Rivkin

Congratulations also to those who saw the potential from just the first photo... Was it the habaki? In any case it was impressive.

Polish? Museum? In person evaluation? .... What am I missing? There is not much yet to see. This can be ubu Nambokucho blade, but such conclusion is like 30 steps away at this point. Carving is nice. Boshi, nakago, detailed shot. Usually enough to understand what one is dealing with.

I will admit the stupidity of not being able to figure out this blade or having a well defined position on what exactly I see. Initially I thought one thing about the boshi, then exactly the opposite, and then, well it does need more study. Glad to look at things that challenge my meager knowledge space.

I feel there are some funky things here like strong yasurime at the mune and very much patinated and subdued everywhere else. I still suspect its a high quality shinshinto piece which was shaped up to sell like koto, but at the same time intrigued by the features especially the boshi. That's not too common in my book of things...

Nice katana. It wants to be late Nambokucho by sugata. Kasane seems too thick (by eye without the measurement) and the choji still too periodic and nie is too concentrated on top. Ichimai boshi in hakkikake is also very rare and in Nambokucho constraints one to something like Sa which its not. It can be Momoyama though, nie foaming at the top portion of hamon plus the koto-ish hada would be a good fit and they did Nambokucho sugata a lot. This one requires some thinking.

I am sort of convinced its Edo period, despite the nakago's patina and rather generic sugata which can be mid Kamakura for all that matters. Rounded choji reaching the shinogi can be Fukuoka Ichimonji, but the choji would not look that uniform. Actually that's my main issue with any old valuation - its too repetative, too perfect, too much like oshigata in steel. Can be Kagemitsu school, but generally hamon would not be that wide. Overall everything pre-Nambokucho, Kanemune etc. you would expect much greater variation within the choji and from choji to choji, strong utsuri (maybe did not enter the photograph but I doubt it) etc. etc. Omiya is a decent fit, many examples have large grained mokume hada, no utsuri and rounded Kagemitsu-ish choji, so there is a chance. They also tend towards a bright and easy to photograph nioi-guchi as here. My problem is Omiya's choji are very seldom that periodic, especially periodic-grouped. You always see a distorted choji here and there, tobiyaki, squarish-Kanemitsu like choji etc. Going all the way to shinogi is also highly uncommon, especially with broad groupings like here. Periodic groupings with very well defined and repetative choji are Edo period thing. Also these choji are more incenstivie to direction (try photograph Kanemune from two different angles and you will not see much similarity, here the hamon is sort of similar from every angle), nioi-guchi is kind of drawn by pencil together with ashi etc, there is not that much happening within choji themselves. You see them in Ishido school from time to time. With them boshi would most likely be wide and very straight. But I would argue this is high end shinshinto. Koyama Munetsugu, Unju Korekazu or the like. And someone patinated the nakago to make it look quite old.

Can't see the boshi. If its koto the question is what it is, and there is not much fitting the bill except for Omiya, but the blade does not look that early.

I'll put some context behind those. After Russo-Japanese war Japanese army defacto came into posession of vast territories which were administered with the help of Chinese and Korean authorities; the status quo was the local governments having difficulty controlling "bandits" especially after the mass rebellions marking the end of Qing dynasty rule. Death penalty was nearly the only punishment applied in greater China and quite liberally at that. Beheading of a few hundred people at once was at all not uncommon. What changed is first and foremost Japanese having very strong photography culture among the troops, very many officers and even enlisted men obviously eager to photograph the executions. With time more and more Japanese troops were beginning to join in beheadings, unti in 1930s you seldom find a local executioners. Those came from appropriate families and kept wearing Manchu-style garb and hair actually doing the cutting - but they still often supervise the execution or help out. The cutting is done by enlisted men with guntos. Until 1910 you see purely beheadings, from 1920s as the army advances into China you see many people skinned (or better say sliced) alive, which was not that common in Korea proper, and you see street walls mounted with cut off heads. Nanqing executions were extremely well photographed from every angle, for example. You can buy these "military albums" in Japan today and even series of so called "cruel photos" which has its own collecting community. The prices are not huge. For the combat use of gunto, there were a few highly publicized stories depicted in many posters and booklets, but their source and veracity is generally uncertain.

Its worth what people wanted to pay for a fully mounted blade which can be quite useful in a martial arts setting... The fittings appear to be modern except maybe for menuki. The blade was suggested to be koto but there are arguments both for and against it. can be early shinto. There are open fukure and ware, overall forging is sort of ok. Its a martial arts blade. I would add - all Japan-based sellers on ebay specialize on selling en masse blades with many condition issues. Their prices are often ok, but usually these are not collectible examples.

