Rivkin

I did not live in 1940s, but from collecting swords papered back then I think (and I could be really mistaken) the purpose of TH was actually a bit different. Allies never had strong intentions to confiscate art swords, so as early as 1946 local police departments started to issue permits made on a typewriter with magic words "art sword" "worthy of preservation". There was no unified policy however on how to deal with the situation and in some places police did confiscate a lot of blades and placed them in storage. Then came NBTHK which formed from the beginning many branches so they could issue "papers" that one could then provide to the police showing its an "art sword" or potentially have local NBTHK to go through the pile of things already brought over by the police and return the "art" ones. There was a short period when NBTHK judgements were made by local offices without any fixed format, on a typewriter and with no intention to certify the attribution, just say its a historic pre-WW2 item. I've seen those, signed personally by the local branch manager's seal. When official registration came into being this was no longer needed and the organization switched to issuing judgement papers. There was still the attitude that the first line papers are not the "real" judgement so there was now a second level paper (Mr. Green) which indicated that its not just a historic sword, but a collectible item. Yet the problem persisted that white and green papers could and were issued by local offices, so if you did not like the attribution you just kept submitting until you get the one you do like. After that even the main branch would seldom reject the local attribution. As the sword market went berserk in 1970s there was now a ton of green papers floating around with optimistic attributions/judgement. For a while a "fix" was the "blue papers" which meant that the main branch have looked at your green papers and decided to double down on both the attribution and on the fact it is indeed a collectible. Then the management changed, suddenly yakuza thingies in western Japan were being semi-openly whispered about and the system was overhauled with white becoming Hozon, green and blue remade into TH. Except now unlike the previous times Hozon by itself became the final, best and as accurate as possible judgement by NBTHK. No longer a first step at the local office just to certify its something and then you can confirm it with higher papers. This deprived TH of much of its meaning. Any signed upper grade Edo work can get it. Basically any pre-Muromachi blade, horror stories excluded, can get it.

Its common for Muromachi to produce unlisted smiths so theoretically we start from features rather than name. Since its signed it does resolve a lot of uncertainty: were it mumei there would be a chance for it to be Nanbokucho, but as is its almost ubu, its Tensho period sugata. Steel matches. It has a bit of Yamato provincial look with masame, shirakke utsuri and suguha. Its not kai mihara. From this prospective its possible to consider Fuyuhiro, Naminohira, Kaifu, Kongo. With strong parallel masame next to suguha I would second the argument its not Fuyuhiro but something Kyushu related. Kongo is a very strong contender. I think what the attribution you have is very solid. The issue is that if you submit it to NBTHK chances are they'll just repeat the signature with no extra info. Or they might confirm.

Any NBTHK designation is a private organization's business and bears little influence on export permits. Juyo Bunkazai and Kokuho can be exported for exposition purposes, the permit takes about half to two years and you typically need a strong public venue for the exhibit. Juyo Bijutsuhin can theoretically be exported with no restrictions since its obsolete, but in reality its quite a bit unpredictable. Some items like Chokuto can be easily denied export permit even without Juyo Bunkazai status. Juyo is a kind of thing that once its given to X blade, similar ones have good chance to get it as well. So mumei Ichimonji in decent condition has good chances to get a Juyo. Are they particularly rare? Not too much. Are they scientifically important? Not too much. There are tons Hizen Tadayoshi's that are Juyo. Are they important? Well... On the other hand you might have dated Mogusa with just Hozon or signed Shizu Kaneuji. Absolutely incomparable rarity and value. Irregardless of paper level.

I don't think it matters much. TH does not bring much value except to pre-Muromachi mumei pieces where it is often used to confirm the item is indeed pre-Muromachi rather than Oei. Otherwise its a tool to get some extra cash for the papering agency. It is not more specific than Hozon, it involves little to no extra discussions. I will express my usual bigotry, but too many collectors say "my sword is TH" or even "Juyo" with gravitas as if its something very special. Its not.

