Rivkin

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.

Thank you! Kirill R.

The check of boshi for suguha would do much to challenge or support shinto. My personal reasoning is following: Subdued hada, while hamon is bright and well preserved. This excludes the chance of being tired and puts the sword into shinto or at least Momoyama category. Also hamon exhibits nie concentrated around the outer edges, while the inner portion is quite uniform. No earlier than Sengaku. Also the gunome-choji are well separated from each other. Kinju, Naotsuna and other peak-based hamons from Nambokucho would have been much more random in placement, more dense and with lots of sunagashi, more active than here. O-Kanemitsu would be periodic, but more dense and in nioi. Omiya can show peaks in nie like this, but more dense and a little bit more random. So again something no earlier than Sengaku Mino. Yet Sengaku production tends to be rough. Greater variation of nie. O-hada, which partially delaminates. Mokume-masame at places. Darker color. This one looks more pristine, more shinto. Kirill R.

Can't pass an opportunity to fail at kantei. Mino, can't see the suguha in boshi, but still assume the earliest shinto. Jumyo or one of the kane-something names. Kirill R.

Theoretically, it can be exported temporary, but it is a seldom (if ever?) used option. Storing it in Japan can be more efficient by comparison, and offers a pathway to unusually classified items. Kirill R.

Leibstandarte, a very famous store (politically). That's where Igor Strelkov, "Bad soldier" and I think Viper-NS are from. They don't ship abroad, and aside from one person I think high class blade collectors from Russia have a tendency to prefer more southern climates for convinience of polishing. Kirill R.

Without seeing the details I would just argue that the probability of this one papering to Muramasa is below 5%. Otherwise, for myself Muramasa is one of those invented biographies, which correspondingly makes it difficult to argue in substance on such issues as where to draw the line between "real" and "fake". There are suguha, hitatsura and "conventional" Muramasa of a wide range in quality and sugata all accepted as the second generation, but you either have a "paperable" conventional type, or an unconventional type verifiably from a very old collection, and thus also accepted as the original. Kirill R.

No, they were in ruined condition. Kirill R.

Taikei Naotane at a mumei (NBTHK Hozon) price! Nagasa almost exactly 27 inches (68.5 cm), this work by sai-jo-saku, one of the most celebrated smiths, presents brilliant Bizen styled choji in nie, combined with an outstanding itame hada. Most likely comes from around 1820, when Naotane produced a number of similarly styled Bizen blades. Unfortunately, the item was rescued from the military mounts but not before there was a characteristic rust damage (dots) in couple of areas (as pictured). There are tiny ware. In fresh Japanese polish. Comes with a shirasaya, habaki and a sword bag. 7,000$ to paypal shipping included, but open to negotiations. My first attempt at some commercial gain on the forum, but it looks like without the fees it can be a good option - and thus I can do both a donation and negotiate a price a little further than usual. All items have a two week return guarantee, no questions asked. Kirill R.

The big problem will be that sori is non-uniform. Old blades, up to Nambokucho blades can appear almost straight when severely cut down, and "extending them where they should be" is rather complex - especially since these cut-down forms were extensively copied at later times, or accidentally reproduced (cut down Oei can be a close match for cut down late Kamakura). Just a personal take. Kirill R.

The work and sugata are generally consistent with the signature, the name is not really often faked. If you could find the signature in some book and compare against it - good, but by default I would say its reasonable to consider it an original. Kirill R.

Well, a prominent employee at one of the most prestigious American Museums a couple of decades ago gave a non-English interview where he openly stated that the only way for him to afford any decent living standard is to aggressively deaccession and then purchase/resell the items - which he packaged as a great personal rebellion against the stupidity of the museum's governing bodies which signed up on deaccession paperwork. Since then the museum implemented a policy that any purchase and sale by its employee has to be documented and approved (purchases especially) by no less than Department head. Still in the end such deaccession just puts an item back into hands of experienced collector. Worse are those being done trough some remote auction house where things can easily slip away. I can tell a dozen of scarier stories, but still of die hard belief that unique items belong in museums, even if the job of displaying them is done sporadically. I can't comprehend why every American museum save MFA has to put it plainly - substandard collection of Japanese, and MFA is the one probably least interested in blades it has. They should sell the junk that drowns them and buy couple of blades that are display friends - some good Soshu or Ichimonji. Non-unique items should back into collecting world through specialized sale or dedicated collection purchase by somewhat younger collector. Kirill R.

What always puzlled me with utsushi-mono is that vis-a-vis Soshu they do hint towards something not yet well understood or accepted. Hocho Masamune is a form very unique to Masamune, a prized specimen, there are quite a few of those found in different collections. Yet, and this is a question - when do we see the first hocho utsushi? There are quite many gendai ones, including pre WWII. There is a Meiji example. But nothing substantially earlier than that (I hope to be corrected here if someone knows an exception to this). Despite significant numbers of Hasebe, Akihiro and Sadamune utsushi. Kirill R.

