Geraint

Dear Marcus. Welcome to NMB and to the wonderful world of Japanese swords. Forgive me if anything I say is already well known to you but here goes with a few thoughts. Alex is quite right about auction houses in general, read the conditions of sale and they are very cleverly hedged about with caveats, reasonable from one point of view in that they are generalists and rarely have the detailed expertise that is available to you on this board for example. From the buyers point of view it is really caveat emptor and there is no substitute for seeing the lot in hand. Once you bid then you're in! Personally I would resist the urge to try to negotiate this one back, you may strike lucky but you may not and,'my mate on the internet tells me it's fake' will not cut much ice. Whatever you decide let us know how it goes. From the photographs this one came from Japan and it has become a commonplace that if a sword of any quality comes out of Japan it will have authentication papers from one of the organisations that everybody trusts or it is assumed that it failed to get that authentication. The auction house correctly identified the paperwork as registration documents, nothing more, these are not authentication papers, some of which can be found here, https://shibuiswords.com/papers1.htm Many will advise you to buy only papered swords both for the security of your investment, (if any such can be claimed), and so that you will learn from known examples. In short collecting can be rather like paying your dues to earn the knowledge What you do have is a genuine Japanese sword in koshirae, to start with I am sure you will want to compare the mei with other examples, of which one here, https://www.e-nihont...products/detail/1471 See if you can get a sense of the 'handwriting' of the smiths. What gave it away to Alex so quickly? Following that you will probably dive into the Sukesada lineage and Bizen swords in general and that is before you start to understand what you can see in the sword itself. If you do not yet have some of the basic books then buy a couple and start to understand what the terms mean, it's fascinating. Lastly there is the Token Society, https://to-ken.uk/ Hope some of that helps a bit. All the best.

Just to add to Peter's observation it seems that whoever did the tsuka ito was not experienced as the wrap appears to be all one way rather than alternating. An easy thing to have rectified. All the best

Perhaps they have changed the entry but it is now described as masame. On the face of it this does seem like a lot of money, not forgetting the additional charges payable should you succeed in buying it. Be interesting to see what happens. All the best.

Dear Andy. I'm sure you have already tried this but just in case....... https://www.bonhams....e-art-part-i/?page=8 All the best.

Dear Bruno. Thank you for sharing this tsuba. While researching a somewhat similar tsuba I came across this, “Shigure-tei” was the mountain retreat of Fujiwara Teika, where he compiled the anthology “Hyakunin Isshu”, and there is a Noh programme titled “Teika”. A traveller monk took shelter from the rain in an abandoned cottage. A lady appeared and guided him to a tombstone coiled up with creepers. It was her grave and she was the princess Noriko, whom Teika loved and grieved her death. The cottage was Shigure-tei and Teika’s soul dwelt in the creepers. The monk recited a sutra for them, which let their soul rest in peace, and they were able to depart for the travel to heaven." All the best.

Dear All. Minh posted this sword in an earlier thread where he got some feedback, hence his remark about information from members. Be a real shame if someone believed the translation provided by the auction house and thought they were getting a Masayoshi! All the best.

Dear All. Some really lovely things, thank you for sharing, please keep them coming. One more in iron with silver and gold nunome. Shishi and peony themed. All the best.

Dear All. A late iron one. All the best.

And just to add, the first two examples that Dale has provided are illustrative but in both cases it is the sword blades that are papered, not the koshirae so we would reasonably assume that they are later than the blades. (Unusually the first has both kodzuka and kogai and the second has very late mounts, have a look at the sarute.) In the original post the o seppa are cast integrally with the tsuba and this is very late and poor quality, the second o seppa has at least signs of having been part of a koshirae. All the best.

Dear Mick. I'm slipping, here's the sword from the Festing collection. Not Tadayoshi at all. Description: 'A Shinshinto Bizen Yokoyama Katana by Sukenaga, dated 1850. The blade of deep koshizori, shinogi-zukuri with chu-kissaki, gunomr-midare hamon of nioi and ko-nie with yakidashi, midare-komi boshi, ko-itame-hada, ubu-nakago with kiri-yasuri, mei Kiku-mon Ichi, Biyo Osafune Kyo, Yokoyama Kage (no) Suke Fujiwara Sukenaga, dated Kaei 3rd year (1850), 8th month; length 70.5cm, curve 2.4cms, in army mounts, inscribed MAde by John Latham F.S.A. Sword Cutler. Maj-General F.W.Festing, June, 1950, with a chrome and leather scabbard.' All the best.

