Rivkin

Well, I am both a dumpster diver and like the items that are challenging. Since we seem to be on suguha train today, here is a very rare beast. Ubu, signed. As very arrogantly it sounds, I am confident the bets will not even get close to the name or even the school (I guess a lesson in humility is coming). Out of polish being a dumpster find. The blackish area close to the ha is utsuri.

Its kind of striking how thick it is in hands (leftmost) compared to almost any other tanto. I saw quite a few Tosa tanto, starting with nidai - they were not impressive. Never saw anything attributed to shodai before, but supposedly he was quite good, though obviously one would typically hope for the other Awataguchi Yoshimitsu. But the extreme kasane is something quite hard to ignore I guess, as are Yamato features. Kirill R.

I would be more than a little suspicious here. a. Compton's collection is very highly regarded in Japan and there are lots of fake Compton's sayagaki or Compton's record sheets floating around. Overall, there is certain nefarious mystery that surrounds international collections and auctions in the eyes of people there, so a provenance to something like this is well regarded. However, if the sword of this caliber somehow never made to any of Compton's publications, it probably was never in it. b. Looks shinto. Hamon is active only in the uppermost area, featureless hada. c. No papers. Kirill R.

Thick kasane, mixture of masame and ko itame hada was interpreted as attribution to the "infamous" shodai Tosa Yoshimitsu. The alternative was Hosho, but then thick kasane was creating big issues. It either had to point to some weird, probably Muromachi generation, or (as was this tanto interpreted in good old times) something legendary like Hosho Sadamune. Kirill R.

I have to honestly admit it is a very difficult tanto that had many attributions throughout his life. The uncertainty and shennanigans (for example, the photographs from the last seller shot the blade at an angle yet with mune/kasane darkened so it can't be seen at all) at some point even forced it to be essentially tossed aside. But the latest attribution is both interesting and very much believable. I am humbled by so far the guesses going into its direction. Here are some fittings to accompany. It came not with shirasaya, but kurasaya.

You put me to much shame because you are Extremely close. Let me put the uncompressed picture here. Extremely tight itame - but mixed with masame. Actually what really moved me is how straight and bright is nioiguchi yet masame enters it at quite an angle.. Another kantei note - kasane is Thick. Kirill R.

Let me throw in the stuff I really like.

Fantastic blade, except I was way off base, Kirill R.

Well in this case I can pontificate, as doing do on wrong attribution would look silly. I try not to use Japanese terminology too much, as these names can mean myriad of things and can be misleading. #1 is my favorite sword out of the group by a long shot. The hada probably looks like firy silk in good light. Very confident, very thorough forging. The kind of Rai, ko Bizen or Aoe I admire exceptionally. Probably late Kamakura. #2 I think is Nambokucho. Its rougher, a tad more provincial, there is this hint of Yamato influence in part of hamon, the hada is darker and broader. #3 Muromachi classic - hada composed of very long, broadly spaced, thin lines of nie, with mokume in the middle and tending towards masame in places. Probably in this form first originated with Oei Bizen, but seen in works of every single school now and then. #4 I think is a very highly rated smith. Awataguchi school has this habit that towards the ha the jigane becomes broader, darker (utsuri?) and more masame-aligned. So the question is, how much for #1? Kirill R.

#1 Rai #2 Enju #4 Awataguchi. And I am sure #2 is really Rai and #1 is Enju and I will look really stupid . But I got to call them how I see them. I have some doubts in #1 Rai, but if not its some really close and high end school. And yes, I will blame the photographs because I am probably completely off base here . But thanks a lot, there are really good blades. Kirill R.

All are really good swords and require some thinking. In my opinion, #3 is clearly 1400-1500, Bizen or Mihara. And seems I remember discussion of a certain Bizen sword I suspect that's what it is. In any case this is a typical Muromachi hada. Besides I think I see Rai, Awataguchi and Enju here . Just need to make sure I get the numbers right. #2 is a tad dark... Kirill R.

