Geraint

Dear Kyle. Obviously you will do your own research on this one and others will express opinions but at first glance this does not have the 'handwriting' of the school. As you look at examples you will note a particular style of cutting which is distinctive and I imagine hard to copy well. All the best.

Dear Stephen. Forgive me is this is presumptuous but I am sure that he would want you to remember the exchanges about tosogu and to cheer you on, I very much doubt that he would have wanted you to feel guilty but rather to remember the friendship shared over the years. All the best.

Dear Srinivas. Just to address your question directly, the hard line in the nakago is a demarcation between the earlier shape and finish of the nakago and the shape and finish of the latest suriage. Sometimes when a sword is shortened the thickness of the nakago needs to be adjusted, in this case the smith has filed the nakago above the line but chosen to retain the earlier patina below the line. Of itself nothing to worry about and not an indication of an added nakago. All the best.

Welcome back Dale! All the best.

Dear William. A significant number of Japanese swords came back to the UK at the end of WWII, most were swords produced specifically for the war using different manufacturing techniques to the process used to produce traditional swords. The Seki stamp on yours and the date range make it one of these. In more recent years such swords have been collected and examples have been brought into the country but given the missing mounts yours has probably been here since the end of the war. They were little regarded during the time following 1945, one collector's story speaks of going to see a sword and finding the fence beside the garden path made up of blades stuck into the ground with a wire threaded through the mekugi ana, the fittings had been stripped off and sold for scrap. Your sword would once have looked like this: If all you need is this thread then so be it but if you find yourself interested then perhaps consider joining the Token Society of Great Britain, easy to find on the web. If you want to do some research then this sword would be a Shingunto, pop that in a browser and you will find a ton of information. Great place to start would be: http://ohmura-study.net/900.html All the best.

Dear Kim. Welcome to NMB! Your approach to this sword is very good and will stand you in good stead in the future. To give some more detail, first picture shows a poorly shaped tsuba with a suspect hole in it, perhaps the copyist was trying to mimic a kozuka ana. The blade has a weak overall shape and the area around the kissaki/point has poor geometry. The nakago is again badly shaped and the signature is cut, metal has been chiseled out of the blade whereas Japanese swords are signed by chasing where a punch dents the metal, none is removed, and the repetitive strokes are clearly visible. The grain of the steel is crude and very obvious, hada/grain on Japanese swords can vary between almost invisible and quite clear but on this sword it seems almost to have a texture to it. The tsuka/hilt does not align well with the overall shape of the mounts, compare to the example that Alexi linked to, and is itself poorly shaped, it seems to wiggle. The fittings are close copies but not the right shapes, especially the menuki and the hangers on the saya/scabbard. The tsuka ito/binding is badly done, skinny and not laced or knotted correctly. You say you did not pay very much for this sword so in the long run this might be a fairly cheap learning experience. I am sure that we all wish you a much more interesting sword next time around. All the best.

Dear Jeremy. David is spot on with advice about not judging sori from the koshirae, after all it is a description of a feature of the sugata of the blade. I have a wakizashi where the habaki is made in such a way that when mounted the sword looks like koshizori but on its own it is clearly not. All the best.

Dear............. Or a tanto of course. The punch marks are securing/concealing two soft metal plugs that have been inserted to fill holes drilled in the tsuba. Sometimes tsuba were repurposed and a couple of screw holes drilled to fasten them to something. Edit to add. Hmm. When I look at all the photographs on the listing I can't see any sign of the holes on the face of the tsuba and although invisible repairs are a possibility they certainly weren't for the person who did the work on the back so perhaps not screw holes but stopped holes for some other purpose. All the best.

Dear Simon. Sorry to add to your disappointment, it is always a shame when this happens. Referencing your FB post and this one the 'ring' test is one that surfaces from time to time, coming I believe from an early 20th century article which suggest that a dull sound should lead you to,'suspect a cast or broken piece'. I have found that cast iron rings well unless it is cracked. Another point to note is that an 18th century piece that has survived this long without showing any signs of having been mounted on a sword needs careful examination, not to say that these things don't happen but it should focus you on the nakago ana whereupon the distinctive bottle shape should ring alarm bells. I do hope that you will have something positive in the way of feedback from the seller. All the best.

Dear Nathaniel. With regard to your specific question regarding NBTHK classification I am unable to help you but simply from an observation of the blade I would suggest that this sugata was originally made just as it now is. To describe it as 'naginata naoshi' is to say that it has the form of such a blade, not to describe its history. All the best.

