Rivkin

Probably circa 1550, can be either Bizen or Mino, would look at nakago which might reveal which one.

Suishinshi Masahide had a message - Edo period and everything associated with it was bad, it was better before and way better in late Kamakura. That was not unusual thinking towards Bakumatsu, whether the subject was economy, governance or sex life. How realistic is it when applied to swords is difficult to say. Overall Japanese ones are much harder than European and conversely are very prone to chipping. Great cutters with exceptionally short lifetime. You can chop a dozen iron nails with a saber and all you are going to get is the edge being shinier in places. But saber is not going to do nearly the same damage as Japanese sword. If what you want is a cut from above against say human target, I would go with shinto. More consistent steel content and grain size distribution. More weight for the same size is not going to hurt you but makes the technique more forgiving. Will shinto be more prone to fatal damage under such conditions - this is not my experience and I have an issue finding any concrete evidence confirming it is so. Early soshu is just as hard at the edge as Sukehiro. But early Soshu was battle proven... Its a big statement with not a lot of known quantities. Battle proven (very) often means we have X money, Y people and therefore we are going to make the weapons to fit the bill, nevermind all other considerations. Or it can mean we have one guy who survived a famous encounter 20 years ago and we continue making weapons according to his vision, until 20 years later people start believing in something else... And if you are an actual weapon designer, being guided by soldiers is not going to yield a fantastic weapon. There are many reasons, including soldiers not realizing the tradeoffs between performance, reliability, cost and manufacturability, while navigating those is the key to being great weapon designer. A LOT of them will have memories of the fighting itself distorted to the point of being completely unrealistic. Or driven by a single event which drove them nuts. So you are looking for a feedback of someone experienced, intelligent, calm minded, objective with knowledge of how the technology works. How many such people exist, especially since everyone who really fights rather than participates runs the risk of being killed which if not 50% then at least 10% Back to swords, frankly speaking they all have nearly the same effectiveness, +/- 15%. Its not the kind of technology or environment where you kill 100 people and then elaborate on how it felt with say Bizen versus Soshu. In this case, "fashion" becomes important. Somebody with influence likes o-kissaki - everyone tries to copy and be cool. Then another guy says - its all hubris, traditional sugata is better, and in 10 years - nothing changed on the battlefield but we are back to shapes from 100 years ago.

Great show and thanks for organizing it! I have not been able to participate for two years and the experience was exhilarating. I hope everyone in the field gets to enjoy a show like this at least once.

Everything is possible and it might be that the photographs show just the only area which looks natural... but in the photographs shown there is no indication of saiha. I've had a blade which NTHK NPO branded as saiha, which NBTHK papered and which later earned some well deserved praise...

It does not look retempered at all, nor is the hamon polish applied. If one is optimistic it can be Mihara, though I am personally pretty sure its shinto work in such style.

Its in relatively good polish. Dense itame hada which does not seem to have a lot of ji ne, suguha with clearly defined nioiguchi but without much activity. Blades looks kind of heavy-bulky with some taper, with little bit of koshizori which however at original length could have been torizori. Shinto, circa 1640 comes to mind.

Always been the case above 5 to 6 mil yen

In the auction it will go higher... However the prices of signed Ichimonji in suguha-like execution, tired - were never super-high. This one is not really suguha, there is definitely plenty of choji and activity but its probably still not the most active blade in hand. It may sound conspirational but I was always surprised by how large percentage of signed Ichimonji blades are actually less active compared to an average suriage one... or is it just my impression. I am not sure its a great Juyo candidate, could be, but it looks like a nice blade anyway.

Yokoyama Sukenaga?

I am having less and less confidence in eirakudo photos. Now for some reason the photos from the top which used to be very realistic show too much hadori (wrong light angle!), those taken at an angle were always pulled so hard it looks a bit more involved than in hand. This is ayasugi hada, as expected, why its so contrasty - its probably the image itself. The blade is indeed early, with curvature going into nakago. Were it signed this would have been an important piece.

Yes, I forgot about Masahiro, three smith names rather than two.

Sukekuni is quite a different smith compared to other Hokke, his choji are sometimes interpreted later by others, but he carries strong Bizen influence unlike any others. His work can be quite good. Hokke Ichijo is sort of synonymous to Hokke, you seldom find mumei blades attributed to other Hokke names except Sukekuni and Ichijo. Yes, he can be borderline between Nambokucho and Muromachi. I've seen Masaie attribution of Mihara when they wanted to send a message its the founder. Masanobu I think is a common attribution for mumei blades of a specific period. There are some kantei differences between the two, but I am not sure they are actually often observed.

I am a bit surprised someone quotes Masanobu as synonymous with ko Mihara since the two big names are Masaie and Masanobu (80% of signatures), both multi-generations, but Masaie starting earlier and dominating Nambokucho while Masanobu tends to begin during the very end of Nambokucho and has a strong tail into Muromachi (?) though meikan emphasizes Nambokucho specifically and single Masanobu generation at its very end. So ko Mihara is more likely to be Masaie by default among the two. Hokke has darker jigane, utsuri expected, can have a bit large featured/rougher jigane and can be a bit more midare than the pure suguha, while high end ko Mihara will have a very nice tight itame jigane with more greyish hue. Mihara will have longer kaeri and it has very specific, though period-dependent hamon width. Muromachi Mihara jigane will shift towards more standing out mokume, masame etc., wider hamon.

I am very sorry this happened. Unfortunately, my experience forces me to be pessimistic. It is not a "classical" case where the theft occurs at customs - something we saw happening for years, something that exploits the fact that only USPS can investigate mail theft, but the investigation seldom has the motivation to spill into customs as well. Rejected packages go back surface mail and this is always associated with elevated chance of getting lost or in the very least mishandled and beaten up. Some do arrive after two months, and maybe starting a package search on usps.com after three weeks of no tracking updates does help. That's what I always do. However after two months I would basically think of it as "gone". Regarding asking collectors to see if it turns out for sale... I used to bid at government auctions, in person and through agent. Buying stuff that was confiscated, "unclaimed" etc.. Quite a while ago, there was a nasty moment when an Italian family placed newspaper ads promising a reward for the information about a blade I bought. My understanding of the process is that once USPS declares the item lost, it assumes ownership of the package in exchange of validating your potential insurance claim. Similar to the case when the government declares whatever it holds as evidence or other property to be abandoned or confiscated and sells it - you have a potential claim against the government, but not the legal claim for the item itself.

Its Sadamune but I unfortunately don't have the record which one exactly. Either Juyo Bunkazai or Kokuho or Jubi. There is a lot of chikei, unfortunately overcompressed version makes it hard to see, but there are definitely dark areas. I'll try to put the original somewhere and see also if I have better images of the same blade.