Geraint

Dear Mark. It has been my understanding that machi okuri is a term that refers to a slight adjustment of the machi without suriage. Once a sword is shortened then it becomes suriage, Of course the machi have been moved but it is a different condition. Like you I thought the nakago was long but as we are working without an overall blade image I am now not so sure, trying to extrapolate from the image of the blade in it's koshirae. All the best.

Dear Seth. For $150 you have bought yourself a ticket to an amazing theme park, one that will keep you entertained for years to come. Just to pick up some of the points made: The mei, signature, has been read and as Steve says, the Bishu part is a shortened way of writing Bizen which is a province, Osafune is a town and the smith;s name is Sukemune. However, many swords have signatures that are false, a bit like finding a violin with a Stradivarius label. In order to know for sure you would have to get this sword professionaly polished and submit it to shinsa, a process where a group of Japanese experts make a decision and issue a paper confirming the signature or they reject it as fake. Kirill suggests that the shape of the sword is typical for those made during the Kanbun period in Japanese history, once you start researching and reading you will find a number of charts that show how the sword shape changed over time, it's quite subtle. Just to get you started here is an unrelated Kanbun sword, https://www.aoijapan.com/wakizashi-jumyo/ There is a wealth of Japanese terminology to get your head around, take it slow and feel free to ask questions. If there is a sword club near you then go along and see what they have, it's endlessly interesting. All the best.

Dear Okan. Just to add, the difference in the polish on the mune is usually the length of the kaeri, the return of the boshi. All the best.

Dear Russell. The smith is Bushu Fujiwara Shigenobu. There is one working around 1661. All the best.

Love it! That's the most aggressive looking bunny I have ever seen. http://www.ncjsc.org/item_sadanaka_kozuka.htm All the best.

Dear Bob. Is Item 79 not Jakushi? https://www.japaneseswordbooksandtsuba.com/store/tsuba-%26-kodogu/t327-signed-jakushi-tsuba-paper# All the best.

As regards mounting, here is what I have done with a couple of mine which had no poles. Makes everything much easier to handle but if you want to go for the full size pole then have at it! Look forward to seeing the photographs. All the best.

Dear Dan. Bear in mind that a large number of yari and naginata spent their lives being carried to and fro from the home province to Edo. I don't think functionality carries as much weight, excuse the pun, as presence. All the best.

Hi Jon. For what it's worth, and that's nothing, here goes. 1 Ubu, nice koshirae. Owari and ranked. The tsunagi looks woeful and you would probably get tired of the kogai. 2 Sue Seki, like the elongated kissaki but the hada would bother me and the koshirae wouldn't get a second look. 3 Ubu with both mei and date, koshirae is nice. Interesting group to study. 4 Claims ubu but I think not, koshirae uninspiring. 5 Fujiwara Takada, nice enough but that koshirae! I think I have talked myself into number 1. Over to you but do let us know how it turns out. All the best. .

Sorry Steve. Yes, Izumo Daijo is an honorific, as is no Kami, Daijo ranking a little lower than no Kami. Izumo refers to the province which does not mean that the smith actually worked there. Fujiwara is an old family or clan name and Yoshitake is the smith's name. The practice pretty much starts at the turn of the Shinto period, 1600 and is more a matter of keeping the right people sweet than earning a ranking because of the quality of your work. All the best.

Thank you for those Matt, they illustrate the shape of the first kanji and the slightly thin chisel strokes very well. I don't have the book 'Japanese Swords in American Collections' by Dan Massey an entry in it suggests that there are two signing styles for the shodai and that might account for the differences Inoted and give us some hope for the posted example. The sword referred to in the book is possibly the sword I linked to above. As regards the titles of the generations, in various places both are listed as having held both titles at different times. Nihonto 1, a magazine published by the Token Society of Great Britain, illustrates a papered katana with the Izumo Daijo mei of the nidai, the Wazamono listing has both, each having the Izumo Daijo title, and so on. I think we have to assume that the Toko Taikan is not totally inclusive in this instance. All the best.

