Marius

Koichi-san, what would we do without you and your kind help? Arigatou Gozaimasu

Dear All, I have a nice Kanbun shinto wakizashi which has some weird origami attached to it. I know from the seller that the origami attributes this sword to Tadashige (Fujiwara Tadashige, Settsu - as some Forum member explained "He was a pupil of shodai Tadayuki, and he also produced in Edo". The signature on the sword is - not that I can read it - SESSHU IKUTAMA NO SHÔ INOUE FUJIWARA TADASHIGE My questions are: 1. who has issued the origami? 2. Is it a known organisation or dealer? 3. What do the papers say if (if they say anything more than I already know)? Thank you for your kind assistance, I am obliged :-) Oh, and for the curious - here are some pics of the sword as well :-)

Piers, To all intent and purpose, the tanto is a tsunagi, now that some idiot has tampered with it. Having the nakago reshaped and repatinated professionally will cost you as probably nearly much as a perfectly decent and undamaged entry-level tanto. eBay is full of such itesm, and they can be enjoyed, if you happend to have no access to hundreds of Juyo blades. Keep it as it is, enjoy it as long as you will like it, keep if if you like it a tyear from now, but do not invest a penny into it. It is simply not worth it, koshirae has nice items but is cobbled together from what was at hand, tanto is damaged and out of polish. Just my tuppence

Well, my guess would be shishinto. The pictures do not disclose too much due to the resolution, but it seems that this tanto is muji hada. Also, it seems rather healthy and thick, while you get more chance of a slightly polished down blade when it's a koto (although there are no rules here). I don't get the hamon, seems indistinct, I cannot see the pattern clearly, but might it be uma no ha, or maybe hako midare? The nioiguchi is not distinct, maybe because the blade lacks a fresh polish (I would not invest in a polish here). The shape does not correspond with Muromachi, either. But overall - it is really hard to tell anything conclusive from these pictures. What I have said here, at the risk of becoming the object of ridicule, is just my uneducated opinion, so it might be just the other way around

Piers, that is an interesting interpreation, but doesn't it go too far? This reminds me of calling bo-hi blood-groves, while they were made to reduce weight, balance the blade, but not with running blood in mind. I think a tsuba is a guard, which keeps your hand from being cut or slide down the blade, and that is all there is to it....

Piers, IMHO the nakago has been "cleaned" by an amateur and then "repatinated" It seems original, though, with oine mekugi ana filled. Koshirae: the fuchi seems awkward, it is simply to broad for that short handle. The kashira seems to come from some handachi mounts and does not correspond to the saya. I love the menuki, the rabbit is so cute :-) The wooden tsuba fits into the picture of a koshirae which has been put together from ready available parts - it looks more like a thick seppa. My gut feel is: the saya and the bashin are original, the tsuka has been compiled from whatever was at hand. Actually, I like the saya and the bashin very much. All in all, if you bought it for a song, it was a very good deal. How long is the nagasa? I should think it would not exceed 20 cm? The blade is also nice and good enough to be studied. Well done :-) John, many thanks about your comments on the primary function of a tsuba. I haven't thought about this. But given, that it was the area above hamachi which was used to parry blows of the enemy's sword (as explained by Sugano Sensei in this clip: ) I guess that the samurai preferred a tsuba which was not easily cut.

Hi Piers, 1. An interesting thing you seem to have there. Tsuba is a guard, protecting your hand from a cut. Forged iron tsuba do their work best, kinko tsuba were possibly more for the display of wealth and taste of the owner than for combat, cast iron tsuba are fakes or Meiji tourist items, but a wood tsuba? What purpose would that have? It would not keep a blade from cutting your hand. Then agian, your sword is a tanto, and tsubas on tanto were sometimes really minuscule and they were clearly not meant to parry blows. Such tsuba could be made of iron, soft metal or anything else that the artisan happened to deem a useful material. Your tsuba seems to fit into this category. 2. the blade is not necessarily old OR the nakago might have been cleaned by some idiot at a certain point. Besides, "old" is relative (is a 100 years old sword "old"?). And, what precisely makes you think it is old? gendai blades are often produced as (very good) copies of celebrated swords and gendai sword smiths often emulate a certain school or master. Is it polished down? That in itself is not a reliable proof of old age, although it might serve as an indication. 3. what you describe seems a home-grown machi okuri done by some vandal. Is this common? Yes, machi okuri is quite common. Alterations to nihonto done with a grinder are also quite common, I am afraid. The supply of idiots who ruin good swords in order to "clean" them or make them fit into some koshirae that they happen to have at hand is quite substantial ((horror stories about ruined blades abound) I don't think this will help you a lot, but at least I have tried Of course pictures would be very helpful...