Papering to Yushu defeats in my opinion the advantage of NTHK - turnaround of a day to judgement sheet and papers in a month, compared to the whole long NBTHK story. I also did notice that 78 and 81 point blades were Edo period and in like new condition. The 76 point Juyo needed new polish in places. I also observed that everything papering above 76 had signature, but according to others this is not certain. There are few cases where attribution means lower quality per se. Takagi Sadamune collected quite a few problematic Sadamune blades, especially between 21 and 31 Juyo shinsas. But Enju and Rai are really different schools, not as much as Mihara and Yamato, but... Enju hada is very different from Rai. Its not as dense, its broader, blacker. In the most extreme case it approaches Naminohira-Houju type with broad black lines. There is also plethora of Rai features, whose presence largely disclarifies any possible bet on Enju. While there is some intersection between the schools where the quality argument can be applied, its not that prominent. There are great Enju blades; there are very mediocre Rai ones. I once mistook Enju for Echizen Rai in a competition (and I honestly would have difficulty distinguishing the two in quite a few cases), but I don't remember mistaking Enju for Rai per se, though from time to time I do make beginner's mistakes. Hada-wise compared to the main Rai school they are just not that similar. Quite a few early Soshu collectors are rich, smart and careful with attributions. Very careful with whatever the current NBTHK position is. Very much scared and sceptical with Masamune name in particular. There was an interesting blog "koto fanatic", unusual English language exercise by a Japanese, and it did caught some of the early Soshu issues quite well. Kirill R.

I can only offer my simple and personal opinion: Soshu, Yamato and Mihara are different schools. The differences include the type of hada, position of shinogi, and usually hamon, though there is a subset where hamon's features can intersect. Most of the distinctive traits distinguishing each school from the other are not really quality related - there are great Mihara hada examples and there are many so-so Tegai ones. Yukimitsu is cited in books as alternative for Masamune, but the last three decades this alternative seemingly went one way - some green paper period Masamune were reclassified as Yukimitsu. If there is an opposite ereclassification from this period it would be interesting. As the best Masamune and the best Yukimitsu are not particularly similar. Kirill R.

Yes, that's Japanese way to do online auction. The bidding is over when beyond the given time, there are no bids for x minutes. The seller can withdraw the listing at absolutely any time. Used to make me upset as well. Kirill R.

The problem is not someone making money or not, the problem is how to attribute things where we don't really have a solid understanding of what are the absolute, unquestionable works of the Master against which everything else needs to be compared. The position of not recognizing a specific type as Muramasa, which is recognized by others, is unfortunately a judgement call. Its not something that can be proven or even given a really solid argument. The problem with the early Soshu is not that people suddenly discover Masamune, if a blade was not considered such during the Edo period, the chances of it suddenly getting this attribution are mostly imaginary. The problem is first that Masamune is still ill defined so there are plenty of Juyo or Hozon or Jubi or whatever Masamune owners who are convinced Shizu, or Hasebe, or Naotsuna, or Go would be more appropriate. Its interesting that Kamakura names - Yukimitsu and Norishige actually seldom come up in this context. There are still questions whether Masamune can be all three - a Kamakura smith, and a great smith, and a smith with unique features in his work. There are solid arguments that one can obtain a reasonable and consistent definition of "real" Masamune, but one of those needs to be relaxed. Second is that there are too many blades, they are not tremendously different from each other, and almost nothing is signed. So you have something that is well defined by features (no, its not about quality only, there are quite a few Norishige in decent condition that should never be Juyo) - Norishige, Akihiro, Hiromitsu, maybe Go, Chogi, maybe even Sadamune. And you have Masamune, Hasebe, Shizu, Tametsugu, Naotsuna where things are kind of shaky. It goes down to personal preference whether someone believes the oshigata from Edo book that says Tametsugu was Mino smith and was related (teacher of?) Kinju-Kaneyuki and thus whole bunch of works in such style go to him. Etc. Etc. Its not about money, its about too many attributions being based on pure judgement calls, guesses and information from Edo publications which might or might not be accurate, because the blades shown there do not exist today, and well all those publications did show plenty of authentic Amakuni works. With Shizu versus Naoe Shizu when it comes to Nambokucho blades it is almost purely a personal preference. One person will say - it has ten togari in daito, too much to call it Shizu. Another will say - I call Naoe only with twelve togari or above. Early Soshu is difficult and never absolutely certain. Just the nature of the game. Those who want certainty, they do collect Edo or some respected Osafune lineage. Or one can accept NBTHK papers of specific color as absolute. Does resolve a lot of headache. Kirill R.

There is 55mm micro-Nikkor, which is one of the best designs in Nikon lineup. Its manual version is not very expensive and fully capable, but still 55mm is a tad wide, though this macro is not known for distortions. Gret corner performance, crisp colors. But since its going to be very close to the subject, light is an issue. 105mm miro-Nikkor will be easier to use and more versite for such shots, though dof will be narrower. And its 1:1 which means you can fell the frame with fuchi. I actually still have both from the times I used Nikon gear. Never got my act together to actually sell them. Both still work decently with f/32, though I did use them with f/16 and focus stacking. There are many techniques to light those up, tsubas usually do well with a ring or box, fk sometimes do benefit from a bit of shadows... Kirill R.

