Rivkin

Does not look to be showato though with such hamon could have been there. Sugu boshi - probably shinto. So basically a run of the mill shinto mino. Without looking into books regarding the signed name - out of laziness. Erroneous and personal opinion. Kirill R.

Ook, even though I am looking on the phone, there is some fumbari here and maybe a tint of koshizori, at least the upper portion is more straight. 1380-1400 or so now looks promising. I.e. - its worth money! Kirill R.

Paul, my comment on o-kissaki was with respect to late Nambokucho, with regards to Oei yes you are right - there were thin suguha blades, thank you for the correction, though I personally would be more comfortable with a slightly earlier date this being the case, but that's all highly secondary in nature. My main concern here is that lets say there is no signature. Lets say one just looks at the overall shape. Does Oei or late Nambokucho come to mind? To me what comes to mind is a classic late Muromachi profile. A great fit for the period. If its Nambokucho to Oei - there are questions. For Oei - Its not koshizori, it has absolutely NO fumbari. And so on. Yes, late Nambokucho short tachi is a possibility here, Mr. Ekholm did great work digging out the numbers. Do I personally like the shape for it? Not particularly. Maybe some of it is due to photography angle. Kirill R.

The curvature is very uniform, which is sort of weird for Oei swords, and also not too common in late Nambokucho, especially as there is no o-kissaki. And the length is unusually small for the early swords. Both however do fit Sengaku. At the same time the ha is thin suguha. Again, not something that was done in Oei period (very wide), there were some earlier examples like that, but it was done now and then in Sengaku. A personal and erroneous guess. Kirill R.

The problem is tha the lens has quite some distortion, so identifying the center of curvature is difficult if sword is photographed from a side. The only solution I would see is to place the camera right above the blade and right in the middle of it. Otherwise prominent fumbari in waki size usually points closer to kambun, but its hard to guess by such pictures alone. Kirill R.

Very personal and erroneous - black jigane (uda, houju, hoki etc.) is the only color which significantly stands out, and it also tends to be non-uniform so some part of a sword is darker, and the contrast is quite visible in the areas with ji nie against the blackish background. Bluish and greyish tint is much harder to catch, and in photography it will likely be dominated by color balance... And it almost never definitively sways kantei. Kirill R.,

Signed, ubu, really old, with as few kizu as possible... Sounds like the top priced Bizen swords. Maybe Yamashiro once in a while. Almost eveything else pre-Muromachi will be multiple kizu, tired in places, and likely unsigned. I am very open to admitting a "shameful" fact that I own two unsigned and non-ubu shinshinto swords, both with considerable blemishes. Will be selling both, but simply because I decided to concentrate elsewhere. If we are to talk about money, 25 years ago there were plenty of tokujus on the market for 400-500k usd. Today you see them offered retail for 200. Very seldom, but you do see them auctioned off in dealer's auctions for 10 million yen. I am not going to pretend to be very knowledgable of the market in this price range (above my pay grade), but from where I am standing that's the price dynamics. And knowing people with money in Japan - it does not come as a surprise. I bought some books from Dmitry to be used as gifts, and then basically stopped as it was just a waste. Kirill R.

Its signed and papered, but the work is rough, inconsistent and unabmitious. The seller has a few good pieces though. Kirill R.

There is nothing wrong with Japanese dragons having three toes. But it can as easily have five, with no significance attached to it. A somewhat later drawing or template being copied, possibly Meiji - sure, one can suspect that. I obviously can be misinformed on this one. But I never encountered any mentioning of criminal liability for having more than 3 toes in Japan. Not so in China, though late examples can be ambiguous on this one as well. Maybe I am overestimating the number of five toed dragons in Japanese art - sure. Experienced too many late paintings. Yes, in the very beginning the Asian dragons are three toed. Kirill R.

Afaik, in China unless you are talking about Taipin rebellion times when everything was in chaos, 5 toes is generally reserved for the Emperor, and even 4 toes is significant. 3 toes are non-government affiliated dragons. In Japan 5 toes is normal. Kirill R.

Problematic horimono, one of the most commonly faked signatures. Kirill R.

Modern smiths are not that different from shinshinto in their technique. I saw Naotane's attempts at Yamashiro - not entirely interesting. So they opt for Bizen and sometimes Soshu. Mino is just a mediocre school to begin with. Kirill R.

Sengaku generation Bizen Morimitsu (another option - Kaga Morimitsu, but this one looks a little bit more Bizen to me personally) in polish unless its drop dead gorgeous - maybe 3-5k usd. Basically the price of polish. If your concern is money, I would sell it as it is. Even investing in brining it to Japan is quite high compared to what you are going to get, but maybe you'll get lucky and it papers to the Oei generation... There are shinsas in the US, but I don't think in AU. It looks authentic enough, so someone interested in Sengaku swords might buy it. Kirill R.

Ok, that looks a little bit later, maybe as late as Eisho (1560). Just a guess. If habaki is stuck, so be it. Kirill R.

Tony, at the first glance with sori shifted towards nakago, with longish kissaki, with relatively somewhat short, wide and beefy nakago (even if its suriage) a guess can be this is something from Onin period or closeby. An erroneous guess by a non-expert. To pin it down it would be great to have 3 photographs - naked blade with nothing on it, full length. Nakago, with nothing on it (habaki etc.), full length. The most active and visible 10 inches of hamon. Kirill R.