Oh, great. Now I have made a fool of myself (not the first, not the last time.. Brian, please would be so kind as to delete my post? It is rather embarassing

Dear All, the books I have assembled might be interesting for the nihonto collector - some of them are early Japanese sword books, some are about art, legend and samurai tales. Most of them can be found on the Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/ - they have been digitised for the Archive by Microsoft and can be freely downloaded and distributed for non-commercial use. I thought it might be conveniet to have them all in one place, so I have uploaded them to my file sharing site for you to download. I hope that at least some of you don't have these books yet, and that they might be of use to you. "Legend in Japanese Art" is a nice example - packed with information about various characters you can find on kogodu (this book has also illustrations of tsuba). You will find the books here: http://public.me.com/mariuszk In order to download a book, please click on the little arrow on the right side. And here is the list: A Muramasa Blade, A story of Feudalism in Old Japan, Louis Wrtheimber, Boston 1887 Gods and Heroes of Old Japan, Violet M. Pasteur, London 1906 Japanese Sword and its decoration, Helen C. Gunsaulus, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago 1924 Japanese Sword Mounts in the Collections of Field Museum, Helen C. Gunsaulus, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago 1923 Japanese Sword Guards, Okabe Kakuya, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (exhibition catalogue 1907-1908) Legend in Japanese Art, Henry L. Joly, London, New York, 1908 Tales from Old Japanese Dramas, Asato Miyamori, revised by Stanley HughesNew York, London 1915 Tales of the Samurai, Stories illustrating Bushido, the Moral Principles of the Japanese Knighthood, Asataro Miyamori, Tokyo 1920 Enjoy :-)

Dear Markus, dear Koichi-san, I am very grateful for your kind help and as always very impressed with your kindness to ignorant people like myself. Thank you very much indeed

Dear All, I believe that I may have Shibata Mitsuo origami attributing a tanto to the Naotane school. Since I cannot read it, I would kindly ask for your assistance and forgiveness of my ignorance of the Japanese language and its hiragana, katakana and kanji. I would not be so impudent as to ask you for a full translation, if you please, I would be very happy with the author of the origami and a brief description of his attribution. I am sorry to bother you with that. Thank you very much PS: should better pictures be needed, I will try to produce some, as this origami is already in my possession (alongside the tanto)

Thank you Koichi-san, thank you Jean :-) I may have been mislead by the fact that it has been polished down so strongly. Do you have any other comments about this tanto? I should be grateful for any hints. As you see, I am quite helpless here...

Bojan, no kizu is pleasant I have just got a beautiful wakizashi, in perfect polish, excellent steel and hamon full of bright nie, and it had a hagire! The seller was a getleman and offered to take it back or slash the price by half. I have decided to keep it, as it is a beautiful sword. As John has rightly said "All kizu detract from a sword"... I don't think the cuts on mune and shinogi would have caused this kizu, they would much rather result in a hagire. Please read this interesting article by the sword smith affiliated with the Usagiya sword shop (go directly to yaki-ware, you will see a picture of something similar to the kizu on your sword): http://www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/flaws.html

James, you haven't expected zaimei on eBay, have you. You may want to turn this into a virtue, something like "Proud to collect gimei" Sorry, I don't mean to ridicule you, the same goes for me, I have a nice collection of gimei blades

Dear All, I have purchased what seems to be a rather old tanto. It is bamboo-spprout shaped, with mitsumune, dimensions are as follows: nagasa: 10.4" (26.5 cm) motohaba: 0.8" (2 cm) I have not measured motogasane and sakigasane, but it tapers strongly from the nakago. Hada is masame / running o-itame, boski is o-maru (I think), hamon is suguha nie deki. IMHO this it is suriage (kiri nakagojiri) it seems it was originally furisode gata. What puzzles me is the hamon - it is very healthy and the nioiguchi is far from the cutting edge. Might it have been retempered? Pictures are attached. What do you think of this?

Shan, have you looked at his high-resolution pictures? They are always so detailed that you should be able to tell Chinese crap from the real thing...

Yes, we do :-) I am not a togishi, I should therefore absolutely avoid nugui.

Andrew, thanks a lot. I understood quite clearly what Ted and Grey have told me. The fact that I have used nugui once does not make me a complete idiot. I can still comprehend the written word

Grey, I am an amateur, I search for knowledge (that you and other NMB members have). I did not feel offended by your statement of my ignorance, which was absolutely true :-) I was just looking for some more information. Thanks to your statement I know that I should absolutely avoid nugui. Thanks to Ted's comparison to varnish on an antique coffee table (brilliant, thanks, Ted!) I came to understand the subtlety involved. Both of you have helped me, to both of you I am indebted

Grey, many thanks. I don't know all ramifications, that is why I ask. Would you be so kind as to elaborate on this?

According to this: http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=zLDVL5FoL ... re=related a European broadsword will do the same... This documentary shows tameshigiri with a katana and a broadsword (go to 3:51/9:13). I was shocked to see the primitive sword to be (almost) as efficient as a katana...

Dear all, I have looked through all threads mentioning nugui, I have read all three excellent artciles by Jon Bowhay. However, I still could not find a conclusion - does it make sense to use nugui? My personal experience is that I have managed to "bring out" a magnificent ko-mokume hada on one of my tanto using koshiki nugui. Additionally, where the hamon was overwhelmingly white due to polishing with hazuya, the nioiguchi has gained a beatiful, sparkling appearance. the result was very satisfying and I would really like to use nugui, on my other swords. When I read Jon Bowhays "Hada and Nugui" I come to the conclusion, that I should avoid nugui (he mentions the risks involved, but this applies to te polishing process). My question is: can I use nugui? If yes, how? What is YOUR experience with nugui and its various sorts?

Here is a thread I have once started, with nice pics of my Kanewaka school (as I believe now) tanto: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2453&hilit=kunisuke+tanto it wuld be nice to see details of your tanto, the sunagashi pattern in particular....

John, isn't this hamon rather a hako midare? Like in the Kanewaka school?

I have a naginata (nagamaki) naoshi, too, and it is really heavy. Funny enough, I have recently acquired a Edo Shimosaka Yasutsugu School wakizashi which has been made a waki with naginata naoshi shape, and this one, to my surprise is heavy and massive, too. Has yours got a yakizume boshi?