Geraint

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.

My family and I are deeply shocked by this news. We managed to spend some time with Ford many years ago when he was down this way, a truly great artist craftsman with a thirst for knowledge and understanding. He has left us too soon and will be greatly missed. Our condolences to his family.

Dear Jeremy. Just to back up a little, and forgive me if I over simplify but you did say you knew nothing about the sword. This is a sword in Shingunto mounts designed and carried by officers during WWII. It has a pierced tsuba/guard which is a nice sign as most are not cut through, the mounts are in generally good condition and it has an unusual black lacquered saya. As is often the case it has been fitted with an earlier blade, you know all about the signature. These are often described as familyy blades but that is known not always to have been the case as desperate measures meant that there was a call up for blades to equip officers later in the war. At the base of the blade is the habaki/blade collar which is unusual in being silver foiled and with the marks that Maxime mentioned. Gimei means that the signature is not by the smith that it claims to be. I can't see much detail of the blade and some of the marks suggest that a previous owner may have polished the blade, bad news and please don't clean or polish anything, just a wipe with light oil will do. I see that someone else has replied while I am typing so all of the above may already have been covered. Ah, not all but John's a specialist so his words are to be taken seriously. All the best.

Dear Paris. You may have somewhat missed the point. Finding tsuba labelled as tachi tsuba is not hard but for various reasons these descriptions are not always accurate. Example 1 Clearly the design works the way it is displayed, ie for a katana, so more properly described as tachi shaped. Example 2 Never described as a tachi tsuba, and for good reason. The hitsu ana are clearly original to the design so this would be for a handachi koshirae. Example 3 A recent tsuba of tachi form, most likely for handachi koshirae. Once again more properly described as tachi shaped, Example 4 The most interesting because it is made by tachikanagushi and the question is was it made as it is now or were the ryo hitsu added at a later date. (This site is worth visiting often if you want to learn about tsuba.) Worth noting that tachikanagushi is a group of makers most of whose output comes from the Muromachi period. You may find this thread interesting. All the best.

Dear Paris. When did you see a tachi with kozuka and kogai? All the best.