ROKUJURO

Not TSUBA and not the character NAO I think. Dale is probaly close to it. ST, please sign all posts with at least your first name so we could address you politely. It is a rule here on NMB.

It is difficult with these photos and the condition of the blade. Only looking at the NAKAGO and the drilled MEKUGI-ANA, I believe it may be pre-WWII. There is no HADA visible and the HAMON without NIE or NIOI is strange, so it might have been made with modern steel. I have sent Joab some advice for photo-making, so maybe he will come up with better images which will allow to see more.

All the best for this venture!

The question may be allowed if we could improve our knowledge and learn new/old facts. Tempering is YAKIMODOSHI in Japanese, and YAKIIRE is quenching. That is not so difficult, and in the end, it helps understanding the metallurgy of Japanese sword making. But nothing is more persistent than old habits, I know....

Although you might have read that in many places, it is not a TEMPER line. This zone is made by HARDENING/QUENCHING. Tempering does not produce any visible effects on a blade.

Hi Khalid, an interesting TEIMEI TSUBA! They are usually quite different in style and motif, so I am really surprized to see this! The condition is certainly o.k. for SHINSA, but I cannot imagine what you would expect from ORIGAMI. If it is authentic, they will probably just state KISHU no JU SADANAGA without a generation, so it will not be of much help or increase the value of it. Looking at the MEI, it is probably a later generation, so after 1750. Generally, all that washing, degreasing and re-oiling seems to come from a Western concept of "cleanliness", and I never heard about Japanese TSUBA experts or collectors describing similar invasive methods they were using. Unless there is destructive (= material consuming) red rust on it, there is not much more to do than wiping with a dry cotton cloth. Keeping iron TSUBA in a dry place (= KIRIBAKO) is the best thing that could happen to them.

If you read the text above carefully, it says cooking for 20 min, and avoiding all chemicals. If it was my TSUBA, I would never use these methods and just work mechnically. All cleaning should only be done if you have some experience with iron TSUBA and know how they should look ideally. There are very few TSUBA on the market which would require immediate action, so go slow. Always remember that rust is not a separate layer on the base material. It is the material itself, turned into oxide. If you remove the rust, you will not have the originally intended surface and texture!

François, the plural of KATANA is KATANA. Japanese nouns do not have a plural form.

....and a 3 D-printer? I cannot imagine a technique to imitate old fabric.

Jason, did you try a search on the internet? SHAKO is the term for this design that represents AMIDA rays in SUKASHI technique. Formerly, this design was assumed to represent clock gears, so it was called TOKEI (HAGURUNA). Cast iron TSUBA are later manufacture for tourists and do not have collecting value. They can be found on swords where the original TSUBA was swapped out and replaced by a cheap one.

The SHAKO TSUBA looks cast to me.

For Steve:

Looks like one hour or two for mending that! At least the HITAI ATE is in good shape!

Joab, this is the translation section. As your sword is not signed, there is nothing to translate. The NIHONTO section might be more appropriate. Better photos may be helpful for an identification.

Travis, take off the HABAKI. In case the MACHI (= notches) do not align, you can be sure it is a non-Japanese imitation.

Hi Okan, there seems to be a closing button instead of the traditional silk HAORI-HIMO (羽織紐). This could be an indication of late manufacture, but might as well have been copied from Western clothing. The shoulders are probably 'reinforced' to make a KAMISHIMO look wich might point to a high-rank wearer/user (HATAMOTO?)

No, where the HAMON starts (above the HAMACHI).

Not Japanese in my opinion, and not necessarily related to swords or knives.

Colin, you are of course correct!

Chen, it didn't look "freshly restored", it looked incompetently stripped of its patina. Restoration does not mean making the item look like coming out of a modern factory! When taking photos of swords and TOSOGU, it is best to use a plain dark, non-reflecting background for good contrast.

Ian, while you may be completely correct when talking about modern knives and cutting-edges physics in general, we cannot apply this to authentic Japanese sword blades. We try to keep them as close as possible to their original shape. No "improvements"!

Ian, I wonder where you got your information from. The theories you are putting forward are not taking into consideration that sword-blade cross-sections changed over the centuries, to an extent following the development of armour. The objective of a competent TOGISHI is not to sharpen a blade in the first place. A good polisher will restore a blade with the same angles and proportions that were intended by the smith who made it. Sharpness comes more or less automatically in this process. That is how I understand it.

Ian, any tampering - polishing or "restoring" - with authentic historic blades is frowned upon here, and any advice for sharpening or dulling those blades is not in line with their preservation which this forum is devoted to. If you have a Chinese look-alike, you may treat it as you like, but please do not report that here.

Ian, do you suggest that collectors should grind their blades themselves to change the primary cutting bevel? And what makes you believe that the original edge would fail on a blade that is part of a collection and is of course never used?

Hi Eric, welcome to the NMB Forum!