I agree that shinsa would be ideal. The one I linked from Nihontocraft is as close to the one that Steve has posted as I can get and it states the date as 1624 which is comfortably shodai. Most of the mei I have seen are cut with a rather thin chisel and have the characteristic 'broken back' to the first kanji. Steve's sword does not have these features but it seems closer to the Nihontocraft example. Would love this to be just such a result. All the best.

Dear John. Unlike some smith names there are very few Yoshitake to deal with, some sources claim two generations, some three. As far as my research goes none of them was ever Izumi Daijo so I fear we might have unearthed a slip of the keyboard in Marcus' excellent work. (And also Tsuruta san's.) The sword you linked to is an Izumo Daijo Yoshitake so no worries on that score. The other differences in titles is to do with the smiths changing their honorific during their careers, I have a second generation blade with the Izumo Daijo title. Having done some digging into that one made reading the mei much easier of course. There is a good write up here, https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/tokubetsu-hozon-nbthk-jo-saku-nihonto-1867295911 ( I am sorry to have to use this link but I can't find the original from Nihontocraft). The example that Steve has is quite close to the mei on this one. All the best.

A year or two back a very nice daisho koshirae was sold in Bonhams for something like £75,000 so I have a feeling they are out of their depth with the presale estimate. Interesting to note that in the FB write up they say that the blades are unsigned .... and thought to be the work of Omori Teruhide. Look forward to seeing where these end up in terms of price. Just because they are very pretty to look at.... https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/21861/lot/196/ All the best.

Dear Adam. I'm not sure what you are looking at but hagire are often hard to spot. I can see a few lamination flaws but they are not too serious. The usual marker for hagire is a straight line running from the ha through to the rest of the blade, visible on both sides of the blade. Have a look here, http://www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/flaws.html All the best.

Here, here! Nice and crisp. All the best.

Dear Steve. There were at least two generations, some sources suggest three, signing this way and working into the 1700s. The 'handwriting' of the signature is quite distinctive hence my request for that full on shot of the nakago. The tsuba looks like it might be a Soten school work and the saya looks to have been good. If you have a look here, http://www.sho-shin.com/kyoto-horikawa-den.html scroll down to the last two blades, you will notice that the very first kanji is quite distinctive and from what we can see slightly different to yours. Here's hoping that a better shot might resolve any doubts. All the best.

Dear Steve. The sword seems to be signed, "Izumo Daijo Fujiwara Yoshitake". You will find plenty of papered reference examples on the net. A straight on photograph of the nakago would help, the angled shot makes life a little difficult. Is the tsuba signed? All the best.

Might just be the chalk/talc Brian? All the best.

Dear GG. Yep, that certainly helps. When you look at the nakago of a sword a lot of things come into play, not just the signature. The nakago of your sword seems rather long and it does not taper very much, the end is rounded, what we might call kuri jiri and it has sloping file marks, sujikai yasurime. The mei is positioned quite centrally on the nakago. I'm sure you have been looking at a lot of sword by various generations of Yoshimichi, (side note; make sure you are comparing papered examples), and generally you will see that the nakago is well shaped, tapering and ends in a crisply angled nakago jiri. The mei often consists of quite large kanji but they are aligned toward the right of the nakago, often spilling over the shinogi line but not running down the centre as yours does. These features indicate that your sword is gimei, before even comparing the way in which the kanji are cut. My apologies if all this is old news to you and, as has been said above, it doesn't mean that the sword is not interesting, just that you are going to have to identify a school based on other features of the sword. Welcome to Wonderland! All the best.

Dear GG. If you can do a shot of the whole nakago, right way up that would help us here. All the best.

Hi JT. It is the cutting test that is dated, that's right. Tsuruta san's comments suggest that the blade was tested right after it was completed. I can see why you are attracted to it. All the best.

Dear Glen. Yes to all the above but the mei reads Bitchu no kami Yasuhiro. As I am sure you are aware the mei may be genuine or not but when we get those larger photographs we will be able to tell you more, hopefully. All the best.

Ah well, perhaps someone here bought it and we will find out. Commiserations, Graham! all the best.

Hi Graham. If your £250 is based on the auctioneer's pre sale estimate bear in mind that general auctioneers have little specific knowledge about Japanese swords and may be way off. All the best.