Looks like Jumyo, possibly Kambun or shinshinto.

Looks like shinto Bungo Takada wakizashi, most likely you can find exactly who using nihonto signature search or alike. Its very much of polish.

Generally any hada related kizu is not lethal. There are plenty of blades with fukure or large ware which saw combat over and over and survived. Lethal damage is either bending, which is not common in Japanese tradition or chipping. Since objectively Nihonto is by far the hardest heat treated mass produced sword in the world and therefore its chipping issues are incomparably worse compared to any other. Irrespective of hada. There are traditions which forge in more or less pure masame, you find such things in Tibet and quite a few other places. Mokume is however very seldom observed outside Japan as well as all its relatives such as matsukawa.

Thanks, I think those are perfect. I personally convinced its Kaga, Tensho period. The blade is very straight so at first I thought Kambun but such wakizashi with low sori and no tapering I guess are encountered in Muromachi period. Patina looks more Muromachi like, as is rather faint nijimei signature. Boshi is not purely sugu. Nakago is Kaga. I am very bad at reading, Ray's guess that its Masaie sounds reasonable. This is typically Mihara name, but the style here is not Mihara; can be unrecorded smith, which is not too uncommon in Muromachi.

Can't see much. The light source typically has to on a side to see the profile.

This is Kaga work, signed something-mitsu, decipherable but there are people here who are much better at this than me. Its crucial to see the boshi; without it its 1530-1670 or more likely 1570-1620 or so.

Nakago would be good to see, but so far its early Showa for export mounts with a blade which can be interesting but can be bakumutsu-meiji. Dragon and jewell is not horribly executed, but it tends to be a very late horimono, though not exclusively.

If a request is for me to go to someone's website, find a namban tsuba there and begin to argue its Japanese, why would I do that? I am sorry for repeating myself, but I am not aware of any work which would take the subject "Namban tsuba", separate it into types based on geometry, worksmanship etc., then crossreference with signed examples, then with provenanced (origin, date, something else) examples, then determine which appear on Chinese (Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean) swords and for which such instances are (currently) unknown. What is the first time this type of tsuba appears in images? Referenced in books? Described in texts? 200 images detailing signatures and provenanced pieces... does sound about right. Without such admittedly monumental contribution I don't know what I can be arguing against. "This tsuba was done in Beijing where around 10th of November workers started to cut corners and steal copper, with their very un-Japanese behavior, which confirms it was never Japanese in the first place". Ok. Must be getting really old and missing something. Maybe every single part of every single statement like that has been proven over and over again. A short summary suffices. More point for me not to argue. One is tempted to add to the list the analysis based on similarities in style to other objects in my experience those do not work. It was common in 2000s to compare sword decoration with say tombstones or jewelry and then draw conclusions regarding when and when those were manufactured. Failure, but we learned that sword makers could suddenly copy style which died out a few centuries earlier, and tombstone engravers could simply lag artistic development in other, more dynamic fields by couple of centuries. I personally question how useful this method is for dating. Finally, I don't want to point to particular cases, names, prices. Those willing can google search for tsuba with "Muromachi", "Ming", "Chinese", "Korean", "Vietnam", "Sino-Tibetian". I've seen them at shows and at meetings. What I don't see is... well don't want to repeat myself for like the fifth time.

