Rivkin

Seeing boshi in details would really help this one. There is potential.

Nihonto community is very cliquey, some groups don't like some dealers. Aoi Art is a big volume dealer and a lot of people use it, but all dealers are dangerous. On the blade - this is classic Yamamura, alternative judgement would be like Etchu Kuniyuki. Its late Nambokucho. Very tired.

I use sue Aoe as synonym of post-1380 work. The terminology does not appear in papers so its ill defined, some people do include 1350-1370s, but I find it strange because period's work while distinctive with very periodic ko choji in nioi, tight bright itame, dan utsuri, but you do find similar work in Kamakura period. It is more or less always was one of Aoe archetypes. But there is much less in common with Muromachi production and if sue Aoe covers mid Nambokucho and all later work, than all these book statements are challenging to accept since they refer to two very different styles. Muromachi Aoe style persisted in one form or another for quite sometime, one can even say until Mizuta, though the quantity drops tremendously in 1380s and even further around 1410-1420. They are not making it to Juyo so not too visible, rare and there is no published study. They are never pure nioi [!], and some are clearly nie based. They can at times approach Mizuta as Mino-Soshu interpretation, and on the other end of the spectrum you find sort of Tegai with ko choji somewhere mixed in, and besides a lot of masame you also do have tight itame, even though it does not have much ji nie. Utsuri - sometimes there is none, sometimes there is midare utsuri, sometimes its strong and somewhat unsightly bo utsuri. Dan utsuri per se is very uncommon. sumigame in its ealier form is non-existent. Its just not the same type of work as classic 1360 Juyo. Here is Muromachi Aoe from Aoi Art. It is unusual, but on the other hand - that's what they started to experiment with. P.S. the one from eirakudo could not be Aoe from 1350-1370. utsuri is wrong - period Aoe has a fold in a very specific place which produces nie, location is below the one in eirakudo. at TH level the location is prone to. eirakudo ashi are too non-uniform in height, there is notare periodicity to their heights rather than pure suguha, etc. etc. etc.

I don't think sue Aoe was considered; Regarding the rest I think we are running into competitive nomenclature: when sue Aoe begins, and I am sort at fault for saying "sue Aoe" when I should have used "Muromachi Aoe". Yes, it has rougher jigane compared to Nanbokucho, and can or even expected to have noticably harsher nie activity. (see attached). Some look like Mihara or even Tegai with nijuba, others go all the the way to Yamato Shikkake-Mino with togari etc. Though they are rare, they are also often signed pieces, so no question on attribution. Even with blades from the very end of Nanbokucho (1380s) you have people who continue the tradition, and there are blades reflecting an effort to copy different styles with at times random effect, you see bizarre pieces, but still high quality. Regarding distinctive saka ashi... I can put 10 or 20 images from different blades and while there is this "Aoe" look, whether its saka or not it is not always clear. In real life, depends on polish, lighting, can be even worse. At TJ level there are many pieces which are "classic" Aoe with everything in the book present... When its TH, it all gets murky and Aoe is one school which can be difficult to kantei - jigane varies a LOT, hamon also, and Muromachi pieces you are essentially looking for one or two not too obvious features which confirm its Aoe. Aoe is unfortunately a school which can't be studied by books or even NBTHK newsletter. There is too much variation, and its often difficult to see what you need to see. You speak to people appraising sue Aoe and they say - here is nezumi ashi, saka ashi, but when you look at it - its very subtle, in one place, you show it to another person and he will not see it and will give different appraisal.

Glad to see the culprit seems to be my tolerance towards opinions based on what I believe to be the most likely, rather than proven or even very likely scenario. That's something I am comfortable with.

I wanted to answer with more pictures, so I got lazy. Yes, these are more or less identical portions. Sugata is not distinctive to period. Middle one is very much how the blade looks under most lights - and NTHK attributed it to late Muromachi Kaga, which is understandable. Enju attribution was late Kamakura, and Aoe guess would be also late Kamakura. I feel sue-Aoe and sue-Enju both look frankly Yamato or Yamato-Mino, with coarser jigane, strong nie activity, togari-gunomi, sunagashi etc. What botheres me in Enju is that the last photo on the rightmost side has couple of strings of ko nie and that's about all I could find which would point me towards Mihara or Enju. I don't think there is nijuba, to me it looked more like ko choji hamon in nioi which gets weaker in one area, which is almost impossible to see with a naked eye. Very complex blade, very complex photography.

It can be post-suriage. Unusual placing, unusual choice of yasurime type, not exactly clear why above it seems to become more typical for post-suriage yoko yasuri (or is it?), but theoretically it can be. I don't take this as the most likely scenario. But it would be interesting however if other people (not you, Jacques) would start voicing opinions instead of myself being the sole kantei expert around here. I would gladly learn something.

Funny thing, I have not seen kogarasumaru style blade (except the original, and its dating is also an interesting story) which predated shinshinto, and most are Showa. This is Showa with dense jigane and very bland hamon, with nakago that someone worked for days to age.

Left to right - her picture, how it looks in real life, how it looks after two days of dancing around with light sources and trying to understand why I can't capture the leftmost image. And hand pushing contrast to maximum. NTHK [NPO?] circa 2023: Kaga late Muromachi, no noticable activity, suguha, itame. NBTHK: utsuri, ashi, attributed to Enju Myself: why Enju, hamon is pure nioi with a little bit of ko nie, if you believe leftmost image (I believe its there, just does not show very well), or even my rightmost one (two days of pain), it even borders on ko choji in places. Aoe. Kantei guy after 10 minutes: Obviously its Aoe. Yes, ashi, complex utsuri. Did NBTHK consider ko nie activity like the one seen in third photo as an indication its Enju? I don't know. I had an opportunity to ask couple of questions through an intermediary but that's it.

