Gakusee

I would say, firstly start with the correct orientation of the inscription, and then try to decipher it

Well, good luck with the sale in any case. For those in NY, please go and see the swords. It is a great visual treat.

Your are right. But it is OK. I am also having a laugh. Joking aside, it is a great blade but I am not sure what their pricing thinking has been lately. There has not been a wider benchmarking of the global market, which they ought to do….

Talk of someone who wants to play in the big boys’ playground Frankly, the prices of top pieces have nothing to do with chin chin or not.

Ok Stephen, grand old royalty like you deserve to be given the info. This is said not in jest but with my best sentiments. This is from the NBTHK magazine.

look up the auction sale poster and you are in for a surprise….

Out of the above three, the tanto is the best. Mind you, the Yoshioka Ichimonji is also gorgeous but the price estimate is extremely ambitious. Dare I say, unrealistic.

Jacques and Patrice, For the sake of clarity to forum users, it will be useful to point out that: - the NBTHK certificate uploaded by Patrice is not a qualification diploma or certificate of graduation of a course or training; - it is not a document certifying capability, knowledge, expertise per se in absolute terms etc the way a university degree or technical college diploma might be. No training course and no exams have been taken for these to be conferred (so Jacques, please be careful not to conflate these in your typical attacking mode); - it is a certificate acknowledging that Patrice submitted to the annual NBTHK competition a sword he polished and achieved the rank “nyusen”, the precise interpretation / translation which I am not capable of, but loosely it means something like “his work has been deemed competent enough to be accepted and recognised in this endeavour / exhibition”. I know several European non-traditionally-Japan-trained restorers (in the U.K., Italy etc), who while not formally having completed a full-length Japan-based polishing training period (and thus not having the government diploma of togishi recognition which comes at the end of that training period after passing an official exam) still achieved that “nyusen” recognition. In fact, my Italian friend Massimo has several of these diplomas, which I have seen at his home. These certificates clearly indicate a level of capability and skill recognised to some extent by the NBTHK, and deserve the credit / merit they imply. The “fully traditionally trained”(often Japan-based, but not exclusively) polishers often display skill higher than nyusen, and achieve even higher-rating diplomas and awards. All of that is very public and disclosed in Japanese by both the NBTHK and NBSK (which also organises similar) every year after the awards are granted. But people need to be very clear about what these certificates and achievements are and what these are not. So, I am not defending anyone in the above discussion of what should have been done/said in relation to Catawiki, or taking sides in this debate, but just hoping the above clarifies the matter a bit with regard to such certificates.

Or it could be they doubt how the shu mei exists today. For instance: It could be that “Nobufusa” (very well preserved part of the shumei) was added subsequently above the Koson mei (much less well preserved). In principle, Koson tended to write the attribution on one side of the nakago and put his name and kao on the opposite. That is how I have seen it, including swords I owned. Here everything is on one side and also the different parts look slightly differently. Regardless of all this speculation, it looks like a gorgeous sword and Tanobe sensei seems to have verified it, so all seems good.

Thanks. I am very clear on the “to mei ga aru” implications. Well, if Tanobe sensei has verified it, that’s great. Its sugata is truly wonderful.

Well, excellent, Chandler and thanks for sharing. Is there also an NBTHK paper and what does it say? Nobufusa is a rather rare attribution.

Ray, I think it was recently disproved that the Yoshimitsu was a saiha blade. It was believed to be so, but the latest interpretation is different. I have held the Yoshimitsu in my hand and it is a truly sublime blade….

Jacques, we went through this already. Refer to my post above with the excerpt from the Sano museum book, by the highly renowned but sadly now late Watanabe sensei, which splits hamon types into suguha and midareba. Written in both Japanese and English for you. End of argument. We are wasting time and effort and precious life energy.

Are we discussing this image? I would describe it as predominantly sugu-gunome in monouchi with some notare areas and with nezumi ashi. [But depending on in-hand examination, one could interpret some of the horizontal hataraki as kinsuji]. The lower part is gunome midare interspersed with choji midare, togari, yo and ashi. [And again, depending on in-hand examination, some of the areas of nie in the hamon could be areas of shimi]

BA or also pronounced Ha in other conjunctions and as in the word Hamon. Hardened sharp edge Midare: irregular