Rivkin

Give us good pictures as defined many times on this forum and good chance we'll tell you the ballpark of what it is.

They are both real, unless a smartphone somehow learned to capture ghosts. Katana needs nakago picture, preferably boshi as well. Wakizashi looks like a remade naginata and sugata wise it has potential. Need good pictures.

Yes, in a better Mino nie can concentrate towards the upper portion of the hamon in a pleasant rather than ugly-clustered formation. Very nice. I do have high hopes for the blades with these photos in terms of being an upper class of Kanemoto lineage. Also top level polish because these things are hard to accent and often hadori obscures the finer activities in the habuchi area. Nioiguchi does not seem to be too consistent which detracts from the beauty.

Early (pre Kamakura) sword construction is rather diverse. There are many single slab, but about 25% of the overall are sanmai, and there are exotic bilayer left to right on katakiriba shaped blades and bilayer up-down like later on Yamato. Metallography on continental blades (for example, Tolmacheva) tends to be far more representative with total of about hundred blades tested and published, compared to literally few published Japanese examples. Kofun is not illustrative since it has different tendencies.

Yes, looks like Shikkake from Nanbokucho, a bit more ko nie oriented than some, with clear gunome pointing towards the school. Senjuin attribution feels weak to me. On the one hand, Senjuin is a very generic term, on the other hand its really a Kamakura period school and Nanbokucho items usually warrant another and more specific attribution.

Almost certainly not koto? Its shinto period's Kanemoto style, maybe by his lineage, maybe by one of many imitators. But it still might paper to later generation Kanemoto.

I am going to be critical. The issue with all publications on the subject is that each deals with a particular selection, makes the most general conclusions, and is conducted by a person who either understands the modern steel, or the old steel or the sword history, but never all three combined. As a result you can find opposite statements on the same subject, in each case supported by graphs and observations. First, in regards to Ohmura, I feel its a case of liberal contrarian arguing against mainstream patriotic. It has been long postulated that the transition from Chinese to Japanese steel is observable by changes in titanium and to lesser extent tungsten concentration, which distinguish continental and Japanese sources. Accordingly Kamakura period blades are seen as at least 90% Japanese sources, Kofun blades are at most 10% Japanese sourced. If the conclusions being contested, this observation (different characteristic inclusions in Japanese versus Chinese sources) needs to be addressed first. In many ways the conclusion also mirrors similar one for bronze, though in this case the argument is much stronger since its based on the ratio of Pb isotopes which are very characteristic of specific locations. Second, Kitada makes an important point that what distinguishes Japanese sword steel by period is mostly the grain size, which is related to forging practice. Accordingly in his analysis shinto swords come out on top because their grain structure is exceptionally well controlled. Accordingly his position that changes in swords have much to do with forging, like more foldings for shinto, and less with sources. Also a good example of contradictory data - in his publications P and S in Japanese swords are generally low. He makes a good point however that in European steel native presence of Mn can negate even high concentrations of P and S, therefore for Japanese steel presence of such inclusions would have been more problematic. But again his statement is that its very low, which is in contradiction with some other measurements. Third, still no definitive analysis of composition versus period. Shinto steel does look different in many aspects, but are we certain of this, and why it is different remains unanswered. Is it better selection (composition varies a lot within tatara), is it better sourcing (specific region), is it better forging, is it imported etc. etc.. In regards to hardness - european technology includes a final operation of taking a blade and heating it a bit for day/days to reduce its hardness but greatly reduce stress and dissolve large martensite. European blades do not hagire, and frankly non-Japanese blades do not hagire, though its achieved by different methods.

Its a secret, but quite a few better people who buy unpolished blades etch them first to see at least what's hamon outline is. Polishing them afterwords is no problem at all, polishing generally removes more material than etching.

Unfortunately I don't see much of clear ayasugi hada here, nor is it alike to 1450s Gassan, which is relatively early since almost all of them are from 1500+. What I see is more like endulating sunagashi/kisuji/nagare within the ha area with somewhat darker jigane, bo utsuri, rough hada with some mokume, hamon in suguha/midare/gunome which tends towards ko nie (Gassan tends to be suguha or notare). I think its Fujishima, Kaga, circa 1500. Obviously I can easily be playing fool's game here if it has NBTHK papers, but that's what I see. Unfortunately another issue is that a lot of Muromachi production from the period looks a bit alike. You see similar things sometimes in Mino and Bizen, later in Mizuta etc.

Not really a tosogu person, but I would second its likely to get ko kinko papers, but kinko ko shoami looks right.

I like it!

The main problem with valuating any kind of historical object is artificially constrained supply. In the West you have stuff going into museums but almost never coming out. Paintings and prints which 50 years ago could be bought on demand today come up once every 5 years. Because thousands of them are now locked up in museums, willed or gifted by collectors. Roughly the same thing happens with nihonto. Order of magnitude there are 10,000 Juyo and a comparable number of Jubi. Each year I would say the absolute maximum number of Juyo being sold worldwide is probably 100, and a typical number is probably more like 30. And 10 Jubi at best. Far less than 1% of the total. The cause is while an average collector keeps a high end sword for 15+ years, there are Japanese collectors with >500 high end swords who never sell. If anything seriously bad happens in Japan's economy, Juyo prices will drop from their current "baseline" price of 20-30K USD to more like 8-10.

