Rivkin

The pictures are not great and its just a guess, but: it looks koto. It has masame and hamon is suguha with a bit of notare. Kasane is quite thick. Tosa Yoshimitsu, Muromachi is a possibility. Or something alike.

I think the most basic problem of nihonto is attempting to value a blade based on papers or length of sayagaki. Yes, 20+ sessions were bad, but they passed a lot of great blades. The most important nihonto blade, subjectively obviously, I've seen personally is Hozon. Moreover - no other blade by this maker passed Juyo or Tokubetsu Juyo. Yes, dealers construct laborious and complicated theories about which blade has a chance to pass Juyo or Tokubetsu Juyo and why accordingly this or that blade is valuable more than "just Juyo" because there is an extra potential for TJ. On another page they dismiss the whole notion "papers=valuation" as "ladder theory" - because the blade they sell on this page already failed three submission to Tokuju. Juyo analytics is an interesting subject, but ... blades are blades. Good blade does not get worse from being in 20s session, mediocre blade does not get better by somehow getting into 60s. Bungo Yukihira is sai jo saku with plenty of high tier blades. Sadahide is jo-jo-saku. In some spherical vacuum it matters, but in reality the work is similar. Finding dated Sadahide would be more important than most attributed Yukihira. Yukihira with horimono would be more valuable than most Sadahide. Sadahide in good condition would be more valuable than Yukihira without horimono and in average condition. How many TJ or TJ divided by Juyo they each have? Which Juyo session was it? Its highly secondary. Sometimes its not even the blade which is particularly important, but the signature. Yet as it is, a signed blade ushering a new name in Awataguchi register would be devalued by many because the maker does not have any Juyo - strange nihonto-specific attitude resulting from putting too much emphasis on papers.

This looks like a good late-end Muromachi Bizen piece. Alternative would be Ishido, but boshi is not sugu which as atypical. During 1970s such items indeed at times were judged as Ichimonji you even see green papers and Kanzan Sato's sayagaki to this attribution. A lot of people would say Honami Koson sayagaki is fake, but again its consistent with others, so probably real. One interesting thing about Tokuno Kazuo is judging by certificates I've seen he was the go to person if the blade was good, but you wanted an extra class attribution. Like you have a nice Ishido with ichimonji "ichi" kanji, you go to him and get papers for Ichimonji. There were a few high end collectors who had very high opinion of him and used his services repeatedly but at the same time today I would be worried seeing his papers.

I would add one thing - in reality its not twisted steel, its just an acid etch imitating it. 95% of "damascus" Chinese and Indian is this way. Used to be wax and acid bath, but I think today there are acid resistant templates which can be physically attached to the blade when its dunk in acid.

Many things produced by Bungo smiths, Yukinaga and his lineage included, are simple, utilitarian and rough. At the same time they were making higher end blades in distinctively old styles - Rai, Aoe, Soshu and Bizen. Couple of people in Muromachi Bungo produced excellent Aoe. Their Bizen is passable (kozori level), their Soshu is busy but average. Yukinaga was one of very few people in all shinto who produced quality utsuri and chikei. He made many average utilitarian blades and even his artistic blades have a tint of harshness and crispyness which some might find artificial, but I would consider those a good and interesting work and of all shinto Bungo he was probably the best. Other interesting shinto smiths are Bungo Noriyuki and Motoyuki who went full Soshu, though they occasionally copied Rai-Hizen as well. Their lesser blades have very plain featureless hada and harsh hamon like second generation Naokatsu (though obviously much earlier). The better works are interesting though not the top grade. I am not very fond of Bungo Tomoyuki or any of the smiths till mid-Muromachi post Bungo Yukihira and Joshu's generation. Their work style is however peculiar, with shifts between Soshu, Yamato and Bizen inspirations.

When I met stormtroopers I could not yet understand why someone would make such a choice. Life expectancy is 6 missions. Before then you'll probably bury every single friend you have. The missions are scary. In some cases you earn a privilege of renting an apartment and eating in restaurants... does not seem to be enough. Gradually I learned why they do it, and why some people enjoy the war in general. There is obviously brotherhood of the kind you don't see outside. Respect, purpose, andrenalin. The True Hunt. Great sense of freedom you only get after accepting death. But there is one more reason you actually hear expressed often - honesty. Its a job where at the end of the day you are either the one making the last round through the trenches and rending out the control shots. Or you are the one crawling and squealing for a few final hours, preventing defenders from getting a good night's sleep. No peer review, no remote judges, no arbitrary rules. Pure and simple. Before the war somebody can invent a story about Masamune taking on Mongolian boiler plate, and if enough professors repeat it, it becomes Science. Though it is not based on any contemporary or even later source. Possibly violates couple of things about metallurgy. If its published in a good enough journal its a Reference. It holds. As do the ratings and descriptions written 100 years ago, though few bother thinking where those actually came from. But then comes the war and asks - would you bet your life on this and that belief? Your children's lives? Seriously? And suddenly it turns out much what was considered scientific truth for the past 100 years was a convention from day one. Morality, borders, historical justice. Good war changes the world. War. Death. Valhalla.

Mino, Muromachi, naginata naoshi.

Unfortunately this guy takes not bad to actually good shinshinto and later blades, etches utsuri, signs kimpun mei and then sells them as ichimonji or masamune. He has been doing this for years.

Another one. The polisher thought its imitation of Hizen Tadayoshi. I disagree, believing its actually a good rendition of Bungo Yukihira's jigane with tobiyaki and dark chikei. Note: even today few people studied Yukihira's blade in excellent condition, but apparently Bungo Yukinaga did. It is surprising thing about Bungo smiths - they spend a lot of time learning from older blades and a few excelled in reproducing them.

Note - the server overcompresses so some jigane clarity is lost. It is a decent Rai imitation, there is even some shingane in other part of the blade. Shirake utsuri is good.

There is a book on bungo, but generally what's to say. He forged in a style similar to Hizen and Rai. Unlike Hizen everything is a bit like drawing with very sharp, harsh contours. He could reproduce utsuri, sometimes he would add shingane on purpose. He is a good and interesting smith.

Main problem it has been acid etched so its hard to judge. Yes, its one of provincial Yamato types - Houju, Naminohira, Uda, Hokke are likely culprits, in deep theory it can be shikkake yamato. Uda is most likely. Timewise... Early Muromachi? And it can be naginata naoshi zukuri, but I feel it more like to be simply naginata that has been shortened.

I would say its Edo period's boshi. There are many which do not follow the lines of o-maru, ko-maru and there are also many differences between successful generations of smiths. One can assign a name to them but it will be a bit iffy because of the diversity range.

Superb, thanks to Rayhan, Brian and Bob Benson!

Sad thing is 99.9% of discussions in museum and academic community are exactly like this. Long and tedious chewing of highly abstract and inconsequential topic. The "winners" are becoming department chairs.