Geraint

Dear Robert. Thank you for sharing these, they are indeed cute. Doves/rock pigeons are associated with Hachiman, have a look here, https://www.discover...go/miyakehachimangu/ Hence also the much reproduced Hachiman Taro tsuba of the same form. https://www.eldreds.....-inscrib_7FA4F9FAE1 An interesting example which doesn't seem to cross cultures too easily, the pigeons in our garden can scarcely waddle, never mind fly. The prospect of them having anything to do with a god of war is pretty hard to grasp. All the best.

Dear Colin. A lovely thing! Just for interest there are some fight manuals which illustrate fighting with sword and lantern, the light to blind the eyes of the opponent or at least rob them of night vision. https://elegant-weap...logspot.com/2015/09/ From memory there was a duel using such in one of the Musketeer films featuring Michael York. All the best.

Dear Jonathan, Remember? All the best.

Dear Charles. I don't think this picture format is much use to us, can you change the format and try again? All the best.

Dear Jeff. What is visible would be Hizen no Kuni ju Tada...... with a good chance that the last kanji would be yoshi though looking at the shape of the rust pit another option might be hiro for that last one. Personally I think yoshi. That is what it reads but there is quite a possibility of it being gimei. All the best.

Dear Jonathan. I am surprised that you have not had a response to this question, perhaps others have used the search feature and realised that they might be re opening a can of worms. However the simple answer is that such blades are not common, especially if you are looking for tanto, wakizashi or katana. Here's a thought, if you buy the cheap one and simply look to study it and then move it on what are you going to learn? You already know what the sugata looks like. Why not wait until one that you really want turns up? Let us know how this turns out. All the best.

Dear Sean. It is hard to tell a great deal from these pictures, however the blade appears to be signed Inshu ju Kanetsugu saku. If the blade is free from serious flaws then the price sounds about right for a wakizashi in moderate koshirae. All the best.

Dear Karatekutya. Please feel free to post your images here, lots of people willing to offer opinions for you. Look forward to seeing what you have got. All the best.

Dear Koltira. Rather say that this type of polish is currently fashionable so any blade polished recently is likely to have hadori polish, Koto, Shinto, Shinshinto. All the best.

Dear Gordon. Welcome to NMB. Well, you have your question answered but if Christian is correct and the mei or signature is shoshin, i.e. genuine then you have some choices to make. At the moment you have a wakizashi or short sword, in attractive but rather severe mounts and out of polish. You are right not to clean anything but a wipe with some light oil over both the blade and tang would be good. Option 1. It has family associations, keep it as is and lightly oil the blade from time to time. Option 2. If the bug has bitten you then some more research might lead you to want to get this restored, please note this should only be done by properly trained experts. Feel free to ask here for recommendations about how to go about this. Option 3. Pass the sword on to a collector who will do the restoration and treasure it. Before you contemplate Option 3 it would be really worth having some of our knowledgeable members have a look at the sword in hand to advise you, depends where you are in the country but I am sure that several of us would be happy to help. (I see that John, Shuguyoshi here, will be at the Birmingham Arms far this Sunday if you are in the area.) Enjoy the journey! All the best.

Dear Jonathan. I would go cautiously here. You know who he is and what he is, this blade does not seem to be a great example of his work. If you look carefully at the images you will note some fairly nasty flaws in the very narrow shinogi ji and there is something not too good about the nakago, my first guess would be that a date has been removed. For a gendai smith one might expect a very tidy nakago with some nice kesho yasurime, as you can see from the oshigata that Alexi kindly posted. The blade is essentially out of polish in in fairly unremarkable koshirae which, by definition, has to be recent. Remember that feeling when you got your Yoshimasa? I don't think you will get that with this one and by the time you have got it here it will probably cost you more. Either way let us know how it turns out. All the best.

Dear Maxime. Ubu Shinto katana, signed, fully restored and in koshirae, you did well. I would have no qualms about the mei on this one. If the tsuba is a problem you can always find another at your leisure. I can't help feeling that after someone has cared for this sword so well there is probably a paper somewhere for it. From your hints I am very sure that I do not want to know how much you had to pay for it! All the best.

As no one else has suggested this what do we think about the cartouches around the mimi representing fan paintings? All the best.

Dear Maxime. A good find, it seems to have been fully restored and in very good condition. Might we see the nakago please? All the best.

