Rivkin

Feels ok. Its probably an average shinto, but everything seems to be observable, so its not too bad of a polish.

The way one usually learns is you take NBTHK journal, look for kantei entries for Kiyomitsu and look at the explanations. I can see now that one of Kiyomitsu's signatures can be a decent match for these kanji, which maybe the reason for the attribution - the writing style is not too common in Bizen. This being said, Kiyomitsu's distinctive style is wide suguha with ko ashi, possibly ko choji. Most importantly he is a very high level master or Muromachi Bizen jigane, based on fine, bright itame. The jigane in your blade I think is poor by comparison. He did some custom work which can be in Ichimonji style, can be similar to Oei Bizen, in which case his jigane is still fine but can be more subdued.

No, its just common you take a sword and think why on earth does it have such papers, and then you find a blade just like that which is signed and signed well. Used to occur all the time, recently does not happen (much) anymore.

Well, Kiyomitsu is a very precise and relatively "good" attribution for a Muromachi blade, so I would take it over any guesses which are made based on not the most informative photographs and barely surviving signature. Maybe its an impressive work in hand. Would I personally consider it Kiyomitsu? From what is seen - more likely no than yes. Maybe I simply don't know his/their work that well and its a book worthy typical example of one of the styles - and I obviously experienced such shaming many times in the past.

Hard to say, they can have a distinctive boshi but I can't see which one it is here... In any case the work is "sort of" Bizen, but not really. Its a bit rough and choji are a bit not too clearly defined (are they really choji?), while on late Bizen work we tend to have them grouped, crab clawed etc., which is not clear here. Jigane is typical Muromachi, of lower quality - rough, probably blakish. can be Kaga or Fyuyhiro.... The signature is ... uncommon for Bizen. The strokes are wide, with a clearly uneven depth... Its not typical. Their signatures generally all strokes are about the same, same depth, relatively narrow width., very fine, comfortable yet simple writing. Also this signature is a bit condensed, which is even with very long Bizen writing you don't get a feeling kanji are unevenly crowd into each other. I don't like it. Which taking in mind how little of it remains is not nesserily means anything. Late Bizen can go in different directions...

Judging by the shade of yellow on this item its Taisho or early Showa and not the first grade product, which is often dangerous because the wood quality is a bit random and there can be issues. Otherwise, they are neat items. Usually black lacquer with something like a mon in gold or other simple decoration. I prefer sword boxes because they are often older, have descriptions, some are high class lacquer.

As long as its special strength superglue and the number is doubled by chiseling across the plate - everything is fine.

Its an interesting point. As far as I aware there were no strict restrictions on sword length for samurai aside specific duties, though there were consistent practices and wearing a much longer blade could be uncomfortable. Yes, wearing a sword was the act which was being regulated, to the point it has been for a time a legal question whether it can also be done by an aristocrat and whether this implies a strictly inheritable "blood right" or one can be bestowed on a personal basis with the right to wear swords in regular life. Which was the highest honor since wearing one to a procession can be done by anyone who was by nature of position held was part of the procession of sword-wielders. Obviously shops (polishers, but most importantly pawn brokers) could own blades and armor despite being of lower class. However, their ownership had to be on a temporary basis - and this has been specifically noted at times, as holding onto blades and armor long term deprived the realm from protection. Generally with a few notable exceptions a non-samurai should not have permanently owned a daito. Naginata, yari and wakizashi were indeed appropriate. In regards who owned good swords of today - these are ex-Daimyo blades with little doubt to that. Tradition dictates that when a family sells a blade it is a deeply shameful act (never mind even such horror as potentially going to a foreigner) and any possible connection allowing it to be traced back is severed. Sayagaki sanded, the name is scratched off the storage boxes, even early NBTHK papers which had submitter's name would have it covered with ink. Its not unique to Japan, in fact such behavior is common. Edo society on paper was exceptionally stratified and formal. It was also very moralistic in a sense that everything was addressed not through the letter of the law, but in a sense "does it satisfy the moral requirements?". Owning something above your station was either outright prohibited or very much socially questionable. For example, selling swords abroad was generally illegal, but even selling items of iron was seen as inappropriate - since iron is a manly, warlike material and for a foreigner soft metal objects are more appropriate. I often state the idea that European, Middle Eastern (Judeo-Islamic) and East Asian legal basis are actually completely different in nature. European explicitly implies a contest between individuals that needs to be resolved; Judaic implies a clear, divine postulate from which lesser laws are derived in a very formal fashion, while East Asian societies are generally based on status-quo (i.e. proving that something was always done is the best court argument) and morality (i.e. proving that something is "good" is also a court-worthy argument); East Asian formal laws are by comparison sparsely covering all possible situations, seldom form proper codex, and they are often interpreted "in spirit" rather than "as letter".

