 平勝盛. I'm happy to take 4 pages.

Hi Randy, could you also add me to the list, great work btw and also Darcy for the extra info

From Markus Sesko's Kantei series:

Hi Stephen, I'm sorry to hear about this and will keep an eye out although I don't visit many of the UK sword shows at present. Hopefully there was a paper correspondents so you'd have firm evidence to take action in the civil courts at the very least. Apart from contacting the Token society and northern Token society I'd suggest the dealers that visit the arms fairs as they travel around the country a lot and are most likely to come across any of them that have been pawned and what not. I hope you are able to recover your swords in a timely manner.

Listing as a commercial item is what you're meant to do when you sell items though, listing as a gift should in theory be considered fraud if money has changed hands... I suspect either customs have made a mistake or there was no invoice attached which it sounds like, so it was listed as a commercial item, but with no price so customs didn't know how much tax to charge?

They had a papered Sa Yukihide for 200k yen

That's all well and good and I agree about making it personal, however when someone interlopes in a thread purporting expertise which is clearly false when John is seeking actual help then it is not only irresponsible but could have real world repercussions for John; such as incurring unnecessary shinsa fees and so on. I have my own theory that BA Karl paid the Shoshin price for a Tadayoshi that failed shinsa and can't accept it but I digress... John, The best advice I can give that I have learnt in my (albeit short) time in this hobby is forget the signature for now and look at the sword. Compare all aspects, sugata, hada, hamon, boshi etc and only if enough of these are close as far as you can tell is it worth looking in depth at the mei as after all this is only to confirm the work in the blade, it is not the work. If it were I reckon one could turn a shinsakuto into a Sadamune that if looking at just the nakago is indistinguishable from the real thing quite easily. If after that you're still unsure toss Roger Robertshaw an Email who I'd think given his specialization would know as much as any shinsa panel about Hizento.

Those fittings on #1 are exquisite and I think it may be a decent blade if the boshi can be saved which is a big if. You've done very well and I'll take a closer look after the football. Some measurements and better shots of the blades would be good.

There's some good ones at the bottom here: http://www.e-sword.jp/tousougu2.htm Not sure on the prices but E-Sword has a good reputation so I presume they're reasonably priced.

Not at all bitter Brian, there's a fine line of sanity to tread between the gun-toting nutjobs that think there's nothing wrong with everyone walking around carrying fully automatic assault rifles and those that insist on age restrictions for buying the likes of safety razors and butter knives.

From the sugata this would most likely be the sandai akikuni if the attribution is correct, working around oei. The kinpunmei I believe is one of the honami but am at work so can't check until later. Looks like a nice sword that should be shown to a Japanese trained togishi who would have a good idea about the rust.

Looks somewhat like echizen-gane to my novice eyes so I'd think maybe shimosaka, not one of the famous smiths but maybe later generation Kunikiyo around kanbun. Speaking of which Kunikiyo's work is meant to resemble Hizen-to a little.

Looking at greater detail of the mei it seems gimei to me and not a match for shinkai, however as Steve says the cutting test could be real even if the signature isn't. It does look like a very nice blade none the less even if gimei.

I went to the British museum last year and agree the kunimitsu stood out but wouldn't of been able to say why back then.

Very nice, where did you get it if you don't mind me asking?

Side one: 井上和泉守國貞 inoue izumi no kami kunisada Don't have the time or ability for side two...

I don't think he's actually listed in Fujishiro's which would explain it, but as they say “one never sees a ghost or a Gō,”

As Joe took Gendaito I guess I'll tackle Koto: I'll also add Oei Bizen Morimitsu, Yasumitsu and Moromitsu to the list seeing as there's no saijo-saku rated smiths from the Oei era and these were the top three.

http://www.aoijapan.com/wakizashi-mumei-aoe-2 I just came across this and thought it looked fantastic. I can't help but feel if this were anything other than an o-suriage Wakizashi it'd be a shoe in for Juyo? It seems to me that you can get excellent blades like this for a lot lower prices that show wonderful workmanship as they're greatly shortened and just waki's in general.

My condolences to his family and friends.

It's a normal Hozon paper not Tokubetsu Hozon.