Dear all. Just some thoughts: The example from Christie's was from a well known Japanese museum collection and given the price was clearly regarded as the real deal for Horikawa Kunihiro. If you don't yet know who this is, Joel, then you are right about the study part, he was one of the foremost smiths in the transition between Koto sword making and Shinto and trained quite a few very significant smiths. However, he is not the only on signing this way, there are some dozens who the sword in question might be by and a polish and papers would be a great way to find out which one. A great smith will take care that the nakago is well shaped, properly finished and has the yasurime applied to a high standard, all these are clues which should be taken into consideration quite apart from the mei, though mei placement in relation to the nakago and the mekugi ana is significant. The image that Simon posted of the mei of the sword sold by Christie's has started to pixelate due to the magnification, I am sure Simon intended a direct comparison between mei and nothing more detailed. As to the comparison of the two mei, first of all the way a mei is 'cut' is actually much more like chasing, in that no metal is removed, a triangular shaped tool is used to trace the line and every detail of the way it is cut is significant up and including the width of the tool, usually referred to as a chisel. The give away for many recent fakes is that they actually engrave the mei, i.e. cut metal out of the channel to form the kanji. Next the patina. If you examine a shinsakuto the nakago is clean bare metal and the inside of the lines of the kanji are also clean. Over time the nakago ages and the look of the nakago patina is important in making assessments. The Christie's sword has had the time to develop the deep, smooth, dark patina across it's surface but also inside the kanji. I suspect that the Christie's photograph is monotone while Mark's is colour but the colouration of the sword Mark posted looks much more recent as the rust has a reddish tone, the colour inside the kanji simply suggest that both nakago and kanji are of the same age. Mark, you have the sword in hand I assume? What can you see of the yasurime on the nakago, and if it's not too much trouble could we see a picture of the whole blade minus the rather nice habaki? I also wonder what the koshirae is like, just because I'm curious. All the best.

Keep 'em coming Colin! Looking forward to it. All the best.

Dear Mark. Well if nothing else this is good to train your eye as you search out oshigata. Remember the period when Horikawa Kunihiro was working, look at the nakago patina, the yasurime, the placement of the mekugi ana, the relationship between that and the mei and everything else. The Christie's lot you linked to does not indicate whether it has papers or not, remember the auction house rules on the form of words they use and what they say they mean. Have to agree with John on this one but there were quite a few smiths signing this way over the years so the fact that it's not Horikawa Kunihiro does not mean that it's not a good sword. Just for fun here's mine, bought when the internet was not even a thing and the only books were Sword and Same and Robinson. I got quite excited for a bit! Enjoy the search, look for papered examples and those published in Japanese texts. All the best.

Dear Koltira. You didn't ask for a translation of this side so I presume you already have it as Tsuda Echizen no kami Sukehiro? At least there will be quite a few papered examples to compare with yours. All the best.

Dear Sam. Start looking around Nobuiye, no guarantee that this is genuine but a good place to start. Ah, Piers beat me to it. All the best.

Dear Colin. Lovely tsuba! You have probably already tapped into this site but here goes, you'll need to scroll down to find the relevant section. https://www.shibuiswords.com/tsuba.htm All the best.

Dear Yves. Are you asking about historical tsuba or are you looking for a contemporary maker? If the first then yes, of course, just look up daisho tsuba. If the later then I am sure there are several people who could do that for you. Interesting to see how this works out for you. All the best.

Dear Chris. Perhaps it's just been added but I see tsukushi naginata just above the rather Chinese looking glaive and the fukuro naginata, no? All the best.

Dear Lucian. Start with what you have, as you say the hada and hamon are at best indistinct at present but can you make out the boshi by any chance? The descriptions of sugata for swords are generally distinct but you do run up against variations so don't be too surprised that a sword has one feature that doesn't fit the classification. You say that you have read that such blades were cut down polearms or imitations of them and therein lies the key. You have considered the possibility that is is o suriage but there is nothing here to indicate that at present, the nakago is properly shaped with the nakago jiri intact and a single mekugi ana, so unless there is a feature that contradicts this it should be safe to assume that the nakago is ubu. So the question is when was it common for smiths to produce this sugata just as it is? The soe bi fades out and you have concluded that there is no sign of distortion in the blades surface so this was not done in a patch to remove a flaw, so far so good. Have you considered that it is just a weakly cut hi? Is the condition of the nakago really old enough to support your Nambokucho suggestion, or could it possibly be that this sword is an early Shinto blade? If we discount o suriage, in other words this is an ubu sword, then what should the length tell you about the possibility of it being Nambokucho? Just some thoughts for you to play with, I like the sword and I hope that you end up getting it polished so that you can really see what is going on. All the best.

Dear Michael. This appears to be a perfectly genuine yari blade of a form that is usually called hira sankaku, that is triangular with one wide flat. It is of course out of polish and please, whatever you do don't try to polish it as that will likely ruin it, it needs to be done by a properly trained specialist. You might try rubbing the blade only with an oiled cloth, careful, yari are likely to bite! As to age it is certainly pre 1900 but they are hard to date so a safe statement would be Edo period which covers about 1600 to 1850. One tip, pardon the pun, is that the part where the blade flairs out to the shoulder above the tang, called the kerakubi, is a little long which sometimes suggest an older blade. I'm sure I speak for us all when I ask, how about the tanto? All the best.

Sorry Eric, nothing showing for me. All the best.