Rivkin

Well by the time I am finishing it, I am ending up echoing the previous statement. its ubu (sort of) which is unusual for the period. Otherwise jigane is very rough, it reeks of Muromachi spirit rather than Kamakura. Hamon is good, but nothing one would not expect from any shikkake out there.

Unfortunately I don't know what are the topics for this or following months, and its unfortunately a long drive. Satsuma is such a wide definition - does it include the objects from the sale, Naminohira or just the late smiths etc.

I can't be sure, but: I think the shape was popularized by Kotetsu so you don't really see it before him (there is related late Momoyama shape, but quite different still), Inoue Shinkai did his usual waki-sticks... Maybe he wanted to disproof everyone believing that the first sign of great sword is great sugata. After Kotetsu it was practiced quite often by Satsuma (maybe since they were effectively the only conistantly competent smiths in the 18th century) and through them got to Suishinshi Masahide who produced a lot of works in this sugata.

It's Mondonosho Masakiyo. I bought it without papers but obviously I saw the signature... which is btw not the most typical for him, so I was happy it papered - and possibly despite couple of kanji being a bit off... well, he did change the writing somewhat over the years and right before he went to the Shogun, so probably its from this time My take is that there are couple of things here. First there are well defined "gaps" in nie right in the middle of hamon. This is something popularized by Inoue Shinkai and after him a lot of Soshu style works tried to do this. But Shinkai would have dense, Osaka-style jigane. Here the jigane has almost koto feeling, with wide elements, somewhat rough and darkish, with ara nie. We'll see this jigane a lot in shinshinto but with much more ara nie... Its Satsuma. So its a top quality shinto work in Soshu style with Satsuma jigane.... Masakiyo.

Negative.

Negative on timeline and it is a relatively big (well shinto considered) name. Not Kotetsu.

Inoue Shinkai would have been almost my guess, but the jigane is wrong. Very similar hamon - different jigane.

Unfortunately no, but its shinto.

Yes, it can definitely be shinto or shinshinto. Probably the only example with such combination of sugata and kasane, but it can be. Can also be Hasebe. Jigane is wrong, kasane is wrong, nakago is wrong, kaeri is wrong. But it can be. That's why you definitely need papers. Because otherwise it can be like anything. And with papers you read them and you definitely know what it is.

I think what was being suggested is that Etchu Tametsugu today is a default attribution for anything Soshu circa 1355-1385 which does not fit the other big busket blob - Shizu+ (Shizu, Kinju,Kanenobu). Here both jigane is atypical for Etchu while hamon is not typical Etchu.

Nagasa 39.5cm Signed, I photoshopped the signature out. Ubu.

Sorry the pictures are bad. Can't see kaeri, can't see boshi, can't see hamon - its all there, but blurry, shaky etc. For example, it can be Daido. He did straight blades with o-kissaki and long kaeri. A lot of possibilities here. The most desirable is obviously Nambokucho Soshu, but...

Well, I've been proven wrong many times before...

Thanks! Always glad for an opportunity to make prediction for a blade being submitted. Feels like mid Momoyama to 1650, likely the early portion of the interval. Regarding the school - so many similar ones. Can be along the lines of Fujiwara Nobutaka. Can be Fuyuhiro.

I saw blades declined on the basis of polish, but my personal guess would be this one will paper. With boshi photographed more can be said about the likely attribution.

Yes, very Houju-ish, yes its consistent with early Gassan. Still think its Muromachi. Something a lot of people frown at as provincial - random patches of noticably blacker steel, very wide and often rough bands of masame.

Come on David, we are in serious and repeated violation of the Nihonto Code here. An opinion can only be expressed as: I was instructed by O-Sensei to relay the following: Those who see Kambun in this sugata are men of but half truths. As it is written by Daiso Tadamichi: they grasp but do not breath, they fish, but do not smoke. For a fresher fire lies within this steel. Seek the path between the stone and the monkey.

Well, it feels like a stick with some tapering, so probably Kambun. Judging by whatever we can see in the hamon its probably one of the period's Mino schools. Re: polishers etc, it does not feel particularly valuable, though there is uncertainty due to condition etc.