Unfortunately can't see jigane. Evening, light from a side can fix that. I like what I see though, probably Soshu imitation. Regarding the signature I would deal with it after studying the work itself.

I have to apologize for being straightforward, but I will mention right away that I also would appreciate having a sword with horimono like this and looking at it from time to time. But this is a very recent style, 20th century, possibly early Showa. The elements are flat rather than 3D to the point that most elements are just accented as contours, you don't see actually scales of the dragon etc.. Ambitious but the execution is fast.

Away from all my books, thus shooting from a hip: well known Yasuhiro from Ishido school did not use takanoha. Also one of the ana hints koto. Unlisted smith Yasuhiro, end of Muromachi, Mino.

I will try to post it tomorrow. Since I sold it and don't have a clear position of the new owner how comfortable is he discussing the attribution, I'll post only partial shots and general descriptions, but its one of those cases which feels very educational and I still don't understand the whole picture. Her angled photo was nothing like the blade in hand, yet it captured things that only two of those who studied the blade (NBTHK and one kantei person) fully identified, everyone else observed only a portion of those. To make things more complicated kantei person rendered very different attribution compared to NBTHK, though it sort of matched mine. I wish I had the knowledge to fully understand this complicated case.

Its an interesting point and I would say that: 1. The novelty of forums is gone and people came back to their own small interaction circles. They read, but do not participate. 2. Once they have papers they don't need to discuss things, or so they feel. 3. It is very common for someone posting photographs to receive a substantial dose of insults, ranging from you can't form an opinion based on a photograph, to its junk which should not be used as an example etc.. 4. Politics. The place used to be entirely liberal and very nasty to those who are not. I am far right and very nasty. 5. The number of educated people who could contribute significantly is grossly overestimated.

I am sorry the discussion got out of hand. At least Eric got a taste of what being a collector is like. Run while you can. After the first blade most still can get out. The third one gets you.

Is yasurime takanoha? It also does look like end Muromachi or early shinto. With takanoha at this time you usually deal with Mino blades which is not a stellar match for the name. Will be interesting to see the sword itself.

Her from above shots are realistic, I don't exactly understand how she does the angled ones, which do tend to be aggressive. This being said, I had a blade which had in her photo prominent utsuri and lots of ashi. I could barely see the ashi and could not see the utsuri. Neither could NTHK, in fact they did not believe much in ashi either and treated it as a simple suguha-notare and gave it Kaga appraisal. However, NBTHK commented - yes, utsuri is clearly seen, ashi is abundant. I like her accented at-an-angle photos because it shows everything the blade has. Its not simply Photoshop, there is a photography light angle (probably multi-shot) management here which accents utsuri and nioi activities, which are normally an exceptional pain to deal with.

I personally much appreciate this point being made, but in return have two things in mind: late (Meiji?) horimono do drift around stylewise we don't know the basic sword quality. there are couple of things I like about it, there are many kizus, but there are even more unknowns. It will never be Juyo (but miracles happen), I personally don't have clear understanding when and who cut the horimono versus made the blade etc.. I would be interested in studying this blade in hand, with 95% of swords I studied I learned at least something new. I like what little is seen jigane-wise.

It is an interesting question or better to say an issue I always had, and maybe with your wealth of knowledge about signed blades have a position on this. Considerable portion of Ichimonji makers have signed tanto, to lesser extent naginata where hamon is suguha based, with some notare or midare. I find these blades, especially when tired enough the hada becomes rough, to be exceptionally ugly. Am I missing something? Is there a good understanding regarding such stylistic choice? And would not one be interested primarily in a daito which shows classical choji work rather than one of those blades?

One thing I would note is she is a fantastic photographer. If the blade does not show something in her pictures - it means it does not have it. at all. If you don't see hada, its gone.

Its not affiliated with NMB. But has significant cross-correlation in membership.

The forum wins over FB in maintaining long term, extensive discussions. It looses significantly in short term outreach. Sales will never be popular, unless there is a drastically different software tool which displays all items for sale at once, with custom sort and filter options. Like a real aggregator site for stores or auction houses. People will not submit their blades photographed. Because people in nihonto don't do that. They have papers = no need to discuss what they have. Private clubs... Interesting idea but it does not offer much. They have email lists. There is already a "secret" forum for "select" people and discussions. Commercialization is .... very difficult. Nobody found a great way to do it. Has a high chance of killing the space. Keeps making it more and more "pro-dealer" environment.

Which makes me wonder if its atobori or born this way. On the positive side in a few area where light glances rather than coming from the top, I think there is bright itame jigane with ji nie. So yes, many issues, but I've seen plenty of such late horimono executed way worse and while there are probably many kizu, there is something to look at. Why horimono was done? In late times like Meiji people did it a lot. Its not even trade with foreigners, foreigners judging by 1900s collections were more particular about the mounts. It was a garish-busy fab, and maybe there were a lot of jobless smiths who could at least do something. There is an ambition in this blade, sugata is attractive and I think copies well earlier examples. I would not judge this blade harshly, there is much to learn from it. Regarding why shinshinto blades were shortened, in my experience its either to pass as koto (quite a few Satsuma and other blades as Soshu), or to fit military mounts/particular size preference for military mounts. Can this one be older? Yes, but then there are two options and both of those make me wonder.

Wholeheartedly agree. Feeling charitable, I am willing to take this sword for 300$.

I suspect that's a sacred jewel (or a soccer ball) that the dragon is chasing after.