I see most likely gimei sword with no mentioning of authentication papers in the description.

The generic personal answer is that California museums are generally half-worth a visit from any point of view. There is Getty's which has a few first tier pieces (you might need an online reservation), and that's it. LA county sometimes runs an exhibit.

There are thousands of images with kyu-gunto executions.

Every single new type of steel introduced after 1800 had at least one swordsmith trying to make a blade out of it. Every time a swordsmith heard about new Krupp steel praised for something, he thought how a blade made out of it would look like. Today stainless steel tanto would be seen as blasphemy but in 1920s it was a cool thing.

Its a trick question in many ways. On the one hand they are not supposed to. On the other hand no one really knows what its made of and there are plenty "legitimate" art swords from pre-1920 and even until 1945 made from weird steels that have little to do with tamahagane and are proud of it. So it will not get papers if its run of the mill military sword with no particular distinction and bears evidence of cheap mass production. It will most likely get papers in all other cases.

Were these specific articles selected as the most impactful?

I would not worry about streaks, there are Kamakura period's blades that have them. there were schools that liked very sharp, narrow triangular looking togari.

Gendaito, I think.

I would guess its 1670-1720 but getting more details will be hard.

Hard to be certain but probably the end of Muromachi or early shinto waki. Shapewise they can be more or less the same from 1530 to 1680, but the nakago has a bit of late Muromachi feeling.

You will not get much more improvement with the polish since the blade itself it likely about "ok"... I would send it for papers. Chicago shinsa as an example.

It looks like its very straight which is basically Kambun shinto. Not too many suguha/Yamato smiths at the time. Its not Kii school for many reasons, but can be Owari.

There has been modeling suggestion that martensite is stable over about 500 years, but the authors modeled a very small volume... it is expected that a larger sample will be more stable. So the metallic structure likely does not dissolve by itself unless its about 5-10,000 years.

Well, the sugata is ok for Muromachi say 1500 and the nakago is consistent with sue-Bizen. The signature is in the right place and I don't want to check the books on whether its written ok, the steel feels Muromachi (though its hard to be sure based on these photographs) and they did suguha like this at the time. On the negative the patination towards the upper portion of the nakago is highly uneven suggesting something was done rather recently and the signature written is a bit too deep in my opinion. I would prefer the strikes to be a bit more shallow and not to stand out nearly as much with respect to yasurime... So yes on koto, hard to say on whether its Bizen original or the signature was added a bit later.

I should probably go for the reveal. Lets start with blade #3. Sugata is unusual with wide mihaba, extensive curvature, a little taper. Too deep curvature for Nambokucho, so its roughly either Muromachi or Shinshinto. Shinshinto idea can be shelved for now, if only because there is usually no such thing as direct school continuation into this period. Long kaeri continuing into muneyaki - its not Hasebe but someone Soshu inspired. Hamon is in nie with nioi base - western Soshu like Sa or Naotsuna, but the period is wrong, the work is way too wide. Also the structure of the hamon is weird - the patches of nie are well controlled but appear almost at random and without disturbing the suguha profile a bit too much, there is belted nie a-la Uda-Norishige but it appears is certain segments rather than dominating the structure. Its suguha with random ko midare. If it was Mino/Seki we would see more periodic gunome. If it was Odawara we would see more togari or at the very least Sadamune-like notare. Fuyuhiro would be random large togari or almost pure suguha. The hada is not a key kantei factor for most Muromachi works but also noting its fine itame with chikei, unusual. So wide suguha with random ko midare in nie + Muromachi period has only one school - Dotanuki. The verification for this school - katana are extremely heavy. Mihaba is wide, but also the thickness profile is just a bit more than you would normally expect. There is about 30% difference in weight against a typical same size blade of the period, and it is felt in hand. Going back to other blades, blade #2 is very tight itame with nie utsuri. if stated it is not Rai than its Enju, though admittedly it lacks typical Enju hada with masame and hotsure at least somewhere and a boshi is a bit off for the school - but such was the judgement. Its Kamakura period, unusual shape in a sense it retains curvature even despite being cut down severely. Possibly it was originally a kodachi. Enju was one of the schools which turned hard at Muromachi from Rai to Yamato. Blade #1 is an example of that - periodic gunome, coarse o hada, large nie which is clearly seen towards the tip. Though Muromachi Enju are extremely rare but nevertheless such appearance is "typical". Another example of similar sharp turn in style is Aoe.

The branch has two kantei points - one is hamon's shape, another one is unseen... they are deemed more than sufficient to be certain in attribution and it does appear in formal kantei competitions and not as a "trick" blade.