In as much as I like Markus's writing, always very meticuluos curbing through old and new nihonto literature, I think there many non-nihonto sources that he did not address here. 15th century saw a collapse of Japanese economy and virtual halt in sword production. Ashikaga's were consistent in issuing mobilisation order combined with pardons of debts, so that bushi could requisition blades and armor from pawn shops. In return, pawn brokers were introducing tighter restrictions on accepting armor and blades as collateral (for various reasons, most of the sales were apparently classified as loans), which still did not help with that no one was actually buying them. Bizen was an exception since it still had a stream of customers for its top work, but in this atmosphere to talk about prevailing prices on blades or armor is difficult. Also it is not unexpected that a good portion of exports could have been older blades. Second, Japanese trade and commerce was always a matter of state's monopoly (especially since China for most periods did not accept non-state agents) - and the overall system of production was more akin to ever-decaying socialism with regulated prices and state licensing, but numerous exceptions for individual dealings, rather than a truly competitive market. Government license more often than not meant the right to requisition goods at the "official price", so the problem why much greater quantity of copper were requested from Edo period mines for the purpose of being sold abroad than actually arrived in Nagasaki has a simple explanation. Some businesses could resist if their patrons were strong enough; however in Kyoto-Nara area nearly all commerce was still patronized by a few major temples, and since they were instrumental to these missions abroad it is unlikely they had to haggle with swordsmiths beyond the basic expenses. At the same time, how much was actually shipped and actually sold can also be questioned, especially with Chinese sources notoriously silent on the issue and a complete lack of period finds. It has to be admitted any period finds on the continent are rare, but they do exist, and it is clear that only around 1550 there comes a flood of Japanese hira-zukuri wakizashi to Amur river and beyond, as well as various tsuba found anywhere from Korea to Vietnam. Third is that the money paid also had very relative value at the time. For the government it was on a very formal level all the same. In Japan later there will be copper, silver, gold and even paper money, with official equivalence but real life substantially different purchasing ability (which was still a crime). During the 15th centruy, its not exactly clear what was happening in Japan with copper. Yes, there were exports, but Korean sources indicate that these copper exports were reprocessed to yield silver. Whatever the reason, copper coin was exceptionally prized, but Chinese silver currency was avoided, Chinese silk was prized, and to some extent Chinese scrolls and paintings, which served until the Meiji revolution as a default gift to Kyoto aristocracy and Tenno's relations. Yet the mixture in which the payment was conducted is also to some extent uncertain - sometimes there are clear Japanese statements saying so much was received in copper coin, but not in others. And comparing the same nominal price in copper coin to the nominal price which could've been paid in kind is very difficult. Kirill R.

Not being Nobuie specific, but in any realm of arms and armor there comes time when someone has to appraise a pile of objects with no clear dates and references, and often with a predomination of a particular signature. Europeans generally point out the likely period the items are coming from, as well as the possible origin of the signature, commenting that its widespread use prevents more precise identification. Russians find pieces of more or less uniform craftsmanship and length, to be declared as the "pattern adopted by the Royal guard", and then all the way down to a mish mash of poor quality pieces which are "ersatz examples provided by unscrupilous makers". Japanese take best pieces and say - that's the first generation. Then come somewhat different and wilder ones - that's the second. The rest is "later generations". Kirill R.

My very personal and erroneous opinion: everything stated by Haynes, Elliott, McKinney and more so by Japanese nihonto authorities in regards to continental fittings, blades, and their trade interactions with Japan has to be treated with more than a grain of salt. All of it is based on "its logical to assume" argumentation since no one actually bothered at all to browse any of the major collections of the continental tsuba or Japanese items unearthed in Korea or greater Manchuria. There was recently a government grant in Japan given to archaeology student to go and study along this lines - and even in this case the student managed to partner with a continental university that does not have anything decent.... Without checking the relevant books, here the issue is more about how these well known texts about Japanese blades being exported to China have to be interpreted, and there is a large uncertainty. Well mounted blades as far as I remember were listed separately and their numbers were quite few, for the most its not exactly clear what was going on there in terms of mounts. Unlike the earlier Japanese exports around during the early Heian period, for some reason contemporary Chinese documents are mostly silent on these numbers altogether, and there is indeed huge and rapid increase of Japanese items being unearthed on the continent, but it corresponds to the 16th century rather than 15th century... Taking in mind that it was not completely uncommon for various Japanese sources to give drastically different records with regards to foreign trade, copper trade export disaster of the late 1600s-early 1700s being a great example, these export numbers might be accurate or they might be not. Kirill R.

Not being an expert on the subject, I don't think these late tsubas can be classified easily based on the subject matter, which is a classic combination from no less classic Chinese paintings and stories. Kaneie was sort of the first, but then from Umetada Shigeyoshi to Aizu Shoami one does see such topics now and then in pretty similar execution. Below is an artist he is neither classic Nara nor Mito, but Yokoya by training. sho from Dai sho. Actually looking at the plate on one of the pictures in the beginning of this topic, I would argue that this could very well be by the same maker. He also did a lot of iron works that do look somewhat more simple compared to his kinko, but very much along the same imagery, slightly raised rim etc. Kirill R.

As far as gimei goes, Hosho Sadamune is not that bad. This attribution was applied to top level blades during the late Muromachi and early Edo periods, Tokugawa and allies Hosho's had a tendency of becoming Sadamune in attributions. Today in my opinion even though papers to this name are not issued, green papers will have a tendency to jump to just a comparable ko Hosho thing... Case in point, if the blade is indeed Hosho (which is easy to check), then they are all tend to be quite good, even Sue-Hosho. The signature might have found the way there to indicate something that is more than just good. It can be just worthless rod, that someone just enhanced so that it sells somehow. But at least there is a chance. Ok, looking in the actual album its in really tough condition. You'll be lucky to find a spot where some work is seen. The signature is done so ugly, it was unlikely in any good collection though... Kirill R.

Yes, Meito Zuikan. I had an opportunity to re-photograph some of the blades published and compare the technique with the one he originally used. Kirill R.

A lot of western museums have now large collections of rusted rods because most European collectors around 1900 refused to buy blades in shirasaya, koshirae only. No nightly changes - one is a legitimate long term storage option, the other is not save rare cases. Kirill R.

Not an expert on iron tsuba but the signature looks fresher then the rest and even the rest is very uniform and sort of flat. 19th century? Kirill R.

I am missing one or two issues in Fujishiro’s photo essays. Kirill R.

A skill often acquired after seeing at least hundreds and owning dozens of good swords. Kirill R.