Wim V

Hello all, A friend of mine in our To-Ken club asked me to translate a signature. Normally I am pretty good at deciphering kanji but I haven't got a clue with this one. Is anybody able to read this mei? Thanks a lot for any help. Kind regards, Wim PS: not for commercial use, we are just trying to put some light on the (remarkable) collection of one of our senior members

Thank you very much Moriyama-san. I was already aware of the use of an iteration mark in kanji (like for example in Shinshinto) but I had never seen this in hiragana or katakana. So thanks to you I learned something interesting today

Hi all, I am translating a Juyo paper for a friend. I feel rather confident I have figured out nearly everything, but I am having difficulty reading one character. Please see the scan below. This is what I have, where I included a question mark for the character I can't read: 刃文 互の目乱れ,尖り刃交じり,逆が?り,小沸つく｡ 帽子 直ぐに尖りごころ｡ "hamon gunome midare, togariba majiri, saka ga ?ri, ko nie tsuku. boshi sugu ni togari gokoro." Lots of thanks in advance for any help, Wim

That makes perfect sense, thank you very much Markus and John

Hi all, I am once more trying to decipher the mei on a katana for a friend in our To-Ken club. I am pretty sure I have nearly everything correct, but one character is not clear to me. Please take a look at the pictures below. This is what I have: 尾嵜長門守?子天龍子正隆 Ozaki Nagato (no) Kami ?? Tenryushi Masataka Thanks in advance for any help.

Hi, I think the inscription on the nakago reads: 関 石原兼直作 transcription: Seki (stamp) Ishihara Kanenao Saku He is one of the WWII Seki smiths listed in the Showa oshigata database on Dr. Stein's website. See: http://home.earthlink.net/~ttstein/kanenao2.jpg Best regards, Wim

nice one Greg, that seems right to me So the third mei is 菊秀 (Kikuhide) Not that difficult after all, I should have been able to find this one. :? Which shows I am still a beginner in the study of kanji. Now the only remaining question is the Sane-xxx

I am not a specialist but here is my best guess: 兼辰之作 Kanetoki kore (wo) saku The second one starts with Sane 真, but I can't identify the second character. And the third mei, like you said is something-Hide 秀, but unfortunately the first kanji is again too difficult for me. Good luck

Hello, If I were you I would try to compare the signature on this blade with (oshigata of) known authentic examples, like you can find for example in Fujishiro or Nihonto Zuikan. I don't pretend to be a specialist on signatures but for one time this one seems very obvious to me: gimei. The kanji to me look rather different compared to the examples in the books. Also, if I remember correctly, Hankei is one of the few smiths who engraved his signature, rather than hammering it in with a chisel. If you look at authentic mei, the inside of the strokes will be rather smooth as a result of the engraving method, whereas in the case of the blade on ebay you can see burrs (like you see normally on most mei, but not on those of Hankei). Concerning the papers I think you should keep the possibility in mind that papers can be forged. If you take a look at the paper in question you will see that the style of handwriting is different in the parts where the blade is described compared with the standard text parts. I personally have old (tokubetsu kicho) papers in my collection of which I am rather sure that they are genuine, and on these the style of writing is everywhere the same. When seeing obvious differences in hand writing I would be very suspicious. And lastly (actually this should be first of all), the blade should speak for itself. From the bit of experience I have, I believe a Hankei blade should display a very prominent hada with lots of dark chikei lines, aiming at Norishige. I have seen one Hankei in hand and I don't feel the blade on ebay comes even close to this one. Just my thoughts. Greetings, Wim

Moriyama-san, you deserve a statue, thanks again.

Hi all, I am once more trying to decipher the description of a blade mentioned in the Yushu To Zuroku by the NTHK. (part 1, page 42) I know there should exist a translation of this book but since I have never seen this around I have to struggle on my own. :? I believe I have solved a good deal of the puzzle, but I am having great difficulties with a few sentences, and I especially don’t understand the use of katakana in them. If someone could correct and complete my tryings that would be very helpful. (By the way I am asking this out of personal interest/research, not for commercial use) Here we go: 少し磨上げられて, 反りやや浅く, 身幅, 重ねともタップりとつく豪壮な姿｡ Sukoshi suriage rarete, sori yaya asaku, mihaba, kasane tomo “tappu” rito tsuku goso na sugata. Slightly shortened, curvature somewhat shallow, width and thickness both taper to give a splendid shape???? 本刀は砥数を経ているが, なお地, 刃よく働き, 手にズッシりとくる豪快さはこの年代の世相を象徴する一振りである｡ Honto ha tosuu wo hete iru ga, nao ji, ha yoku hataraki, te ni “zusshi” rito kuru goukai saha kono nendai no sesou wo shouchou suru hito furi de aru. This sword has experienced a number of polishes, furthermore the ji and ha show good activity, .... ???? Many thanks in advance for any help, wim