Judging from the photographs its very nice and I personally would have it polished. Very many would rightly frawn upon kantei by photo, but that's how I buy my blades, so I risk (precision of the method is admittedly inadequate) my own money on the method. I am also not a specialist on Gassan. But. The style of hada is old - its ayasugi (not too periodic one) mixed with wide stripes, its very similar to Houju and to the lesser extent Naminohira. This is very much what you expect from the earliest Gassan work. The signature is in the right place, and its executed in the right style. So in my mind there is no doubt its a very early Gassan and in good condition. Now the sugata can be read twofold - either Oei (slightly before or after is ok) or something very old like mid Kamakura. Could you please measure the width and the height of kissaki (by yokote)? For a while existence of Heian-mid Kamakura Gassan was accepted and you do find reference to those in all books. There are however almost no examples which are papered as such today. Typically the earliest you see in modern papers is from 1350-1370 period. They are exceptionally rare - 85% of koto Gassan is roughly between 1504 and 1535, 10% from between 1535 and 1575, and 5% is the rest. The signature suggests somewhat early date, the way strokes are, and yes "saku" comes and goes in Gassan, and there is an opinion that between 1504 and 1530 it was not used as "Gassan Saku". I think realistically the chances of this blade being accepted as pre-Nambokucho are very slim. Realistically you are looking between 1360 and 1430. NBTHK will unlikely indicate the exact date. They'll just say its ko Gassan. Unfortunately I don't think there is much here to guarantee its pre-Muromachi. Thus people will be conservative and Oei might come as a default attribution. Will it be very expensive sword once it polishes and papers? Unfortunately I am tempted to say "no". There is 5% chance it will be accepted as specifically pre-Muromachi and then its more expensive. There is 10% chance it will turn out to be "dud". 35% chance they'll say its later into Muromachi. etc. etc. But its a rare, early blade and I think it will be very good looking in polish. I think you will get your polish and papers money back, though sort of barely so. Unless there is a person who will really like this kind of style. This is one of the cases where the blade is rare, collectible, important, nice and in the long term I hope this gets recognized more and more, but today's market is not very forgiving to anything suspected of Oei-ness. I personally like such blades a lot; to me ubu Houju from Nambokucho or even Oei is a prized sword. To most collectors and books its however sort of provincial sidetrack to real collecting. Just my 2c.

Being even more arrogant I would argue its shoshin!!! There is heavy Yamato flavor in the hamon, with large angle hotsure together with what little we can see in hada - might be ayasugi. Judging by the sugata its probably also among the earlier ones. Nice.

Kudos - you are probably better person than I, maybe the only one on the board or among gaijin (nihonjin in my experience are more realistic) in Japanese nihonto clubs to honestly admit something like that. Even in Tokyo one is constantly hit in clubs by janitors from local embassies trying to sell their services and expertise on the pretext they have amassed the top of the top collection, while in reality all they ever did was drinking with nihonto crowd for the past 60 years. back to the question: On the prices there is a theoretical "it must be like this" world, and each person has his own version of it, and there is objective reality. The reality is that level of papers multiplied by attribution gives you more or less precise price range. Singed or not, condition, length, who's the seller further narrows it down. One can argue "but that's a great blade" and price it at twice the estimate, but unfortunately few will look at it. 2mln yen Yamato Juyos include some really good examples, lots of averages, and some absolute junk Mihara from 2X Juyo sessions. Not average blades, just plain junk. Good luck selling a great Yamato Juyo for 3.5m. "It can be TJ" - right, great chance of this happening today for Yamato. If you are top dealer with great name recognition - you can name your own price, certainly. Otherwise you'll get a lot of people laughing in your face "if it's such a great blade, you would have gotten TJ yourself". Unjustified? No. Unfair? Yes. Market price and quality are not the same thing. If the blade is signed, then the gap between Juyo, TJ and TH can narrow down. The chance that you'll get substantially different attribution at Juyo level is no longer a strong consideration. Singed, ubu O-Kanemitsu is TJ material by default, and unless it has glaring detractions, it will be priced comparable to this level. With any papers. Unsigned - its a bit of a lottery every time you submit. That's a serious price detractor every level down from TJ. It often has nothing to do with quality - if a blade has anything unusual, it can send the attribution sideways into much lesser name. If you are not bothered with this, you can get a top+ quality blade with very low papers (better yet pricewise - unpapered). Will it be commercial success? In the current climate, if it has no unusual features then usually yes. If it does - very likely sooner or later, at some level there will be issues. On Japanese resistance to sell top blades - there is a reason why western museums have absolute top of the line tosogu, the kind of things one seldom sees even in Japan, but MET's blade collection is frankly speaking something reasonably wealthy beginner with but two years of experience should not be proud of. I guess things kind of got relaxed after 1980s, but at some level (chokuto, blades with historical provenance bought in Japan) one is bound to start getting random flack. Yes, there is a lot of classism and racism. I actually like it. The honesty which feels more comfortable to me compared to fantasy pretend world one encounters outside Japan. Just my personal 2c.