Its kind of deep theory approach. The practice is more along the lines that it is unheard of attribution changing, especially substantially, when H is resubmitted to get TH. Such change would mean the recepient parading around sword clubs in Japan, triumphantly showing the papers with "I told you when I got the H, the shinsa was wrong with the first judgement, what a bunch of fools". Tokuju is a thing in itself etc. The more important issue is that the judgements are seldom random, but as there are plenty of names with either no signed examples, or massive multi-generational production with almost nothing dated or signed with details, in both cases the matter of attribution reflects a specific school of thought. NBTHK today will not paper any wide-gunome Muramasa. NTHK, green papers, Honma and Kanzan sayagaki - did or do. Who's right in this case - how to judge. Its not like there is a Muramasa tanto somewhere that is known for certain to be specifically the authentic second generation. A very big portion of famous Muramasa daito and even a few tanto are made in such a style (suguha etc.) that the only reason they are accepted is because they were well regarded even during the early Edo. Similarly NBTHK attributes a lot of koto to Shimada, Uda and Fuyuhiro. Disproportional to the number of such signed blades in the existance, and with little evidence there is a very similar blade somewhere that is signed by any of such school. An indirect conjecture based on date/style. NTHK NPO likes Gassan Chikanori for every high contrast hadamono. You almost never see this name being used by NBTHK. They would more likely brand the northern-looking hadamono as Houju for the early Muromachi and maybe Fuyuhiro for the late Muromachi. If you give a Muromachi daito with wide suguha with some nie and mokume-itame hada to NBTHK they will churn up some Sue Bizen name. NTHK more likely will say Mihara. Who's right - these schools do cross each other in this style in Muromachi period. And with the early Soshu its really everyone is on his own. Plenty of very high end collectors will not 100% or even 80% trust anything by NBTHK at all levels, even reaching as high as Tokuju. Nor would they trust NTHK. Its more often than not is down to one's personal preferences what exactly to call a top unsigned Soshu daito from about 1340-1360. Kirill R.

Thank you very much, this is the feedback I was looking for. I assume its NTHK non-NPO? I never submitted anything with them, because of purely personal issues, so I can't comment at all on either their numbers or their judgements. 81 on NTHK-NPO - highest personally seen. As a prospective, saw 2 NBTHK Juyo papered with 76 and 78 points respectively with very similar attributions. I do like NTHK NPO shinsa, first and foremost because they are accessible (a month to paper in Japan, compared to half a year with NBTHK unless you manage to match the schedule/visits exactly). Second they strive to be more detailed in their appraisal. In my personal experience if NBTHK issues papers to say 10 Kozori names, NTHK papers to three times that number, i.e. often issues papers to much lesser known smiths which NBTHK will never begin to consider for a mumei blade. Thrice I had NTHK issuing much higher names compared to NBTHK. Twice I had NTHK issuing significantly lower names than NBTHK. There is a very clear pattern - NBTHK is very conservative with things like Soshu tanto, papering quite a few of clearly good pieces to Shimada and Uda, without even adding a name. At the same time, NTHK strives to involve a number of provincial Etchu and Echizen names in its early Soshu judgements, so Norishige can suddenly come back with an almost unheard of Nambokucho period Echizen smith. I have to state a personal opinion - within the last decade regarding NBTHK, it is often that the judgement appears as too generic and made in much haste. Kirill R.

Gassan Chikanori is not supposed to be pure ayasugi, but rather ayasugi that appears in small parts of the blade, like one sees in Houju. In NTHK definition Gassan Chikanori especially is basically late Muromachi blades which exhibit high contrast hada, weak hamon and some evidence of something that looks ayasugi. NBTHK papers would typically yield a different name, though equally vague; Fuyuhiro is a common NBTHK counterpart attribution. Both are not particularly supported by signed blades. Kirill R.

Sword's name I presume, Kirill R.

Well I never miss an opportunity to guess - both items are from 1800, the kozuka is Hamano Nara, the fk is harder to pinpoint, a very popular topic. With such extreme macro focus stacking is usually what I resort to. Kirill R.