Hi all, Just something I was wondering the other day: When going through the webpages of the usual nihonto dealers, one regularly comes across some Juyo Token for sale, from time to time even a Tokubetsu Juyo. I realized I have never seen a Yushu Saku or Sai Yushu Saku sword for sale. (the upper class NTHK ratings) I happen to have one of the three Yushu To Zuroku catalogues by the NTHK, which contains some 150 great looking swords, and in appendix are some 300 more Yushu Saku listed for reference. Since there exist three such catalogues, there should be, roughly estimated, at least a thousand Yushu Saku blades out there somewhere. Are these all locked away in private collections? Not of any importance but I thought it could be interesting if someone can give some info on this matter. Regards, Wim

Thank you very much Moriyama-san. I hope I will be able to do you a favour in return one day.

Hi all, I am trying to translate the description of a katana mentioned in the Yushu To Zuroku by the NTHK. (part 1, page 198) So far I feel I can catch the meaning of nearly everything in the description, but there is one sentence I really can't figure out: 本刀は柾目鍛え, 直刃ホツレの刃文によくお国振りを発揮した一振りである｡ Honto ha masame kitae, suguha hotsure no hamon ni yoku okuni furi wo hakki shita ichi furi de aru ?? (This sword has straight grain, straight frayed hamon ... ?????) If someone could help me with the second part of this sentence that would make me a very happy person Best regards, wim PS: does anybody know if there exists a full translation of the yushu to zuroku?

hmmm, I would not have thought of Motoshige when seeing the kantei blade :? This illustrates perfectly that I still have a veeeery long way to go in the study of Nihonto. And worst of all (I am ashamed to say): some time ago I have had the privilege of seeing a Juyo Motoshige in hand, but even with this experience I was not able to recognize that the blade discussed here was made by the same hand. It's a bit frustrating.

It’s a long time ago since I last made a post on this board. I still read most of the discussions but as I feel my knowledge is still not much past the beginners level I am always hesitating to contribute, especially in kantei where I am very often left without a clue. However, as lately lots of people are encouraging to participate in the kantei exercises, I will give it a try. When I first had a look at this blade I immediately thought of a late koto period Bizen wakizashi. I came to this conclusion based on the stubby shape of the nakago, the itame/mokume hada, and the presence of bo-utsuri. As for the time period, the very large kissaki of course made me think of Nanbokucho jidai, but I always thought wakizashi only began to appear starting from the Muromachi period (?) But as Tsuruta-san also seems to stress that (quote) “the signature is ura-mei†the answer may be that we are not looking at a wakizashi but a kodachi. And interestingly, after searching some of my books, I found a picture of a kodachi blade with almost exactly the same sugata as the one under discussion on page 32 of the 2003 Dai Token Ichi catalogue. This blade is signed (tachi-mei) as Bishu Osafune Hidemitsu, and dated Oan 5 Nen 2 Gatsu Hi (1372 AD). So in conclusion I would estimate the period to be late Nanbokucho – early Muromachi. As for the workmanship Bizen tradition seems evident, but on a typical Bizen blade I would expect a choji midare hamon. So based on the suguba hamon and the rather fine hada I would judge that we are searching for a Bizen smith who was influenced by the Yamashiro tradition. According to Nagayama sensei’s conoisseur book, in the early Muromachi period Morimitsu and Yasumitsu seem to fit in this picture so I would go for one of these. However, I don’t have reference oshigata to pin down the one that fits best. To cut a long story short, my answer is: 1) period: late Nanbokucho – early Muromachi 2) tradition: Bizen, but with Yamashiro influence 3) smith: Yasumitsu ?