Its hard for me to estimate sori by photographs which are taken slightly off-center with uncorrected lens, but it appears to me quite shallow - no earlier than Keian. There is pronounced fumbari, which for most schools I think did not start to appear in any reasonable quantity before Meireki or maybe Joo. Can be later than Kanbun, and there I personally don't know where to put the latest possible boundary. Thick very straight suguha - a few options, most attractive is probably Hizen. Kirill R. Erroneous and personal opinion.

I am sure few or none members here will share my puzzlement, but here it is. Kaga smiths from the period tend to have very distinctive ending to their nakago, which is not here. There was Bungo Yukimitsu who did Bizen Ichimonji style, but he started with sugu yakidashi and had suguha in boshi - as almost every respected Bizen enthusiast of the early Edo. I think the possibility of late Edo or gendai blade in Ichimonji style being strengthened with the mei alluding to Oei Yukimitsu, while strange, cannot be completely discarded. Kirill R. Probably erroneous and certainly personal opinion.

Looks like Kambun shinto shape. Not too many people worked with suguha at the time. Kirill R.

Could indeed be some early shinto Ishido style... The condition of nakago is consistent, sometimes they did not use suguha in boshi. Still weird. Kirill R.

Well, its actually quite a weird sword. Maybe its oil, which can hinder the view, but then we still see nice nioguchi... If as it looks now it has very tight hada, and hamon is very uniform and glassy inside, though in ambitious Ichimonji pattern.. This suggests something late. O-kissaki, boshi is not suguha - this almost certainly not shinto. But if its shinshinto (say Yokoyama school, "Sukesada" or someone) then why a nijimei and shallow yasurime that disappears at times! Could you please photograph it with oil completely wiped oil (maybe there hada underneath and its Momoyama???) and also photograph the first 5 inches of hamon over the nakago - this section is quite characteristic for many late Ichimonji schools. Kirill R.

In most of these cases the disconnect between the American and Japanese side is unbreachable. American believes he returns an ancient family heirloom with grandpa's soul trapped inside. The Japanese side is scared and panicked. A weird person just called them and threatened to ship ground mail the explosives and grenades left behind by Uber Werwolf SS banfuhrer Danke, pardon - an Extremely Dangerous Sword Weapon from the war nobody likes. Their neighbors informed them that owning such weapon without a personal safe and a number of permits which nobody but extremely rich families knows how to get is certainly highly illegal. And also if their kids cut themselves with it, the police will take them away. And they can't just throw it into "landfill" bin, because the neighbors will see it, alert the police and the entire family will go to prison. After holding meeting after meeting with the extended set of relatives they finally find a 97 years old grandpa who agrees to take the sword into mountains and dump it in a forest. He is old enough not to care about the consequences. The family appreciates the selfless nobility of his last sacrifice. They'll politely tell the Americans that it goes into a very important museum. Translated from Japanese it means the hardest "NO!" possible. Two steps above "I would love to meet you, but unfortunately I am very busy and very much away for the next year" or even "I will love to do that for you, despite having a busy schedule", or even "Yes, we should do it", said with a pained face and after a 20 second pause. Kirill R.

No earlier than shinto, but since the shape is substantially altered can be anything. Kambun "straightness" is likely an artifact of a bend, originally it was probably something with very uniform curvature. There is certain freshness in nakago (lack of visible deep rust spots), besides the really bad condition, that might argue even for a poorly handled and patinated wartime item. Kirill R.

Sengaku blade, no Norimitsu of importance. Typical options are Kaga and Sue Bizen. I don't remember their yasurime by heart, sorry. Kirill R.

I will be a bit of a contrarian here... From very little seen on the blade it can be a quite active Soshu piece (not that many Muromachi smiths did such large nie patches in ji so that they are visible even out of polish), which sort of matches the signature Hiromitsu. So in deep theory the transaction can be worthwhile if you are near a good polisher, so you'll end up with a signed Soshu tanto from about 1510 AD for 2700 polished... That sounds a little cheap. And Soshu works are generally hard to find. Even during Muromachi mainlines like Tsunahiro were not churning up blades en masse. But it works if you actually see the item in hands and 100% convinced it will polished well (surprisingly these large nie patches can sometimes even survive saiha, so no warranty and the way dark shadow rises from nakago is a little bit worriesome) and nothing opens up (and with Soshu it can open up wide and quickly. These blades have as much stress as they can bear). And you don't mind spending time/money on it. In other words - you have significant experience, convinced you are right, and know you want to gamble on Soshu. 5 years ago I would have looked at the blade in hand, huggled for 1000-1300$ and likely take it up for a project. Soshu is great. This one looks like hitatsura. Today, not that interested. Rather pay much more even for unsigned Tsunahiro (you are not supposed to buy those, but I am a fool, so can do whatever I want) but get exactly what I see rather than gambling on something that even in the best case can come up only 90% right. Kirill R.

The centuries old samurai sword might be a stretch here... as is some museum exhibiting it. At least i sort of hope so, knowing how hard it is to exhibit even something deserving. The rest is.. well anyone can make a gift of a sword. i never quite understood why in cases like this there is an aura of benevolence involved, since the emotional connection between the Japanese family and the sword is obviously lacking. And why should it exist actually? The item is from what limited is shown might be half an inch improvement over some 1904 pattern parade saber bayonet - and in questionable condition at that. Which somehow nobody expects to find the "rightful owner" of. Kirill R.