Rivkin

I am getting this question multiple times for every blade I sell. On practice fake papers do not exist. In 25 years of collecting I've seen one fake jubi paper, two or three TH (there was a time those were circulating) and one Juyo paper. There is no point in making fake NBTHK papers. You can't produce them en masse without people quickly catching on what you do and tracing the sales back to you. There is no deniability factor. By comparison I can buy old paper, old typewriter and knowing the format of pre-torokusho police permits produce a decent fake attributing the blade to Marquies Kuroda. And nobody will ever prove with 100% certainty its a fake or that I am the one who made it.

After Grey's message I think might have been wrong calling it on Mino; Mino tends to have sharper nakago contours and prominent yasurime like takanoha or higaki... The work style to me looks a bit more Mino than Bizen but its the kind I think was used by both. It seems to be from Tembun and Bizen nijimei are uncommon at this time though...

Its supposed to be first generation Aizu Kunisada I guess... Good photos can allow one to understand whether its gimei or not. I would not be too worried by default.

I can't see the signature its so small, but its believable Morimitsu. Can't see the yasurime but looks like Mino Jumiyo, Tembun era.

The key question was - how many H/TH signed Yamato blades are out there compared to those at Juyo+ which one can thus easily count? The answer: Almost zero for Hosho. Hosho signed blades are significant portion of their total, but its a small school and signed ones are almost all Juyo. Almost zero for Taima. Larger school, but almost all blades are suriage daito, tanto are rare of which >50% are signed. Tegai/Senjuin. I see a signed example at TH every other year, but how often do I see a signed Juyo for sale? About as often. I can argue for 100 Juyo examples there should be at least 70-80 of those kept at H/TH levels. Possibly more. This further opens the gap: signed Taima is a unique opportunity, while signed Senjuin/Tegai you actually can buy if you want to. For Tegai the signature premium is significant, so a signed daito at TH will be easily 1.5mil if its in good condition. For comparison, buying any Awataguchi other than Shintogo Kunimitsu, unsigned, is more problematic than buying a signed Yamato blade. Shintogo exists even at TH level (six mil, Shintogo Den). Awataguchi.... Eh. If you are looking for signed pre-Muromachi blades, Bizen is the only one that for some reason was not that often suriaged (except Ichimonji daito??) and had also plenty of tanto. Then you have Rai Kunitoshi and late Rai in general (post Kuniyuki) which is often ubu/signed. And Naminohira. All other schools, you'll have to deal with suriage daito as a rule. Echizen Rai is a large attribution, comparable in numbers to Tegai: how many are ubu and signed? Signed Soshu daito... Ehh... Signed Awataguchi... That's the stuff only a Serious Japanese Collector has.

Quite similar to the table... Never seen Taima or Hosho below Juyo if signed, one Tegai every three-four years and one Senjuin in two years. pre-Muromachi. I did not pay enough attention to Shikkake.

I see Tegai and Senjuin every other year at H-TH level, often unreadable though. Others are more rare to begin with and if signed tend to be Juyo.

I am frankly puzzled what to say... Is it common for Tegai Kanenaga to have kissaki that long? It is a mistake or not to judge a bit midare hamon as Shikkake and not Tegai? What does it mean certified expert, today? There is government certification which certainly some have, but does it help when judging a particular blade? On Yamato signatures its like lumping everything in one bowl and arguing it tastes sour so the ingredients must be. Signed Hosho tanto can be acquired, signed Kamakura Senjuin were thought to be very rare, but there are a few which one can buy today at TH level and they are not going above that. Signed Taima is extraordinary rare, early Tegai is very rare (but they exist even at TH) and Shizu is precious. Signed Muromachi Mihara is very common. Signed Zenjo or similar stuff is pretty common.

Anything entering the US through New Jersey (East Coast) customs. From Europe or Japan. Customs marks the item as released, but it never gets back to the carrier (USPS, UPS, Fedex etc.). Sometimes they don't steal the item, but instead butcher the box to the point that the postal service itself throws it out. USPS has the right to assume ownership of any package at which point it pays out the insurance and legally you no longer own the item. Its gone bad to the point no package from Europe is safe (most used to go through the East Coast) and packages from Japan are best send to the West Coast address. The rate of loss is staggering.

Has to be a selfie.

I would guess Kaga, Momoyama, can have active hamon. fittings on saya are upper end.

No, there are later generation Sukemitsu and also 1460s dates are commonly encountered. Without looking at books (treat with salt) - I think the main generation for this lineage is not Oei but Eikyo Sukemitsu. And he was like 1440-1465. The signature can be ok, but without seeing the blade itself its hard to be certain. Taking in mind Sukemitsu did a lot of non-mainstream work.

There was a period in early Muromachi when shift from central to side placement is significant and can potentially disprove the signature, but... This is Sengaku's piece. Plenty of generations, lots of weird signatures and tons of produced pieces. If this would not be signed what can it get? Sue Bizen or Kaga. Not too many other options. It does not have strong Kaga feel. So its something that feels sue-Bizen with sue-Bizen signature... Hmmmm.... I had plenty of Sengaku pieces papered with a note on the judgement sheet (even the tiny NBTHK one) that the signature is not in the references or even a vocal statement that it matches the work but might have been added later. Its uncommon to take a run of the mill Sengaku piece and brand it as gimei because the signature is a bit off, as long as it matches the work. I had signatures with extra multiple family names still papering - it matches the work and no proof this smith did not sign like that at one point. Though I had the opposite experiences also, in this case with NTHK gimei-ing a nijimei blade, and NBTHK then passing it. This said, I would feel better were it a more typical shallow and thin written signature right at the nakago... and frankly I don't really understand signatures well enough.