Hi Dino, Seems to be a very nice sword you have there. I have not been able to translate the sayagaki completely and I am also not 100% sure of what I found, but I suppose other people will be able to correct my tryings. This is what I got so far: 濃刕関住兼房 Noshu Seki Ju Kanefusa 但薙刀直無銘也 Tada Naginata Naoshi Mumei Ya 時代永禄頃歟 Jidai Eiroku Goro Yo (the era is around Eiroku, 1558-1570) 刃長貮尺六分半有之 Hacho Ni Shaku Roku Bu Han Ari Kore 平成壬午歳??下浣?山識 Heisei Mizunoe Uma Sai ... ? (year of the horse 2002) Fujishiro's Nihon Toko Jiten (koto volume) lists two Kanefusa, one around Tensho and one around Eiroku, as John already mentioned. Because the sayagaki mentions Eiroku as the jidai I would go for the one on page 100: KANEFUSA SEKI ZENRYO [EIROKU MINO] SUE-KOTO JO SAKU Best regards, Wim

I would like to jump in and also pay my respect to Moriyama-san. I have been struggling more than once with the Japanese language and everytime Koichi was able to give a satisfying answer to my questions. But like Brian also mentioned, it's not only one's skill that is to be admired but how you use it. It's amazing to see how often Koichi is helping others, I can't imagine how many hours he must be spending on this board. So, a big thanks again

Thank you for the compliment Brian. It has taken me a little less than 3 months to complete the work, spending nearly all of my free time on it. But I really enjoyed doing it. As a matter of fact I don't intend to publish or make any profit of this index, as I don't want problems with copyright issues. But anyone interested is welcome to send me a PM (as some members already did) and I will send you the file, for personal use only off course. Wim

Thank you very much Moriyama-san for confirming these somewhat special readings. It's quite a relieve to see that my thoughts were not that silly after all. @ Stephen: Thanks for the offer but I'm ok now. I know an english index for Fujishiro (koto & shinto) already existed, but I wanted to make one myself just for the learning experience. Also I believe the existing index contains only romaji, where I preferred to have one including the original kanji (next to the romaji). Thanks to the input of the board members here, my koto index is now finished. I plan to make a similar index on the shinto volume in the future but I haven't got the book yet. Best regards everyone,

Thanks a lot for your help John, I really appreciate it. This brings me already a step further: Daichi (大知), Masumori (増盛) and Yukichika (行観) seem OK to me. Unfortunately, although Kaneie (兼宿) and Yoshinori (義憲) are possible correct readings for the given kanji, they still leave me with the feeling that they don't fit in the place where they are listed in the book. I find it very hard to believe that Fujishiro puts almost 900 smiths nicely ordered according to their names in a book, and that two of them, are placed completely out of the logical order. So I still believe (hope?) there has to be an alternate reading for these two cases, that Fujishiro had in mind when he placed these two names exactly where he did, so that they fit in the logical order of the list. Does anyone have any more ideas on the reading of 兼宿 and 義憲 ? If only they would place hiragana next to the kanji to clarify the pronunciation, that would make life so much easier ! :?

I recently added the Koto edition of Fujishiro’s Nihon toko jiten to my collection of nihonto books. I bought this book brand new from a Japanese dealer and there was no english index included. Therefore I decided to make an index myself. This may seem a bit crazy to some people but I felt this would be an excellent exercise for my kanji reading skills. At this moment my index is almost finished and I feel the experience has indeed been quite educational. There are however a few smith names with which I keep having difficulties in finding the correct reading, and for these I would like to ask some help. These are the ones that keep me from my sleep (and from finalizing my index) : 1) Page 99: 兼宿: According to the Nihonto knowledge base this is read as “Kaneieâ€. However this brings me the following problem. Throughout the book I have noticed that the smith names are always listed in a logical order according to their reading. As there are already two “Kaneie†listed on page 74 (兼家 and 兼舎), the one discussed here does not seem to fit on page 99, unless it has a different reading. It’s very interesting furthermore that on page 74, in the paragraph where Kaneie (兼舎) is discussed, the name causing me problems (兼宿) already appears. After this name Fujishiro puts “yado†in katakana between brackets (ヤド), so I wonder if 兼宿 could maybe be read as “Kaneyado†?? In that case the name would seem to be in place on page 99 where it is listed between Kanekuni (兼國) and Kaneyasu (兼安). 2) Page 187: 大知: This one is mentioned in the Nihonto knowledge base as “Daichiâ€, but also as “Daitomoâ€. So I wonder which one is right, or are they both possible ? 3) Page 405: 増盛: “Masumori†? 4) Page 466: 義憲: An obvious reading for this name could be “Yoshinoriâ€, but as it follows a series of names all starting with “kiâ€, and as all the other names where 義 is read as “yoshi†are listed on pages 174 - 179, I suppose in this case the kanji 義 should be read as “gi†(like in Chogi). However this leaves me with a question mark to the full name 義憲: Ginori? or Gikazu? or ...? According to the book this is a Ko-bizen smith, but seemingly not a very famous one (?), as I could not find this name anywhere. 5) Page 466: 行観: Yuki-??? I really don’t have a clue with this one. If you managed to read up to here, my sincere thanks. I apologize if this topic is a bit too die-hard (or just boring) but I really would like to know the solutions to these “mysteriesâ€. A big thank you in advance for any help. Wim PS: if someone would be interested in having the completed index, just let me know and I will gladly share it. For every of the 897 smiths I have put the name, classifier (school, family name, …), era, province, period and skill level in a table. I have included kanji as well as romaji, so the result is a ms-word document of approximately 3 megabytes.

