Rivkin

Most higher end dealers in Japan are trained polishers or in the very least have extensive training in polishing. Yes, most sub 300,000 yen blades are polished by dealers or their similarly trained partners. It typically costs around 40,000-70,000 yen for a daito to have this level of polish. The quality varies, in some cases there is so much keisho one can look at a sword only with very good light and very steep angles. Some are certainly no worse compared to trained western polishers. I don't think anyone makes a secret out of it. There is sub 70,000 basic polish, then there is 110-150,000 polish which is more "professional" and then you jump all the way to 500,000 yen. In my experience you can ask them to guarantee the blade will not be rejected from papers based on being in improper polish. Which is more than can be said for very many western properly trained polishers, unfortunately.

I have Oei or at least early Muromachi signed Kanekiyo. Itame dominated, except for nagare and some masame in shinogi-ji. Seen a dozen of Nambokucho examples, though all mumei - pretty similar. His attribution is not liked because the tempering is also not in a strong nie, it almost crosses into nioi. This being said I have seen later Tegai blades of almost any appearance getting Kanekiyo papers, including strongly masame-influenced ones. Re:Tanobe versus shinsa opinions, my observation is that they are as of now completely divorced. Unfortunately he does not issue sayagaki to most people pre-shinsa, in order to not create a lot of contradictions, but all six of his opinions that I personally solicited in the past 2 years were all opposite of shinsa. Shinsa being on a very conservative side. Hosho (close to the top of Yamato attributions) versus Kanekiyo (sorry to say - the bottom of Yamato) is an example of such. My experience outside of nihonto was always that the practice of issuing paper corrupts. One either becomes very liberal, attracting a lot of money, or very conservative, thus enjoying the reputation of someone who "really knows", after gimei-ing blades approved by others. Both NTHK groups now also changed their leading actors and my experience so far was already more negative.

I would echo Tsuruta's comments with a few add ons. It is uncommon to see really tight, uniform itame in Bizen blades past Oei. That does not mean that all or most Oei blades are in tight itame, but that just a language phrasing issue. On Kanekiyo, its often a default judgement for a post-1320 tegai blade, instead of writing something like "ko tegai". They do have a large portion of blades that don't have any prominent masame and very little hotsure. Not much Yamato frankly, boshi, high shinogi are probably the only things remaining... and there are not that many good suguha alternatives from the period. Ryokai and Echizen Rai... There are late Tegai blades papered to Kanekiyo that are pure masame, but they are not common and tend to be on the very top in terms of quality for this attribution.

I think the difference is simple. Someone has blades that tell three or four stories on three or four topics. Consider paying $$$$ to secure the "missing" blades to make these stories complete? No. Neither would 99% of better painting collectors. But in coins or stamps or military decorations you are supposed to spend (max) couple of years before you accept a specialty and collect absolutely every single upper grade item in your topic to tell a "complete story" You don't have the gold denarius with a bull torso reversed to usual - you are just not a proper collector. Better spend $$$$ the next time such piece comes for auction, or you can't show your collection to serious people. "Oh... but he does not have the reversed bull, which is the most rare of them all...". There are exceptionally few paintings or nihonto collectors like that. There are many who collect only koto or even only pre-Muromachi pieces. This does not make them topical collectors or focusing on one theme. Focused collectors are those into Satsuma, or early Soshu or Ichimonji only. This is high end collecting and its not for everyone to begin with. In the same way there are exceptionally few paintings collectors who are 100% Durer. Or even 100%: Master of the ... + Durher + say Danube school. Topical collectors are a bit more common in this field, but still most high end Durher or Durer time collectors will have a wide collection of roughly similar taste and maybe roughly similar time, but that's about it. The top Durer expert of our time owns Rembrandt, Leiden and God knows what else. Its absolutely normal. In the coin world everybody would laugh at him because his collection is not focused on telling one story and telling it in the best way possible. Well, neither did Bigelow's. And its ok to be Bigelow or Compton. Their collections educated hundreds. What was accomplished by the focused, topical collectors who tell a story? Except Pechalov... Well, not much.

I never understood why a recommendation to be a topical collector, i.e. having a very limited collection dedicated to a very narrow and precise topic, is something commonly repeated in nihonto. There are very few such collectors in nihonto. People who give this advice... they are topical collectors? Hm... Was Compton a topical collector? Or probably the most important Western collector - Bigelow? No. Neither was Festing nor dozens of lesser known collectors. There are subjects like coins or military decorations, where most successful collectors are topical. They collect Roman Empire between this and that, or specific Greek colonies or else. Its natural for them to have narrow specialization because otherwise there is not much point in collecting these items. You simply can't collect just "coins" with any measure of success. In nihonto if one sees A+ sword for little money, one buys it and keeps it in the collection. Therefore - almost complete absence of topical guys. People have preferences but almost no one is hard limited to a specific topic and die hard motivated to extend his collection in this specific topic only. Exceptions are a few gentlemen at Very high level who basically allocate $ and buy consistently say all Ichimonji blades on sale above certain level, and do it for Y years. To give advice "be like them" to a beginner is a stretch at best.

Kasane measurement could be helpful in cases like this one. Its one of those cases where sugata has the most likely interpretation, but there are less likely but legitimate possibilities, I guess.

Mid Muromachi tanto. Regarding the school, it would difficult to be precise. For example, Ryokai. Nobukuni. Bungo. etc. etc.

.... ..... Thy shall not overbid mine.

Its rusted and not much is seen but from what is available its in Ichimonji style and boshi appears to be sugu. That can limit it either to mid-Kamakura or shinto, probably Ishido. Kamakura you would expect substantially lesser beefy blade, and the shape is a bit of a stick with some curvature, so my very preliminary guess given the condition would be 1640s, Ishido. Would be interesting to check if boshi is really suguha. If its not, then the options are shinshinto or some koto....

It looks very much legit.

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.