Gakusee

Very nice altogether. Piers: how much of the armour is genuine old armour? Do people wear modern repros? Some of it looks old but from the distance I could not tell. Also, what about the swords? Thanks

Well, Uwe, it was great to see you there, albeit momentarily. Wish I had more time there, and to socialise too, but it was nice to see a lot of people we know both in person and also in your videos. Great job documenting for posterity!

Dear Uwe, thank you so much for the images! It is as though we were there ;).

So, a couple of thoughts. Naginata were not always as “artistic” as normal tachi or katana. This is not to say they were not well built but the main focus was on functionality rather than fine jigane, scintillating hamon, beautiful hataraki, etc. So, on average I have noticed, anecdotally, they are more robust. Also, if you notice the weight of this blade, it is actually rather heavy for its short length. Therefore it must be thick and robust and it renders itself suitable for testing once the long tsuka mentioned above is attached.

While technically indeed daisho comprises a long sword and short sword, historically, as Kiril says, the term really signified the presence of a long blade and a short blade (not necessarily by the same smith or even school, or era) in a long saya and short saya respectively. Ideally, the koshirae were a matched set (not the blades necessarily; if the latter were a set - great, but not a must) from an aesthetic but also “regulatory” point of view during Edo (since daisho codification emerged at the end of Muromachi). As extra colour about definitions, see the last sentence of the second NBTHK text below: ie, only banzashi were strictly regulated but otherwise free interpretations of daisho emerged. Below comes from the NBTHK: “In the Edo period, in public places, samurai wore daisho koshirae, which were called Hakama-zashi (worn inside of the hakama pants belt), Ban-sashi, or Denchu-zashi (worn inside of the castle). These styles were not always the same and depended on the samurai's status and the area. Basically there was a hilt covered with white same and wrapped with a black cord in the hishimaki style, a kashira made out of black painted horn, and a saya lacquered with black urushi. The tip of the katana saya had an Ichimonji design (a flat bottom on the saya), and the wakizashi had a round bottom on the saya. The tsuba had a polished shakudo ground with a mon, i. e. it was a Kenjo-tsuba (a formal design), or had a scattered mon design. Usually a Mitokoro-mono consisting of a kozuka, kogai, and menuku provided sophisticated matching pieces.” With kudos to Markus Sesko, same idea but elaborated slightly differently by the NBTHK again in this second text: ”A daishō is a pair of uchigatana and wakizashi and the practice of wearing such a pair of swords is assumed to have emerged at the end of the Muromachi period. With the Edo period, a formalized daishō-koshirae came into existence which was used at an attendance at a castle and which was referred to as kamishimo-zashi (裃指) or banzashi (番指), The official code of the Bakugi Sankō (幕儀参考) defines such a formal daishō-koshiraeas having glossy black-lacquer saya, with the sayajiri of the dai being straight and that of the shō round, with the hilts being covered in white same and wrapped hishimaki-style with black braid, with the kashira being of black-lacquered horn, and with the fuchi being of shakudō with either a nanako ground or a polished finish. The tsuba was proposedly a Kenjō-tsuba of polished shakudō and the mitokoromono first-class Gotō works. The only decoration should be family crests highlighted just in gold iroe and the sageo should be black braid, although for presentation purposes also purple sageo were used. Apart from the above mentioned official use however, daishō-koshirae were not regulated by the bakufu but several interpretations emerged that base on the banzashi regulations.” Furthermore, while the NBTHK in the texts above specifically refers to wakizashi, strictly speaking the Edo period sho could be a tanto too. We can see that in this Juyo daisho set appended here. If we go further back in time, when warriors wore tachi suspended from the waist, they often had a secondary blade thrust through the sash - koshigatana. Could have been a long tanto or kodachi. There are various depictions of such samurai in scrolls, paintings etc. From memory, the depictions did not seem to indicate matched fittings and outward appearance. Attached below are Nanbokucho and early Muromachi koshigatana. Their form could be viewed as the predecessor of the wakizashi function, just the way katana gradually replaced tachi. On the last point, for formal occasions even during Edo period, specific tachi koshirae were required. Some time ago I had put together a few slides on koshirae for our Society and you can see in the enclosed image that in the case of the hitatare outfit, the displayed figure is actually carrying a tachi and a tanto or koshigatana through the sash.

Jussi delivers superbly of course as usual. in my view, the oldest really are the chokuto and that is what counts.

https://www.oed.com/...pe=Entries&q=Palaver

Nothing about new and undocumented. You don’t get it, do you, Jacques? This is an introductory book. Introductory books do not usually show treasures. They normally teach about sugata, hataraki and show hamon outlines… I really do not understand what pleasure you derive from bickering and criticising all the time. If you take a more positive stance, perhaps you will attract some more positive energy in the universe… Oh wait a second, I forgot - you are a physicist, so you probably believe you must be as negatively charged as possible to get some positive energy

The book contains not only swords…. So this derogatory statement is misleading… The book approaches the subject by describing the historical figure (so that is useful background to people who owned the famous item that follows), shows depictions of them in art (scrolls, prints, paintings etc) and then illustrates items owned by these famous people - could be swords but could also include armour.