I did not live in 18th century Japan or China, so unfortunately - I don't really know which are Japanese and which are Chinese. There are types which I have not seen shown on Chinese swords and for other reasons I believe to be Japanese "copies". Maybe tomorrow there will be a signed example showing its Chinese and I will believe then this type is Chinese or at least most of it. I have not been to 18th century Canton nor have I seen these tsubas with Cantonese signatures, nor have I seen them with provenance being trade items to Japan, so I really can't be 100% sure. When one deals with a generic subject which was copied over and over, and was understood as imitation subject with a very conservative form, its very difficult to separate them into well defined piles - Chinese, Canton, Vietnam, Japan. There are some provenanced examples which can serve as guidance, but they are generally late, and sparse covering maybe 20%, maybe 30% of these types. And even then it can be counter-argued - well its not Vietnamese provenance, its Japanese export tsuba on a Vietnamese sword. Its mounted on a Japanese styled weapon, has design elements not really suitable to Vietnamese etc. etc. etc. It ends up basically unproveable. And btw its usually really the same five-six blades that were published and I personally know dozens more that somehow "scholars" on the subject never refer to. If you could direct me to a book which demonstrates clearly 200 provenanced examples, separates provenanced types from those for which we have no signatures, no provenances, then identifies distinctive features, I would be very happy to read it. I am not aware of such text. What I awlays heard instead - there is 18th century sword in such collection, and I really believe the tsuba there is 16th century, and its not exactly like this, yes this one has Japanese anas, and its not egg shaped, but it sort of like it. It can be a good argument, but ... I don't believe in generic arguments like "There is a Ming image like that and this tsuba is also like that" are sufficient to date things to Ming period. When deals with real life objects it simply does not work. I've seen made thousands of times only to be rolled back a decade later - no its 19th century, well, they just did it this way. I would not have a problem with thousands of dollars price if the description would say look it might be early, it might be Chinese and here is my argument for it. But that's not the dealer's speak. Dealer's speak is "Ming Dynasty, Beijing Imperial workshop" and its not something I feel comfortable even, possibly more so if it comes with "international scholars consensus". Yes, it does tick me off. And it ticks me off exactly as when I deal with Japanese and they show me an absolutely Indian work and say - no, this is kin zogan, and that's the Japanese school that made it, and it must be therefore Christian Daimyo from 16th century who ordered it made in Namban style. And well you show them Indian items and they keep saying - no, Japanese work is very specific, this is how the line goes, and this is how that goes. No, its still 19th century Indian. Yes its very similar, if we would not have tons of signed examples I might have even believed you.

I will be honest in saying I can't remember everything I ever said, unfortunately or which tsubas exactly I stated were never on Chinese swords, but yes the point it - there are many Namban tsubas which look very Chinese but no one ever demonstrated this identical type on a Chinese sword. Now it might that fully mounted Chinese swords of this level are not common, maybe they did not survive, but how we can be convinced its certainly Chinese - well... I am pretty sure I was always convinced in one thing: without first publishing detailed analysis which includes statistics on all provenanced (by record, archeology or otherwise), clearly Chinese (on chinese swords?), clearly Japanese and so on and so on, without then identifying distinguishing features separating those groups - it is impossible to state a definitive attribution that this one is Vietnamese and this one is Ming. If there are no provenanced and signed examples, I don't think anyone should rush forward with being very specific in naming either date or place. There can be conjectures based on specific features, even should be! but it all requires a very detailed writeup and even then it will remain a conjecture, possibly a good guess. There have been dozens of cases even during my lifetime when someone published an article saying look - this element is executed exactly as it is on a known sword made in Damascus, and a decade later the argument iwas rejected completely because we realized its a common design, or its a much more common technique than previously thought, or for some reason it was specifically imitated in a specific place at a specific time. I am not even talking about relying on comparison of decorative work on swords with utilitarian items and jewerly - quite popular arguments 30 years ago but resulting in 70% cases in failures. And with conjectures like "Ming" it is expected to be (very) weak simply there is not much to compare with. I don't have a temporary vision which allows me to look at 100 unsigned, unprovenanced objects with really nothing signed to directly compare to and say - well those are certainly Japanese and those are certainly Chinese, Beijing, third street to the right since well they were famous for their metalwork down there. The next person will come over and say - no, if there are extra ana, its certainly Japanese, I don't care about any other argument - I'll just say Japanese did a good imitation. Unfortunately in the past decade I've seen waaay too many >2,500$ tsubas priced such because the seller became convinced its certainly Korean or Vietnamese or Chinese and its 16th century because "Japanese could not do this work" and "There is a photograph on met's site of a Chinese 16th century dragon that looks this way" or a similar one is sold on website with such description or another argument which I just don't find convincing. Its certainly fun to discover new things and its well earned money if one does, but when these categories are being invented one after another backed by great certainty and very few definitive facts its not my cup of tea at all.