I possibly see Enkyo, which would make it not a Meikan recorded smith. It can be a shinto rather than Muromachi nakago. In my impression shinto's Uda were a generic shinto style smiths: https://www.aoijapan...katana-uda-kunimune/ but possibly the meaning behind the papers is that some continued to imitate the Muromachi style. In which case its actually an interesting attribution.

I am bad at reading kanji, but this looks like Muneyoshi 宗榮 which can also go as Soei. The style of yasurime and patina - from Kambun to WW2 period. The problem is that yasurime and nakago generally look ok for Harima lineage, but the writing does not really match its style. Otherwise its not a common name and I don't really see any matches. On the other hand the writing itself does not scream "gimei", but its not of great quality. This is where going through books would help, there were many generations and maybe one signed like this.

Absolute Savagery. Some people think they can just write a sayagaki, others think they can just write a certificate. In Russia issuing appraisal certificates for swords requires a government registration as an expert, which in turn requires a recommendation of the cultural expertise council, to be a member of which one needs to be first no less than a department head at a major museum. They would put a stop to Tanobe's shenanigans in a matter of seconds - electrodes to the balls and then eight years chopping sayagaki material... Generally, issuing opinion on a subject where one does not have a government certification as a recognized academic expert, attested by the leading members of the academia is not taken lightly there, there is a criminal article called "intentionally spreading falsehoods".

Usually above 20k USD, in part because people are uncomfortable showing such prices, in part because they don't want someone comparing and later coming with "well you sold better blade for less money". Part of the reason these are usually sold as "reverse auction". 2 days after its posted you'll get full quote, 1 year later the price drops without making a fuss about it. Yes, the top buyers often are paying a bit more for the right being the first to whom the offer is made.

I'm just going to state what I think. I am sorry it will sound rough. NBTHK holds Uda Kunimune in a bit higher regard than say Tomotsugu. If it writes Tomotsugu its late Muromachi, if its Kunimune it can be on the edge between Nanbokucho and Muromachi and generally hamon can have decent work in nie. One usually goes for TH to "confirm" its Nanbokucho. I don't want to check, lazy, but then you have Kunifusa which they give to good early Muromachi Uda with tight itame and there are couple of other Muromachi names. This being said in kantei they are all considered Muromachi by default and atari to each other. This one is clearly late Muromachi, not Nanbokucho, so it has to be NTHK papers. NTHK works differently in a sense they give a name + date so they can have anydate Kunimine - early, late etc.. Nevertheless, this example has very uncommon for Uda nakago, its hadamono with weak hamon suffocated by hadori. Late uda will have rough hada and coarse, nie based hamon. I suspect this is post 2021 NTHK or NTHK NPO papers with a Strange Attribution.

Are papers NTHK?

Generally I would not feel strongly about declaring someone at this level a gimei, but even without hitting the books the signature is very condensed on one side though it uses only a portion of the nakago. Its not condensed on the other side, where fewer kanji occupy about the same length. It is filled with strokes which are miniaturized, weak and angled, a generally poor calligraphy unworthy of a serious shinto smith. Yes, I would vote for gimei.

I am not really knowledgeble on tosogu but is not 1800 a bit early for this execution? It looks inline with a lot of Japanesque metalwork from 1900.

That looks like Fukuoka modern fake with yakuza papers. As is often the case, the man who faked Kiyomaro did not have the skill to produce varied nie crystals including of relatively large size. Therefore his hamon despite having nie looks very much "blue" even when the light is almost above the blade. If the light is on a side of the blade nie hamon is supposed to look blue-grey, but when it moves above the blade its supposed to sparkle white. It does not happen with Ikkansai Yoshihiro and quite a few others from late shinshinto to early gendai who tried to make Soshu blades with apparently relaxed hardening conditions.

Markus did exceptional service to the community with his books.

... I guess condition is unusual. I was involved once in a rough evaluation of Reich chancelorie and department of foreign affairs properties taken by the Soviet Union. Nothing appeared terribly interesting, mostly modern-Meiji things, actually there was considerably more Chinese pottery and decorative paintings (in 1920s there was a lot of back and forth gift exchanges) with the emphasis on pretty. There are plenty of personal/diplomatic Asian gifts everywhere, they are just not spectacular and more often than not budget friendly.

Very aggressive koshi-zori curvature may be not too consistent with Masamune style. Out of polish Muromachi blade is suspected. Overall almost nothing of sword value has been exported from Japan before Compton's time. Even MFA collection held in very high regard when you handle the blades, they are big names but aside from one or two pieces are lesser works. It is not at the level of high end modern private collections. Until almost now having foreigners to take good old blades out of Japan was considered unthinkable. In 1900 aside from junk and soft metal tosogu, even high class, it was just not happening. Plus collectors back then knew nothing. Even today its still very much a sensitive issue.

I do own kozuka with this scene. NTHK papered it to Goto Kakujo and overall I have shown it to quite a few people and the opinion was that its either mainline Goto or founders of Kaga Goto, about the same period. I've spent some time looking at yahoo's listing and convinced myself mine's quality "might be" a "little bit" better which is mostly visible in hair and mons - in mine you can better see the black lines and slightly less flat execution. Yes it's Goto, but which generation is going to be random.