I would classify for myself personally "nihonto opportunities" to be of many different types 1. First class blade attributed to second class name. Happens with not-so-famous groups (Unsho) who can be attributed based on date/kantei rather than "quality". I like Aoe because one can buy better Aoe blade for 10% price compared to a worse blade with papers to Rai Kunitoshi. Unfortunately, this approach basically excludes certain groups like Awataguchi where deals like this DO NOT EXIST. 2. First class blade with unusual features which greatly complicate the attribution. Often its certain elements of sugata which are strange and then often its kasane. For example, there is a whole block of Soshu blades from 1340-1380 and especially 1360-1380 that no one really knows how to attribute precisely, so you find one with papers to Shimada and work on it. You'll never pull a first tier (i.e. late Kamakura) Soshu out of it, but a decent 1370 name is easy. Unfortunately, inverse is also true. This is basically the type where one has to figure why there is a (potential) conflicting judgement and then learn whether he is comfortable living with it. 3. Somebody needing money right now. You don't want to be the first person making an offer, as usually the seller will price it somewhat high (I paid X and I want 1.25X), but after he is hit by couple of real low-balls from dealers you can make an honest low offer... 4. Undiscovered blades. No papers and no one knows what it is. Possible in the west, not nearly as often in Japan where I usually "work". There is however Japanese version of it - a blade was shown to a Sensei who said "don't bother polishing and (re)submitting it". Well, sometimes after a few years you learn that the sensei was actually right... These are the cases you don't talk about. But sometimes its more of the opposite and you get bragging rights to what you discovered.

I think its less a genuine appreciation but a combination of two things: 1. Antiquities are not "too liquid" and thus below and above average deals are common. 2. In green paper days those issued to Sadamune and Masamune were uncommon, but not nearly as much as they are today. In their light Etchu Tametsugu was seen as a third rate attribution. Today when there is a push to give top tier names to blades that are actually somewhat earlier, Etchu Tametsugu is slowly accepted for what it is - something made between 1335-1345 and 1365-1375, Soshu style, with clear Norishige influence and solid quality.

Selling Japanese antiques to foreigners = slightly inappropriate. Selling Japanese blades to foreigners is inappropirate. Every Japanese dealer has a nice story why they still do it. To advertise Japanese culture. To save Japanese sword from rusting in Japanese sea salted air. Because the blades they sell are from Fukushima and radioactive. Because they use proceeds to feed starving children at an orphanage. JuBi+ is the level where most do not want to make excuses anymore. Its just inappropriate. The owner might do something illegal with those, because he is a foreigner. Maybe he'll get caught smuggling blades on a ship staffed with Russian fishermen and Korean prostitutes. Everybody who ever associated with him will then be labeled as "involved" with the guy who took Japanese national treasure, did something and it ended up in the papers. Nobody wants that. Maybe if you have a proper renome, maybe if you sponsor grand charities in Japan - maybe then you are different, absolutely no idea. But an ordinary foreigner owning such blade might face random issues starting literally from hotel and extending to all his business contacts. "Its inappropriate to mail things" to or for such people. Its inappropriate for them to lecture at universities. Why do you refuse to give the blade back to Japanese people? Very many people will feel that way and will voice their concerns.

A simple lecturer like me knows little to nothing about those high ranking paper things and I am grateful to be enlightened. There are two small observations which I however consider important. First, a lion's portion of high paper sales are private rather than price advertised on the internet, and they occur in a "descending auction" manner, when an intermediary (dealer) first contacts the highest rollers ("whales" in vernacular American) offering them an item for X yen, then in half a year he offers it to "regulars" at 0.8X and if nothing works it might easily end up with some riff-raff for 0.5X. So whether a JuBi is worth 300K or 150K USD can be a matter of circumstances as much as concerning the blade itself. This unfortunately extends down the spectrum as well, simply since Hiroshi Saito stating "these are solid gold mounts of incomparable quality" versus me stating the same carries different weight and thus the offer price will be different. Second observation is the statement "TJ is the same as better half of JB" is a self-serving position of NBTHK which is repeated a bit often. The owners of state versus NBTHK paperwork tend to be different and the market is different. Japanese treat state-issued papers - differently. They treat state employees - differently. Above all, foreign ownership of Jubi and above is not considered appropriate by a solid portion of Japanese society. For Americans out there, its a rough equivalent of publicly stating "I think some women are not too smart". Expect the point of discomfort to be brought up in not too subtle a manner.