Hi, I think you gave an almost correct interpretation to the mei. The only thing I can remark is that I would read 已羊 as "Tsuchinoto Hitsuji", which is the 56th year in the 60-year zodiac cycle (for an explanation see the Nihonto Kanji Pages under Nenki, and then Kanshi - the zodiac system). In the Showa era the Tsuchinoto Hitsuji year indeed corresponds to 1979, as you already found yourself. Concerning the pictures of the mei, as far as I can judge (but I am no expert) I think the mei looks good compared with the example given in the Gendai Toko Meikan. Then again I would not expect a gendaito to be gimei (fake signature) unless it is one of the top names like Gassan or Sumitani, so I would not worry about this in your case. Do you have some pictures of the blade itself? It would be nice to see the sugata, hada, hamon, .... Regards, Wim

I bought the "Naked blade" book some 10 years ago from my Iaido-sensei. Nowadays it seems to be out of print but I think you can still find it second hand (for example on amazon marketplace). If you like I have a copy of Gendai Toko Meikan for sale. It's the hardcover first edition from 1971. I would like to be honest and mention that due to its age it is of course not in mint condition. The dust jacket is missing and the cover shows some slight signs of wear. The pages are however clean and intact and the binding is still tight. An english index is also included. I would say the overall condition is fine if you don't bother too much about the dust jacket. I would ask US$ 140 for it. No obligation of course, but if you're interested feel free to send me a PM. Regards, Wim PS: it's interesting you have a sword by Yasuhiro Kobayashi as he seemed to be a decent smith. Perhaps you could post some pictures of your blade?

Hi again, I have taken a look in the books I have on gendai smiths regarding the two smiths you mentioned. Gendai Toko Meikan lists three Sadayoshi but I don't know if one of these is the one you are looking for. Further on I didn't find anything on Kobayashi Sadayoshi. The second one, Kobayashi Yasuhiro, is listed on page 55 of the Gendai Toko Meikan. However, as my knowledge of Japanese is very limited it is very difficult for me to translate the page. If I look up all the kanji I should be able to retrieve the relevant information (I did this before for one of the smiths in this book because I have a sword made by him) but this is very time consuming, and I don't have the time now to engage me on this task, I'm sorry. However, I found something more on Kobayashi Yasuhiro in a little book with the title "Naked Blade - a manual of samurai swordsmanship" by Toshishiro Obata. Obata is a rather well known practitioner of Toyama Ryu Batto Jutsu, a school best known for their test cutting on straw and bamboo. According to the book it seems that Obata-san acted as a tester for the swords of Yasuhiro, and so on pages 19-20 there is a little paragraph devoted to this smith. This is wat it says: Yasuhiro Kobayashi was born in the third year of the reign of the emperor Taisho (1914) in Yamanashi-Ken, Japan. His early business career was interrupted by the Second World War, during which he served, first as an intelligence field operative in China, then after returning to Japan and re-enlisting, as a member of the Imperial Army in China. Returning in 1946 to a Tokyo devastated by bombing and fire, he started a refrigeration business, that rapidly prospered until it employed fifty workers, and boasted of clients as illustrious as the U.S. Army. In 1960 he began his study of the swordsmith's art under the To-sho Akimoto, to whom he was both student and sponsor. In 1969 he qualified, receiving his licence one year later, and left his thriving business to return to Yamanashi-Ken in order to establish his forge. His swords are known for their extreme strength and sharpness, and their closeness in style and quality to the finest swords of the Koto period. For To-sho Kobayashi, an ounce of fine steel is rarer and more precious than an ounce of gold." The paragraph closes with a footnote: The sword used by the author throughout the production of this book, was made for him by To-sho Kobayashi. It has completed more than three hundred demonstrations of cutting bamboo, straw and wood without suffering any damage to its edge. That's all I have. For more info I think you should go for the Gendai Toko Meikan. Best regards, Wim