Very nice introductory book and to receive it from the author directly and get his autograph was an added bonus. Good visuals, interesting choice of historic figures and good variety of items. Very well done, Paul!

I think they have dropped down the prices or at least indicated the reserves with more sensible “opening bids”.

Not necessary to always make a new one, especially for a showato. In fact, even with my Kamakura blades I did not have a new shirasaya made after the fresh polish and instead opted for thoroughly cleaning the old shirasaya. No issue whatsoever with the freshly polished blade thereafter. The old shirasaya can be opened (after all it is only glued with a rice-paste adhesive) and cleaned very throughly. The cleaning process actually is abrasive and removes surface deterioration within. After that is done, it can be easily reassembled. This is all best done by a professional. Mind you, however, a cleaning process could cost 60-70% of the price of a new shirasaya (if done in Japan) but will be a smaller expense if done in the West (10-15%). The reason is that honoki is still more available in Japan (although even there it is becoming scarcer) and in Japan of course people value their time and you need to send the blade and old shirasaya etc etc. In short, I think we are overthinking it here and I am not convinced these tiny, barely-visible spots are the artefact of the shirasaya. If the blade is well oiled and well taken care of in appropriate environment, this would not happen. Also these could be tiny “breath/saliva” induced spots too when someone looked at the blade and did not wipe it clean thereafter.

They are not targeting the average NMB budget hunters….. While some of the prices are indeed optimistic, others are OK. Of course one needs to be mindful of the reserve, which usually starts lower than the bottom end of the estimate range.

Thanks for the detailed image of the mei. It does look close to a TokuJu Kuniyoshi mei (attached here for reference) plus the workmanship is consistent and so is the jigane quality. I think it has a good chance of papering just by the little we have seen here.

We have covered this sword and this topic already several times on the NMB….. boring…. Please do some homework with the search facility on the NMB and Google. Also, please read about how they have self-appraised this “sword” and self-evaluated it.

Yes Jussi - right up your alley: old, long, ubu tachi. Kimura san sometimes has OK prices so worthwhile a check. But come on - even you must acknowledge that a possibly fake Nisshu sayagaki to Sanjo Munechika or some other potentially lofty signature (attribution?) on the nakago is too far-fetched. The removal of the signature is old - predating Showa 28 as on the torokusho they show two empty squares, therefore clearly there had been characters on the nakago but illegible or merely remnants.

I see. But he had them on the website 2 days ago but he must have taken the prices down. They were both on his website in the section 'New. Swords at the DTI'. The other amendment he has made is the removal of the Soshu Sadamune tanto. I suppose when the excitement was on, they posted all the blades plus most of the prices on the website but then afterwards they decided to keep some mystery for the DTI and removed some blades and some prices.

Not only papers….. As though they are not top Soshu smiths… Regarding prices, one can indeed go and check the individual dealers’ websites. Tsuruginoya (Miyoga) san indeed has his prices on his website as does KImura san (Eirakudo) etc.

Well done, Piers, looks lovely!

Post more of boshi and closeups of jigane and hamon please. It has promise of a very good smith of a good school

Lots of condition issues on that one but that’s all factored in the price. If you can live with the ware, if this gets repolished to brighten up the condition a bit (as the current polish is old) you will have a big name in koshirae and with Hozon paper. Not a bad place at all. For a top-condition nice-quality Norishige at TH you are looking at 5-6m yen+ minimum if you are lucky.

Just an inspiration is probably not doing it a service, A lot of work goes into Nakamura san’s work. He keeps experimenting and innovating.

Good thread, HB! Thank you for the efforts to document the collection and for sharing your images here. Indeed, a lot of big names mentioned by you and on the sayagaki….I am also not sure how one can draw conclusions looking at unclear steel covered by a congealed oil layer….anyway. Kudos!

Do I see the signature of Miyochin Yoshihisa on the menpo? And the sword is signed Koyama Munetsugu, a renowned smith... worthwhile checking the signature to published sources.

Sori of 2.5cm is always deep sori for “normal” blades (ie not excessively long odachi). There is little point dwelling about what Aoi meant. They are just using machine translations without checking those too thoroughly. Sometimes, they even copy and paste parts of descriptions from other swords onto another and create confusion and so on. Rely on your eyes looking at the sugata in the full-size photos to evaluate sori.