SAS

polish looks fine to me, nice sword. Lot of interesting activities in the hamon.

Somebody has been tidying up in here!

A fully tempered mune ( this is not really correct terminology) would be a way to control the amount of sori induced in the quench, and temperature to a lesser degree will as well. This is a recognized traditional technique, though i am unable to specify a school or period to your sword. The sugata certainly speaks to the time frame, though.

The hada reminds me of thermal alloy banding that can be produced by certain methods better left unsaid. I am not stating that it IS definitively, of course!

Awl handle?

Tip of kissaki is off as well. Not a National Treasure but maybe ok for martial arts.

Here are the dimensions for whatever they are worth. Nagasa 18 1/16 (45.7 mm), Sori .41" (10.5 mm appears to have been saki zori possibly before the very crude o suriage, nakago kiri, takonoha yasurime, Shinogizukuri with a high shinogi, .21" (5.5mm) at machi, Hako mune, hiraniku tsuku, saki kasane .12" (3.13mm), saki haba .88" (22.6mm), motokasane .09" (2.3mm), motohaba 1.28" (32.7mm). hamon is notare midareba in nioi with a little ko nie; hada is nashiji. Boshi is notare komi ko maru ( not jizu as I said earlier.) Still researching to find a good match for school. This very well might be a heavily cut down tachi. Kissaki has been reshaped to reform the tip as well, but boshi is present.

I've seen it on ebay as well, not sure how the prices compare.

I am not finding a lot of photos of Owari swords so far, interesting reading though. I need to get a battery for my calipers and then I will take and post some measurements.

You KNOW how those provincials are Thanks for the replies, will investigate.

Due to a couple of things that reminded me of mine, I researched some on Hizen, and I don't see anything that would exclude yours. (I am not an authority so don't quote me )

I am leaning toward Hizen mid Shinto era or later based on my reading so far.

Hope springs eternal, but the hada of the Amahide you just referenced and the hada on your sword based on the photos you posted are two different animals IMO; I stand by my earlier comment. For your sake i hope i am wrong. How much did you pay?

More photos:

Having repaired my digital SLR with superglue, baking soda, toothpicks, and Vaseline, I am now attempting to take better photos; experiment 1 follows:

I can't say anything about period, but a wakizashi I acquired recently has a similar sugata and shinogi shape, though the nakago is suriage and the grain pattern is much finer. How hefty is your sword? Mine is heavier than a shinto wakizashi I have made by Kunisada in 1660.

And then there was the professional polisher (who shall not be named) who examined one of my own forged and polished blades and (not in my presence and without being asked to) hit it with a hazuya and scratched the @#ll out of it, I had to repolish the whole tip. Consider THAT. This blade formerly was obviously someone's project blade and revealed their own ignorance by the treatment of the blade.

Thank you Brian; my intention all along has been to learn more about the sword, not to tout my "abilities". You will not see me anywhere soliciting (the forbidden topic.) The thread was started to help try to ID the sword, please. PS as a 53 yr old disabled combat vet, it is really too late to seek out an apprenticeship in (the forbidden subject) but were i younger and single, i think it would be a worthwhile experience. The intense pain involved makes the activity self limiting at this point, however.

Or maybe i should have just passed on buying it and let the former owner or someone else tamper with it further and slap a nice antler handle on it and use it to cut water bottles and zombies." Not rescuing anything"? Your overweening arrogance is obvious.

Grey, the above is your opinion, well founded or not. What have you contributed to the conversation in terms of helping to identify this sword? Apparently in your view I am a dangerous heretic "untrained polisher wanabee", while simultaneously dismissing my own skills and experience, which you are not in a position to judge. If you really looked at the photos in the beginning of this thread, you would realize that hazuya wouldn't do a thing to help the condition of the blade as received when I bought it. As it will never be sold, the person to whom it matters most is me. Do you think I am so ignorant as to damage the sword because I just couldn't help myself and had to keep grinding away at it until it was only fit to be a kozuka? The damage had already been done; if anything, i have been too conservative in what i have done, in the desire to avoid doing what you have already accused me of. I have walked this earth for 53 years, saw my first sword at age 16, have studied them ever since, and have been making and polishing blades for 9 years. Am I now to spend 10 years in Japan studying polishing to determine whether my $100 sword will benefit from $2000 of someone else's polishing? Not.

If the price wasn't too high, you have an excellent sword for iaido and tameshigiri. If the price was too high, use it for its intended purpose on the appropriate target.

The point of that being the effect that the stone has on the steel, which will be seen on observation. I will never offer polishing services to the public; I do not advocate that "amateurs" polish nihonto; and what I have done to my personally owned sword (purchased for $100) which was received in a badly abused condition was/is for the purpose of doing the minimal amount of work to determine salvageability and worthiness of professional restoration (or not.) I have ten times more invested in books, self-directed study, personal observation of professional polishers at work, and proper Japanese polishing equipment, than I spent to save this blade from further abuse and modification by others. I know far more about the forging of swords and polishing them than I do about kantei of swords of unknown provenance, therefore i requested assistance from members of this board to help identify this rescued blade. Instead i am castigated for having had the temerity to touch a blade to stone. Thanks for the help.

Sugata, suriage method, boshi, hamon, jigane, and the narrow and steep shinogiji and hakomune are no help? Thank you for your reply, Brian. I will certainly enjoy it for what it is; to my eye, it is more beautiful than the Kunisada I bought a while back, especially concerning the condition this one came to me in. With any luck, the koshirae i am buying will fit this blade.

I believe I read recently that burnishing was a Meiji innovation by one of the Honami polishers.

Anybody? Bueller? Ferris Bueller?