What's quite possibly happened is someone recently used a gunto blade (likely a showato) to create a "samurai" package featuring "civilian" mounts. Now how much of the mounts are modern can be concluded with images, the tsuba is modern, but maybe some other elements are old.

The tsuba is most likely modern. "Fortunately", its of the type which is made after a real tsuba design and is popular on yahoo Japan and in some martial arts circles, so there is some chance it was just added to the package. We need nakago, overall shape, activity. If you want an opinion, got to put in the work.

The collection is actually quite good, but as typical with museums its not well understood. Part of it is hidden and unstudied, i.e. tosogu trophies from Berlin which people don't want to discuss openly. There is a Nobuhide on display; generally I am not as appreciative of his work as others, but this blade is a top level masterpiece with prominent utsuri, ichimonji styled choji in ko nie, still in excellent most likely original (!) polish since it was received as it is now in 1891. The polish is absolutely top level, I wonder who did it. The mounts are early generation Komai work. P.S. The attachment overcompresses here is somewhat larger image: https://historyswords.com/a.jpg

Oh come on, blah-blah-blah, "but can I use a historic sword...". Just behead whoever you wanted to and be done with it.

Its really bad. Recent (past 150 years) signature with substandard execution. Tremendous damage. Modern tsuka of low quality.

The signature looks sort of acceptable, the right calligraphy, the right condition. The issue is there is not much to see in the blade. Hazy suguha, hazy hada. Saiha? Can be, though sugata looks original. Very cheap dealer's polish? Another possibility. So yes, its plausible, but it does not appear to be in a collectible condition as is. One interesting thing to check on Sukesada's especially is how the shinogi is. If its very low, a good chance its original.

Sorry, no idea... I am not that familiar with cast iron tsuba. I would cast soft metal before doing iron in any case.

Ok, writing in a "popular style" without any actual quotes because I am lazy, generally 10% though appearing in English language literature has been corrected downwards in the past 50 years. Its a typical number for Tozama daimyo (the greatest offenders would be Uesugi with like >30%, Satsuma >20%, Mori >15% - going purely by memory) due to land confiscation but the percentage drops significantly with daimyo like Maeda (special case) and all Tokugawa retainers like lesser Mitsudaira families. The overall was closer to 5% around Genroku (it was higher at the end of Muromachi, possibly towards 15%). Out of those we subtract women and small children. Daisho is a weird thing in a sense it does appears in documents and early paintings, but then it quickly disappears from sources coming back around 1800s... So did samurai wear daisho in mid Edo is not clear to most likely negative. The samurai right per se was not wearing daisho but wearing the long sword. There are however later sources specifying daisho most likely for the reason that a "semi-samurai" like Goto family was usually given a personal right to wear a daito in court processions but were not given a right to wear it at ordinary times as a daisho would have been worn after 1800s. How many swords did an ordinary samurai had? Its a very good question and general answer is that sub-100 koku samurai (i.e. 90% of the class) from a few families studied would have literally a few blades in a household - two-four waki, two-four daito. Generally the ratio of 1.5 daito per adult samurai appears plausible. Upper ranks would either be "mini-Daimyo" which is hatamoto in case of Tokugawa or similar class for Tozama with 1500-5000 koku, but they would have a large samurai retinue of their own. The "working samurai" ceiling is closer to either 150-200 koku level or the maximum of 500 koku which would be the top executive for a major Daimyo family. They would however have subservient families to pay as well... Overall "collections" of hundreds of blades start at Daimyo level and everything at and above Rai Kunimitsu cutdown waki is priced outside working bushi... Which we also see in gifts since even such "lesser" blade per modern higher end collector would in fact be a typical level of a Shogun's gift to a hakamoto in charge of a major project. Going back to numbers... Tokugawa parade in Kyoto had a roaster of more than 450,000 samurai participants which should be close to every single adult samurai who could be mustered. the total number was probably closer to 600,000. Funny enough procession required new gear but obviously we see no evidence of hundreds of thousands koshirae ordered in one year... So we have a total of about 1,000,000 daito, and possibly lesser number of wakizashi (there is no setting requiring one to wear wakizashi and not say tanto so in case of need wakizashi was not needed at all)... which is however compensated by wealthier peasants having considerable supplies of yari and naginata and merchants/wealthier peasants having wakizashi as well. So much wording and different method of calculation still arrives at the same number of about 2,500,000 swords...