Dear Ste. To add a little to that Nakahara lists two reasons in 'Facts and Fundamentals'; first that Daimyo conforming to rules laid down about the wearing of daisho yet still wanting to be known as carrying a great blade would shorten earlier masterpieces for such use, second that the Tokugawa, seeking to reward someone, took to giving swords instead of land and running out of great names shortened lesser swords and had them attributed to a great smith by the Honami. A form of social agreement enters into this, something along the lines of, 'Your actions deserve a Norishige but I don't have one so this shortened Uda tachi with a Honami attribution will do instead.' Followed by, 'Thank you for recognising the magnitude of my service with this magnificent sword.' I have also often heard swords described as, 'the top of an old tachi.' The suggestion here is that at some point an old sword was damaged and rather than waste it someone turned it into a wakizashi. In most cases this applies to a rather skinny blade which has seen a lot of polishes and is inelegantly shortened. I think the change from mounted to dismounted fighting has more to do with the sugata of the sword as made, though I also think that the shorter samurai argument holds water. The last point I would make is that deliberate fakes abound and some smiths were known to work in a style so close to a great but early smith that it was quite the thing to take one of their swords and either shorten it or remove the mei to pass it off as the work of the earlier smith. As to the Shinto/Shinshinto question collectors seem to work to the rule that these swords are relatively plentiful so if you want a Tadatsuna katana it is possible to find one with an untouched nakago so that you can appreciate the sword in its original form, why would you settle for osuriage and lose the original sugata and nakago complete with mei? Because of this a mumei Shinto begs the question as to why it was not signed, and there are reasons offered for this happening, However a mumei Shinto which might be papered to a certain smith would be less attractive than a signed example also papered. Forgive the lengthy ramble and I hope I have answered some of your questions. Others will add to this perhaps. All the best.

Dear Mick. I have a copy and will look it out. From memory it was a Hizen Tadayoshi blade. All the best.

Dear Martin. Thank you for this interesting article. I look forward to seeing more of this fascinating sword when you have the time. More recently Field Marshal Sir Francis Festing had a Katana mounted as his General Officers sabre in the UK following WWII. I am sure that there are other examples where European officers had Japanese blades mounted in appropriate style for their own military use. All the best.

Dear Emil. As no one else has answered you I will offer my thoughts. I have not been able to find this idea in Nagayama so I may have misunderstood your question. The mitsukado is not generally considered to be an indication of the smith's skill or lack of it, the boshi most certainly is. During yakiire the smith is controlling a sometimes very long blade and controlling the temperature in the boshi is a very skillful thing to do. Hence a well done boshi, one which demonstrates the smith's control, is indicative of a high level of skill. (See page 108 in Nagayama) The smith is responsible for the sugata of the sword and in this case forges the kissaki to shape and then the polisher is the one who finally defines the precise shape of the blade though in theory the polish will remove very little metal and the polisher will have a high regard for the intentions of the smith. It is conceivable that a poor polish might result in the mitsukado not being geometrically correct, the three lines that meet here are the result of three surfaces and poor shaping could result in the lines not meeting here. I have seen polishes where the yokote has been poorly applied and seems to miss the junction, for example. You would not expect to see such things from a properly trained togishi. Hope this helps. All the best.

Dear Bruno. I wonder if the first kanji is not ryo? (150 in Self and Hirose) All the best.

Dear Mick. I always feel that this school has quite distinctive handwriting. If you compare here, (From Aoi Art), of note are that your example has a downwards slope to the left, the papered one is very straight, individual kanji are looser and, of course not a Bizen nakago shape. So, good call. All the best.

I knew you could do it Dale! Yes indeed that is the very one, several other guards from that lot are on sale from the same vendor that I bought this one from. The V&A example is an interesting comparison too. Thanks for sharing yours Steve, the observation about Hizen tendrils is very interesting. That will give me something to get my teeth into. All the best.

Just for fun, this sweet little Namban just came home and I thought some of you might like it. It's just 61mms by 53mms and in a form that I've never seen but I'm sure Dale can come up with one. All the best.

Dear John. Just to add, this is potentially a very restorable mounting and if the tsuba is carved wood to match the hilt then the crack is not such a problem. If the blade is less than 12" from the tip to the notches then it is a tanto, these are sometimes fitted with mounts that are rather longer than the blade. As long as the blade fits well in the mounts then all good. Looking forward to seeing the next ones. All the best.

Dear Cornelius. I think Yoon has suggested that the signature may bee Nobumitsu rather than Nobuiye. All the best.

Dear All. Just out of interest I checked the sale catalogues and there were three Kanemitsu, one in each part of the sale; one is a tanto, one has kinzogan mei and Juyo certificate and the last is a very different sword to this one. All the best.

Dear Daws. As you will see from the link the two kanji above Kaboku are Ohmura, Now comes the challenge of seeing if you can find papered examples to compare. All the best.

Dear Jake. I promise I'm not stalking you but I think that in this case you got away with it. My observations would be that the posture of the shishi is stiff and not naturalistic, the katakiri is rough and the tsub looks as though it might have been polished at first and then an amateur has gone over it with a punch, possibly to obscure damage. Notice how the ground texturing covers the seppa dai and also goes over at least one of the copper sekigane. oh, and I think the eyes are gilt rather than stones. All the best.

Dear Jake. Just for comparison. https://www.japanszwaard.nl/zs-t7.html All the best.

Dear Lukas. In agreement with the comments so far posted but just out of interest if you compare yours with the two examples that Steve helpfully posted you might find the exercise instructive. Of the three I would pick yours. All the best.