Well, they did burn Chagal which many thought was real, but the court got convinced it was not.

Its a very difficult topic as the existence of signed Kamakura period's Uda blades is disputed and the names recognized as the earliest - Kunimitsu, Kunifusa and Kunimune were widely used in Muromachi period. A lot of sellers take Kunifusa attribution and argue its the earliest Uda.

For those concerned with mei removal there is an interesting French law which makes it illegal to own a forgery. France is also known for a plethora of institutions dedicated to publishing catalogue raisonne of specific artists, and such organizations on occasion successfully sue private collectors and museums demanding a painting with what they see as a fake signature (obviously unsigned work cannot be "fake" by definition) to be destroyed alltogether. In a sense preserving Edo period's obviously fake signature in most cases is difficult to justify as it adds to neither historic nor artistic standing of the object. The issue in my mind is that the whole notion that a blade can be attributed with 100% certainty to a specific artist is basically untrue. With a random blades not specifically chosen by experts for kantei on the basis of it being ultra-characteristic an attribution beyond dozen is seldom achieved even by the best kantei experts and even greater disagreements are expected. There are ugly, horrible Edo period's gimei signatures. There are signatures that are textbook Kotetsu, except for one stroke in one kanji. Should they be labeled gimei? Two strokes in two different kanji? Two strokes in the same kanji? Three strokes? Where is the point where we decide even with signatures from the period which is well documented that its 100% a fake? There are examples of mei removed and blade submitted, but there are hundred times more examples of blade being gimeied or returned with no judgement and then resubmitted and passing.

No one can see in the past to determine whether a tsuba is Ming or Qing, whether its Japanese or Chinese. What can be done is a full review detailing the existing provenanced objects, using them to identify period/region specific features. With a study of Chinese objects being widely copied and adopted, Japan included, often at a much later date, and how the copies can or cannot be (definitevely?) distinguished from the "originals". Then it can be applied to non-provenanced objects with a statement that this tsuba has this feature which is unique to Ming Chinese examples and is not encountered anywhere else. An attribution "Ming dynasty, China" is then understood in a context "according to the classification presented in .... this tsuba belongs to the cathegory identified as Ming". Possibly with a note that in the future this very same category can shift to something else like Qing or Vietnam if the argument is redefined by future data. There is no such text available to m knowledge. "There is something similar on Chinese sword" is not an in depth study and does not present a proof - East Asian items are similar, the devil is in details. There is however a flood of recent, definitive, single line attributions "17th century Vietnam", "Ming China" and so on, applied to tsubas purchased on yahoo Japan and now being resold at 100 times the purchase price. Then these offers are being referenced by collectors who are discovering their 100$ Namban tsuba is in fact a "Ming China" example from a court workshop of the Forbidden city, which generates the next wave of similar attributions and so on. The tree is massive already. The root analysis is yet to be presented, the first attribution is yet to be proven. Troubling trend since the numbers of primary sources or provenanced examples which have established Ming dating is miniscule to say the least. There are issues with kunstkammerren is that while in later registers its entirety was often automatically attributed to the Emperor, there are proven instances when these are in fact ater 18th century items. The most famous example in the Russian literature is "Peter the Ist shashka" which was long described as a tribute by a Circassian chief, yet turned out to have been received if I remember correctly in 1767 from a (mostly) unknown source. Russian restrictions on photographs are peculiar, but are generally avoided by "artistically reproducing" the images as drawings.

Most likely yes.