Oy vey. Somebody chopped wood with it, let it rust for decades and then sandstormed it for visual improvement. Likely no earlier than shinshinto, now in a considerably problematic condition.

It wants to be shinto, maybe shinshinto Sukesada. I would search on the web for all available signatures (there should be quite a few) and try to find a close match. The writing is not terrible, so there is a chance.

Nakago, boshi, macro of the activity (hamon).

Good tsuba, the rest needs to be carefully photographed. Looks ubu, so high chance it will be clear what it is.

Plus: the signature is ok written per 16th century standards. Its roughly in the right place, with roughly the right strokes pressure for Sagami school. Its quite a bit rougher though than the better Soshu smiths of the period. Minus: most likely unrecorded person. But then "hiro" kanji is Soshu kanji and its not at all impossible there was one within the school. Minus: Just like with Bizen, with Sagami you do have fakes of things which raise eyebrows why on earth one would fake that. It is a very popular school even for non-great objects. Its basically for you to decide. As is it is unlikely to paper - what if the work is just completely different and therefore the papers will look stupid after its polished. If you polish and its hitatsura than there is a good chance it will be accepted as unrecorded smith. Say it comes out as a lesser work in suguha, then its again a lottery - Odawara Soshu in particular produced suguha during its earliest (1470) and latest (1570) periods, but its more difficult to accept a combination of unknown signature and weird work. So I think its up to you. Roughly 50/50 chance its real.

Kao is a stylized signature used on Japanese documents from ancient times. It is an addition to the name and is signature as such, signifying the document is prepared in the presence and hand signed or entirely handwritten by the said person. For example, copies of government rescripts do not bear kao, the originals do. Generally, kao would be associated with upper ranks of beaurocracy or government-recognized heads of important institutions. The use of kao on metalwork is generally a late (i.e. 19th century) tradition: swordsmiths and tosogu makers were usually not tasked with writing high ranking documents. Which is also an issue btw since if you read some 15-17th century swordsmith documents you have no idea is it the original, or its a copy made 100 years later by someone trying to prove something - I encountered this issue quite a few times.

I would add my general experience that all "function"-based arguments are 19th-20th century attempts to reconstruct why things were the way they were in the 12th or 14th century. Attempts often made by people with zero understanding of metallurgy (and thus not realizing their "concerns" are either false or could have been addressed easily by other methods) but most importantly the arguments produced without comparison how similar problem was addressed elsewhere. This being said it does not negate the possibility that original thinking leading to appearance of such features was also faulty (i.e. "fashion-based") and driven by some concerns that are spurrious. Its common today, it was common 1000 years ago. If you compare a Japanese made chip you will notice quite a few things like extra operations to clean the non-essential byproducts of technological processes, purposeful asymmetric arrangements of elements, which are different from American made ones with the same functionality. The reason is that the real data is noisy and its easy to come up with a theoretical "concern" which might or might not be relevant but sounds scary enough one needs to take precautions against it. Because Chief Designers in Japan and the US are generally different people, you end up with a different culture of how electronics should look like. In combat its even worse since it does not happen very often, when it happens its usually in random, multi-factor environment and participants when asked immediately afterwords have no cohesive understanding of what in hell they just went through. Its scary, its noisy and you don't see much beyond a few feet in front of you. Unless a war tool is next to unusable even novadays it often takes 2-4 decent size wars to realize what works and what's not. Were the faint signatures on early Japanese swords such because otherwise nakago would break? Its doubtful because you look at continental development of the same sword form and the nakago is even thinner in the center. Is it possible some very influential Japanese swordsmith believed it to be a concern and influenced the tradition for hundreds of years to come? Yes. There are cultures where grooves are cut off-center and asymmetric on both sides because otherwise the blade will be "too thin". And obviously the rest of the world generally dislikes asymmetric blades.

There were early Yukihide, but unfortunately its not at all consistent with what is seen here: yasurime especially, but also the way the kanji are carved. I almost want to say its a Meiji period's signature - they did not stop making boy swords in Meiji but the signatures are sometimes a bit more simple between Meiji and Taisho, nijimei included.

The signature's strokes are deep with distinctive large triangular shape, the yasurime is of a relatively modern type. This looks shinshinto or later. Unfortunately, its not clear which of the period's Yukihide signed nijimei so which yukihide it is - is difficult to determine.