I can't offer much except for a very personal opinion: the notion that claim was made that specific collections are in large formed by purchases from Aoi Art is factually false. The discussion on green papers was similarly problematic because of the whole other set of factually false claims - that green paper Sadamune are always available on yahoo (no, they are very rare), that green paper swords are sold for nothing (no, they are expensive, except a steep discount on certain specific categories). Yes, maybe Aoi Art selling green papered swords is not to the liking of someone in America. Tough. Until I see any evidence that Aoi Art's blade was sold with such papers with a statement that the papers are to be trusted, but later failed to repaper - to me judging such sales has no more value than a niche personal preference. People buying green papered swords en masse for nothing in Japan and selling them with 10x markup - not aware of any such cases, its commercially very difficult to impossible. In the original discussion Andy Quirt was the one who had green papered sword for sale, and I really don't think depicting him buying up green papered swords in Japan and then swindling newbies is accurate at all. I personally can highly [!] recommend his shop, as probably most of the actual collectors. Coming back to Aoi Art, I found myself within the last year repeatedly in a difficult position. I was asked to comment about a dozen times on Juyo and above swords on sale by Tsuruta san with a caveat that it is "known" that the images were photoshopped and the item itself is highly problematic. In all cases it turned out to be an opinion coming from one and the same person. Obviously I could not just say - I vouch for the item. Because I did not see the blades myself. Neither did the dealer who did not like them. And why should I take the responsibility? At best I can only comment on the photographs presented, which in my case is not worth that much. In light of this, my position was always - take it with two grains of salt. Somebody who bought a sword, studied it extensively and then voiced what he saw as a problem may or may not have a point. I heard so many times "it will never be Juyo again because it is slightly suriage/hamachi moved/etc.", it seems as much an art of guessing as objective analysis. Had papered swords pronounced saiha by supposed experts. Maybe they are right! But compared to all of those case, Le Grande Opiniators - like me, commenting based on photographs or oshigata should be assigned lesser priority. Every matter reported by those without personal involvement - much lesser priority. I heard so many horrible stories in the past decades about "what really happened", I lost count. When I acted on this rumors I typically made mistakes myself. Just as with Aoi Art, I heard a worrisome tale about Fred Weissberg. Zero chance its real. I can't comment on Hitler, Mao and others, as my understanding of those subject is very slim. Kirill R.

Worksheet for NTHK is a must. Besides the score it can contain comments that don't go on the paper (uncommon). Kirill R.

Dmitry's showing items from Aoi Art and openly discussing this, is a public record on facebook. The case in point - almost everybody uses Aoi once in a while. He has a wide range of items, prices and clients. Is Tsuruta san the most honest, straightforward and worthy dealer? No. The problem is, I don't know any such person. He is better than quite a few, but I never worked with a dealer I did not have an issue with, at least once in a while. Never saw a dealer whose description was not proclaimed dishonest by someone else. Or someone commenting that the items "should not be sold", because they have demerits - mumei, or bad horimono. I heard stories about Fred Weissberg. Spending some time with him I instead formed an opinion he is a very honest and direct man. Does not mean agreeing with everything he says. There are horrible stories about myself. I am glad they are exotic. One thing I learned from that - not to take too seriously anything that does not come from a victim. If someone says - I was wronged in such a way, then at least something did happen. If the story is told by another dealer whose moral qualities demand fixing the world... Maybe I simply don't like people with high morals. I am but a simple unscrupulous man in the world of scholars and ancient nobility on the mother's side. Once I was selling a koshirae; I brought it to a very old and very respectable dealer. He looked at it, said I can take it, but the menuki are new. This can be hard to see for a newbie, but new gold has this distinctive look. He quoted the price reflecting that. I walked out. A few months later I decided I need the money and have to sell it. Brought it back; he looked at it - a really decent koshirae. And well, the price does reflect it having nice gold menuki from a respectable school. Kirill R.

Yes, but are the theoretical numbers they provide real? I was trying to "experience-based" look at it, and to me it seems that the real range is between 68 and 83, i.e. I never saw a blade rated outside it, if Yushu shinsa is taken as a separate matter. In this range I am quite certain of the following: 68-69: problem swords. 70-72: average blades 75-76: good blades, which apparently can/could go Juyo with a slightly different attribution, but in general are not expected to do so. 81+ solid Juyo. Would this mean 78-79 sort of like blue papers NBTHK used to have? And there is I guess still a caveat that they give 78-79 to good shinto and shinshinto blades which however can be not a prime Juyo material (waki). I saw very few 77, 79 and 80, and suspect these are basically rare variations of 76 and 78 groups accordingly. Kirill R.