I can't claim major understanding of Buddhism and hope to be corrected, but many historical persons more or less openly claimed to have been reincarnations of Prince Shotoku-Boddhisatva. At this level retaining during the rebirth perceptions, awareness, even possibly basic memories is expected and instrumental to guiding others. Related are dozens of stereotypical stories about rediscovering by fate an item belonging to an ancient progenitor or school's founder, the emphasis being "karmic succession" linking the generations. The problem I see is that in the absence of strict canon (and with many living Buddhas strict canon is unachieavable) many preachers feel entitled to voice what real faithful should believe in, while omitting this is a rather small portion of the diversity of views.

Now if we go a bit deeper into esotherics, East Asian cultures have an interesting disdain for historical documents compared to opinions by contemporary luminaries. Accepting reincarnation means that the major actors of today's scene are actually the very same people who produced the very best 1000 years ago. If Masamune's reincarnation tells you its not Masamune's blade, you have to erase the signature and you can't argue your way out. This attitude figures very prominently when you look at disputes regarding genealogies or matters inheritance of leadership in Buddhist schools, if there was a person in generation with a solid reputation of being Buddha with an appropriate position of leadership, he could easily condemn rather solid looking documents and arguments as fakes. You see similar issues in Judaism for example, where reincarnation is commonly accepted and a contemporary leader can insert his opinion into a historical document with a feeling it "restores" it to the original clarity rather than alters the original. Reincarnation societies do not have as strong distinction between past and present.

With military decorations fakes, there are whole recognizable schools, you look at the object and you can tell who made it or in the very least general area/period where it was made. 99.9% of the time you encounter gimei its not a purposefully made fake, its later generation or a blade from the same general school or something else along this lines that had the original signature replaced with that of a famous first generation master, and usually the replacement is frankly not too convincing because its clear the signer did not specialize on this particular name. So you have a dealer who had dozens of lower name smiths and decided to risk it with an upgrade. Since there are tons of shinto blades that imitate Sukehiro you see today very diverse works in Sukehiro's style with gimei, and sometimes you can guess whose work was actually used. Now there are Muromachi period's signature which were placed on blades as attribution since they actually often match what the blade actually is quite close. At the time this was apparently not too uncommon. Those are treated with some respect and the blade can paper at any level with "to mei ga aru" note. Today dealers often submit those to sayagaki writers hoping "ga aru" part will be explained away. If they fail and if they are western based they then write a long text how "ga aru" does not mean gimei, "its different", "its previously unknown example of the earliest signature when the smith was drinking heavily while being beaten by his wife" etc.. The buddy-loyalty machine surrounding each major dealer then makes sure those wonderful "explanations" are not questioned too often and too openly. I have couple gimei blades that I don't know what to do with because one is published in a major book, another has Shimazu provenance records. I would ordinary erase the signature but...

It looks like nakago was patinated, yasurime is deep and well spaced, so its something recent, either shinshinto or gendai, which is consistent with the overall type, they are usually not too old. I would feel more comfortable with shinshinto but its hard to say. The forging is traditional and there is an intention to have koto feel. If one wants to assign a school to it, "Mino" can be the case, but since its a late work this would be a stretch of sorts.

I don't have any information, but I can't see a reason to fake signatures today when any big name with no papers will just generate doubt. Cutting tests, Honami mei, Edo papers, WWII property documents are much more profitable and easier to fake. In 1970s there used to be a lot of newly made Naotane and Kiyomaro, but I think this period ended... though I don' know.

Shinsa is how the organizations fund themselves. They are going to do absolute minimum which ensures the customers come back. NTHK has to offer "goodies" like same day judgement and always including date because its a second choice option. Otherwise 95% of gimei are made not by Kajihei but by a team of shady Edo/Meiji period's dealer and a third rate "smith" who chisels mei of a person they think can be a match for the blade. They don't make blades but upgrade those they have in store. If one is lucky maybe you see couple Kajihei's in real life... Its a well known story because its an exception.