The work looks like a circa 1540 wakizashi in sue-Bizen style. I am no specialist on signatures and don't want to check the books for generations of Yasumitsu, but the work itself seems a good match and I would assume (without consulting the books) by default its genuine. Fittings are so and so.

90% of sword dealers in Japan don't want to deal with Gaijin. 90% of quality swords even those offered by dealers from the US came originally from just two dealers in Japan. There are in total three dealers who are Gaijin-proof by choice. Gaijin collectors are "browsers". They don't understand the subject, they don't know what they want, they feel asking for a photograph of the kasane makes them "sophisticated" since, well, they heard somewhere kasane is important. They are in a permanent state of utter panic. The papers might be fake. Look the zero number looks different from zero on another TH from the web!! There could be so many bad things about the sword! They need to make sure! But they have no clue what exactly they are looking for. Even if they buy a blade they will show it to 30 people until one says it has a hagire, to the great satisfaction of the buyer who finally figured out what is wrong with a papered blade.

Likely WW2, possibly not entirely traditional.

Its Muromachi Tenbun. Uniform torii zori with just a tiny hint of koshii zori, not much taper, rough looking utsuri with no clear midare shape and certainly not jifu utsuri. The measurements of kissaki in situ are not a determining factor, ko kissaki of the early swords is tiny in comparison with what otherwise is a great blade with much greater width an hamachi. For the school the choice here is wide. Fuyuhiro, for example. Can be Bizen Sukesada. Can be something else, they are all similar in some of their work and the level of valuation reflects that. Its not mainline Soshu or Kaneuji school because it lacks nie activity.

I doubt its ivory, most are scrimshaw or walrus. Yes, late Meiji piece.

Tanto is Muromachi, for the mei evaluation much better photographs of the blade would be of value. Without opening the books there is nothing absolutely criminal with the mei, I would check the placement (center) against the books for various generations taking in mind not the most common sugata here, but I think whether it matches the work is much more important.

Don't think that political influence is even within the top three issues. The biggest problem experienced today is that Japanese institutions are multi-generational. You have post-war generation where even if you had some family based "street cred" you had to constantly prove yourself. I've never seen Dr. Honma's judgment obliterated, there could be misreadings on which genealogy one uses, but its basically always solid. If you want to know what he meant, you just read his books. His understanding was actually "unconventional" at the time, he challenged a lot of old concepts, and must have been challenged himself many times over. Today a lot of experts are the third generation. Their parents were successful as polishers-merchants-members of nihonto hierarchy. Themselves they never had to prove anything, some just served coffee and mopped the floors waiting until Ueno-san transfers into another world and there is an open spot to fill. By the same token there were Honami who saw a lot of swords and did work hard, and there were many who were next to useless. The good thing is that useless were also typically lazy, so they did not do too much in the confusion department.

There is a notion that kengyo of Masamune/Go on ubu swords is not original and well, one might say "cooked up". The exact purpose is disputed. Soshu tanto without signature might not have been born this way. Otherwise, in shinto Nanki Shigekuni did very believable Yukimitsu and Dewa Daijo Fujiwara Kunimichi did a believable Masamune. They are good, quite unlike their "regular" jobs, and can be easily misjudged. Literally they are a bit too shiny for an old sword. Cutdown satsuma blades do pass for koto even today, daito can get papers to Hasebe. Generally there are fewer successful shoto imitations (except Shimada can pass for Nobukuni or even Hasebe), but daito Soshu can be misattributed.

Had three of four blades with torokusho definitely issued to another sword. Probably 20% had signatures misspelled or other big issues. Did not pose the issue until they needed to be exported. Lets hope Japanese police's special kantei unit does not read the board.

NTHK (non NPO) does paper unusual number of blades to Bungo Yukihiro specifically. We are seeing them more and more in auctions and such. They also use ko Aoe and Echizen Seki attributions a bit generously. But a fine auction with good selections.

Surprisingly not nearly as many as in paintings world. Blades are hard to fake. On the other hand kantei is often a self-fulfilled prophecy - in the absense of signed examples in any appreciable quantity if you paper something to X over decades, it will be accepted by many as X. By the same token, since its relatively easy to fake Honami papers and there are many fakes (though nearly all of one person), the procedure is to look at the blade and if it seriously mismatches the attribution you state the papers are fake.

An "average" Shogun received anywhere between 25 and 400 blades each year as gifts, depending on how many events he attended. They dispensed some proportional amount as their own gifts. Within a few generations in each family the blades "above the station" would be given out and in return the blades appropriate to their class would be received. Many blades changed hands a dozen times without being sold once. Honami appraisals were not intended to be purchase invoices but rather a note of how valuable the gift was and thus which event it was appropriate for. Sales receipts of any "collectible" level swords are exceptionally rare. Where the act of purchase is known, its often by Honami, who then repapered (self-papered) and sold off the blade for great profit. What one does encounter at times are pawn shop receipts for blades - there were Rai Kunitoshi's offered at "regular" Edo period's pawn shops. Near always fakes or better to say highly optimistically appraised items. Then came Meiji, and then occupation authorities confiscated all Daimyo lands after WWII. Since then its basically a sale off which continues till today.