Dear Gerry. I don't think there is a simple answer but all polearms suffer from the sheer inconvenience of the length of the pole from the point of view of transport and storage. As a result the blade is often separated from the koshirae, which is a shame. I have come across three yari fairly recently which come with their saya but not the pole, they now have what I suppose I should call shirasaya poles, much shorter than the originals but sufficient to protect the blades which are in their original saya. Several of the pole arm blades that I have seen for sale are fitted with shirasaya, sometimes quite elaborate but always with a short pole just sufficient to house the nakago. I do not recall ever having seen a tsunagi fitted to a yari koshirae but as with everything in this field I am sure they exist. Not directly relevant to your question but I have a fine yari which has been mounted in tanto koshirae and that has both tsunagi and shirasaya. All the best.

Dear John. I do not think the plate was/is ever welded in, simply inlaid and secured by the edges. Given that fire welding was the only available option for gaku mei the necessary force would destroy the mei and make the process useless. All the best.

Aaaannndd back to the sword! First picture seems to show a forward stoop from the monuchi, as though is has been struck against something pretty solid. Just the photograph? Or possibly just my eyes. All the best.

Dear Adam. Just a wild hunch but is it the same saya that you love? A nice sword indeed! All the best.

Dear All. Thank you for your contributions and to Okan for sharing his tsuka. If you are not familiar with Kunishige then this excellent article of Peter Dekker may be of interest, https://www.mandarin...ary/hirado-kunishige Edit to add: Alex, our posts crossed but I do remember that tsuba well. As for the dragon theme you are right, an NBTHK article says of him,'For an artist, Kunishige did not much vary his motives (sic) because almost all of his works show this subject of a tamaoi-ryu.' (trans: Markus Sesko) Having said that Okan's rather wonderful fuchi kashira show shachihoko, perhaps more suited to the space. All the best.

Dear All. Very pleased to have received this one in the post today, much better in hand than the rather sketchy photographs would indicate. The patina appeared washed out in the photographs but is a lovely deep brown, there are scattered silver and shakudo inlays of shells on the carved wave background and the obligatory dragons and sacred gems. I have long fancied to add one like this to my collection but assumed they would be forever out of reach. Somehow this one slipped through the auction net and is now mine, just wanted to share it with you as I know some here are interested in this school. Enjoy! All the best.

Dear Grev. As regards the second tsuba what is portrayed is a garden hut; thatched roof supported by wooden pillar and bamboo fence. Given time the shakudo will heal and it will look much better It hink. All the best.

Dear Jason. I agree that it's an unusual feature but not altogether unheard of. https://www.ricecrac...471_tsuba_jingo.html Enjoy the journey!

For any who do not know there is a little information about these here, https://www.Japanese...com/tsuba/sanmai.htm The basic quality point stands but one would not be looking for/expecting the level of quality that one might find in other tsuba when looking at san mai awase tsuba and as they are often early then a considerable degree of wear is accepted, I think. All the best.

Dear Colin. Are you teasing? That's an unusual san mai awase daisho, surely? Good to make us look carefully though. All the best.

Gentlemen. Without wishing to speak for Colin, which he is well able to do himself, it seems that the purpose of the exercise was simply to be able to spot Nagoya mono work and tell it from other examples. The uniformity of the punch marks around the nakago ana, while different from the tsuba in the OP, is a distinguishing feature, as is the brownish tinge to the base metal revealed on the nakago ana. So far, so good. Within the constraints of the post that should lead you to an obvious conclusion in the exercise that Colin set. The responses demonstrate that this was a useful exercise for some of our members. The larger point that I feel Franco is suggesting is that none of the three examples used to illustrate the point represent really great quality, either in design or craft. This takes the discussion to a different level, one which, with a certain degree of irony, Colin has consistently spoken to with his emphasis on training one's eye by viewing genuinely high quality examples on the sites of auction houses such as Bonhams. All who have contributed to this thread have been engaged on the same quest, developing a critical and informed ability to look at and assess tsuba, to learn to see what is good and what is truly great. Some have been teachers and some students but that is the best of NMB, is it not? All the best, (And learning every day!)

Dear Lex. Thank you for sharing this sword with us, it's a beauty! For what it is worth I would not choose to describe the hamon feature as anything to do with Mt Fuji, what are often called picturesque hamon such as kikusui and so forth are associated with Shinto swords. All the best.

Dear Jason. Really like your tsuba, research around Higo Jingo school. All the best.

Dear John. Research nunome zogan. All the best.

Can't say that I'm surprised Brian, and certainly didn't mean to recommend the seller, just illustrating the point. All the best.