Geraint

Dear Curran. Wholeheartedly agree with your approach but cannot comment on the link as Yahoo does not support service in this half of the world. All the best.

Dear Peter. Some information to get you started here. https://nihonto.com/shinkai/ Can we see a shot of the whole nakago please? As you may already know false signatures are common on Japanese swords and the more significant the name the more caution should be exercised. Whatever the outcome this is a really nice start to your studies. All the best.

For horn kashira and formal daisho mount see the bottom of this page. http://www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/daishokoshirae.html All the best.

Dear George. Here are a couple of links to look through. The first is all good but page 12 specifically addresses the plain black kashira part of your question. The second has a rather fine handachi which relates to your question about the hole located in the kabuto gane which is the name for the cap on handachi koshirae. https://to-ken.uk/onewebmedia/Ashmolean Presentation - Formal Koshirae vF.pdf https://to-ken.uk/resources/koshirae/ Handachi koshirae are to my mind much less common than your estimate of one third of swords and vary from the downright workman like to the highly sophisticated. Hope some of that helps. All the best.

Dear Geraint. Welcome to NMB! all the best.

Dera Erik. Thank you so much for checking this out. You are right, that kanji is not common. Rohan has nailed it with, 武州住内記康重 Bushu [Shitahara] ju Naiki Yasushige and indeed I have found one other jumonji yari by the same smith. It was a very long shot but the combined good will and ability of the NMB has won out once again. When we get some light here I will post a photograph of the yari just for interest. Thank you all for your help. All the best.

Rohan, thank you. I really think you are onto something with that last one! The kanji just after ju looks remarkably like the one for Naiki. I'll do some digging. Thank you all very much for your help with this. All the best.

John, thankyou. That's about as far as I have got with this. I think there is something before nori/ki but I can't resolve it. I can't assign fair princesses but I reckon you are in good standing with St Jude. All the best.

Jean, the photgraphs are actually better than I was expecting, in hand there really isn't much to go on. I was hoping that someone who owns a sword with the mei might recognise the fragmentary bits and at least suggest a name to go on. If not then it stays a mystery and I keep on going crosseyed. All the best.

Dear All. I have had this jumonji yari for some time and have failed to decipher the much corroded mei. I realise that this is a long shot but wondered if someone could perhaps recognise the mei? The pictures are not the best but they are what I can get at the moment. Thank you in advance for any suggestions, I'm going cross eyed! All the best.

Dear All. I think defining nanako shi as non artisans is causing a problem here. Quite evidently the work, especially at its finest, requires great skill and there were workers who specialised in it. We know that not all nanako is top flight. All the best.

Dear All. I am certainly not knowledgable enough to offer an attribution on this tanto which we all agree is rather lovely. However here are some thoughts to ponder, or not, of course. Some years ago now the Token Society of Great Britain managed to secure a loan of the exhibition, "The Beauty of Shinsakuto" and bring it to London. It was a knockout! Members were priviledged to have both a hands on viewing and a later meeting with Sumitani Masamine who brought along an utsushi of the famous Nipongo su yari which was awesome. The relevance to this topic is this, swordsmiths have often challenged themselves to understand the methods and working practices of great masters by producing utsushi mono. The examples in this exhibition were not copies of the sugata married to an ubu nakago, if the subject sword was o-suriage and had multiple mekugi ana then so would the copy. The smith made every attempt to produce an exact copy, not as a means of deception but as a path to understanding what had been achieved. In this context if a Hizen smith had set out to follow this practice then one would certainly not expect him to use typical Hizen hada, using that as a kantei point here is not useful. As far as the chikei formation goes then I have always associated imozura rather more with a feature inside or associated with the hamon than purely in the ji, but as I say I know very little. If you find the idea of smiths generating forgeries unpalatable then reflect on the culture of the time when daimyo were certainly not afraid to have a sword shortened and then attributed to a famous smith so that it could become a gift worthy of the recipient. Everyone knew what was happening but went along with it. Of course it is also not beyond the bounds of possibility that the nakago of this tanto was altered by an unscrupulous dealer after it had left the hands of the smith. I am aware that none of these reflections are in any way going to resolve the problem of the dual attribution but I hope they give some food for thought. All the best.

Dear Jeff. It is not uncommon for tsuba reproductions to be cast in brass then covered with a dark patina which is strategically polished off to reveal a goden colour. It seems that this might be the case here judging by the colouration around the nakago ana. All the best.

Dear James. It is not entirely unusual to have gold menuki, what you do next is of course up to you. I would love to see a picture of the entire koshirae but the really nice wrap is going to need redoing and you need to find someone who can do it justice. While this is happening you could remove the menuki and replace them with similar shakudo examples. For me the decision would hang on whether the koshirae was original or not, I note that it does not seem to have seppa, do you have a feeling that this has been put together or perhaps the tsuba has been swopped out? The tsuka appears to be original and attractive so my perspective would be re wrap just as it is including these menuki. Dealers and collectors have always been inclined to swap fittings, more money to be made selling the boxed fittings and putting together a koshirae. Personally I would regard that as heresy and would want to retain anything original about the sword. If the seppa are indeed missing then you might have to change the Namban tsuba for something thinner, add seppa, and that would change the dynamic somewhat. Looking forward to a picture of the whole thing and what others have to say. All the best.

Dear Chris. Now that Mauro has confirmed the translation of the mei it is time to ask yourself whether such a maker would fit tanzaku in the rather crude way that these have been secured and indeed if he would fit one of them right over them top of the broken peg. Regardless of your conclusion they are very nice menuki. All the best.