Rivkin

Yes, to me its an additional motivator to collect later things - plenty of deals even for ubu signed swords, as long as one does not subscribe to a standard high class Japanese collector preferences (Kotetsu and Kiyomaro). Which ofcoarse has its dangers of the blades in question unlikely to be ever "officially" appreciated above certain level, but if one wants to have fun its definitely an opportunity. There are some stunning Oei period makers with poor ratings, since everything connected to Ashikaga was officially despised for the entirety of Edo period, and plenty of Edo swordsmiths who never made it aside from being someone's apprentice, even if this someone was saijosaku and known to sign the blades made by his students. For Koto the deals are hard to find. Gets even harder with pre-Nambokucho with their distinctive sugata, where everything in Japan is papered. Some people at the upper end are searching for "slam dank Juyo" among Hozon blades and then paper them at higher level. Something I never really appreciated since have little interest in blades whose main accomplishment is being ubu and Kamakura. But there I would say still a few names where the deals are possible. For example, better works of Etchu Tametsugu will not go to Norishige, because Norishige is way too distinctive in his style. By the same token attributions to Norishige are seldom challenged or changed compared to most other smiths. There are also cases where the work is so unusual, they can't attribute it to anyone famous and it gets some weird attribution to really not well known contemporary. But its amazing how name-based Japanese sword collecting is. You get something attributed to a good name based on sugata and features, and its boring like hell with shingane throughout and its still sells in a day.

One has to add that "decreasing quality of later generations" with respect to pre-Muromachi items has a tint of self-fulfilling prophecy. While attributions to different lineages are (hopefully) based on kantei features, within the same linage quality plays a significant role. So we can find shinto signed chu-jo-saku with a first class blade, but in the world of early mumei blades such attribution cannot happen in principle. If its first class work it will be attributed to the founder. This also prevents one from objectively appreciating the second generation's real quality level - something which is quite possible in shinto and shinshinto.

Apologies for very personal and unnessesary pontification, they are just to help me organize my thoughts. In Nihonto there are many periods where everyone is doing sort of the same. In 1360s every provincial smith wanted to be Soshu. So you look at Bungo Takayuki and Echizen Mitsuyuki and they are from opposite corners of Japan, but can be quite similar. And you see mumei blades precisely attributed to a specific name, and you think shinsa people are so smart and so experienced, they must be seeing something secret that allows them to be so precise - except when you bring it for another appraisal you get another 1360s Soshu name. 1520-1550 is also one of those periods. You either forge in togari that look like choji (and vice versa) and some are Bizen and some are Mino, but others like Kaga are copying those as well. Distinguishable by shape of togari, how they are grouped, how similar they are etc. This one is not it. Or you forge in some style worthy of bastard child of Mino-Soshu. This is not Ise, I don't think its mainstream Mino, its someone who practiced notare-gunome with large wide belts of nie. Rough o-mokume sandwiched between masame (all Soshu bastard children like that). If jigane is really black and the belts dominate I would strongly vote Uda (as per the photograph attached). If its calmer notare can be Dotanuki but also can be a few other schools. I am sorry to say I don't think the style here is typical for the period, not really extremely school-specific.

There is definitely expected reduction in quality compared to the founder's passion, and overall East Asian perception of history is the one where you have ancient Golden Age (Yellow Emperor or Kamakura Bakufu) and then morals decay and things get worse. I think its quite amazing that the ratings in the good book are actually quite predictive of real life's quality; this being said, I feel they can be also misleading. Quite a few supposedly chu-jo-saku smiths are just not well known or churned up too many average blades, but could still do a masterpiece on special order. I would not place much hope on different books treating the rankings independently, since they all essentially cross-referenced either each other or the same earlier sources. With Hizen I personally never felt awed by Hizen Tadayoshi. If you do Rai, you have to show impressive utsuri. I don't feel he is at the same level as others of the same style. Actually I even prefer somewhat earlier Hizen Masatsugu, who was heavily Soshu-leaning so his suguha has more of Soshu Yukimitsu, with lots of nie and Yamato-like formations. Masahiro first generation believed by some, myself included, to be one of the greatest of shinto. On par with Shinkai and Sukehiro. But he can be extremely flamboyant. Tons of ara nie and tobiyaki. Second generation to my eyes is a tad more balanced. There is also Yukihiro who is very interesting, but he does not have the same level of nie size control. Instead of sunagashi and clouds of nie you get "belts". There is also Kunihiro who is worse. To me cases like this are good because you can still buy something excellent without bearing the full weight of signature premium.

I think it could very well be Dotanuki. With blacker steel and longer "nie belts" I would go for Uda. Otherwise - maybe Dotanuki or Mizuta. I don't think its Kaga, Bizen or Bungo personally.

The issue of papers respectability is greatly debatable to the point few actually being troll enough to fully wonder there. Here is my very personal list, in decreasing order of my very personal, erroneous and ignorant trust: Tanobe Sayagaki Honma Sayagaki. Pricewise I would say its the best in a sense that he did very few sayagaki while essentially he was the founder of modern kantei. Published by Fujishiro. Modern NBTHK (note - very conservative). Fujishiro papers. Note - most put them below NBTHK, but in my personal experience Fujishiro papers that NBTHK "gimeis" have a solid chance to get sayagaki by Tanobe san. NTHK. NPO is disliked by those convinced its a group completely dominated by one person, Miyano san. Non NPO is disliked by those having issues with almost 100% of this shinsa being active dealers (rather than polishers etc.). The groups also had a very ugly divorce with a lot of interesting accusations. Kanzan Sato Sayagaki. Things like this: https://sword-auction.com/en/product/2908/as20415-%E8%84%87%E5%B7%AE%E7%84%A1%E9%8A%98%E9%95%B7%E8%88%B9%E5%B8%AB%E6%99%AF/' Are too common to ignore. It gets worse further towards 1976 or so. But it has to be noted - its an absolutely stunning blade and apparently his sayagaki sometimes have a tendency to reflect quality or provenance more than precise kantei per se. So it can be an indicator of those qualities and plus to have, but I would not bet on any of his attributions being 100% accurate. JASMK. Its one dealer operation. This being said, they are not bad but almost never cover upper grade items. Green papers NBTHK. 90% are completely ok, 9% are optimistic by a whole grade (Taima being called Soshu Yukimitsu) 0.1% were born to be absolutely fake. Note - there are whole groups of things that do not repaper by NBTHK modern like Muramasa with a calm hamon because the standards change. Honami Nishu Sayagaki. They did like Sayagaki in 1970s and apparently this person was a second choice. Very large percentage of problematic blades. Almost everything else - for reference only. It might be right, and then it sort of boosts the value, especially if its some early Honami judgement, but has a large chance to be wrong, fake or both or either.

I have not been very successful with kantei recently, but for whatever its worth - late Muromachi, Uda. Or Mizuta. If its more choji-gunome based than Mizuta, if there is stronger masame and the nie belts are very long - Uda. Just personal opinion.

Interestingly enough that seems to be more Indian than Chinese inspired to me. I am not sure how to take it, but there is a bizarre fact that according to PhDs analyzing Nambokucho period casualty reports, which are very detailed - there are almost no cases of anyone ever being killed by a naginata, but axes are a very common cause.

Most likely Jojo to kambun, Mino derived, but can be earlier than that.

Its much easier to run kantei than to answer it, and for me its also tougher to kantei Edo period blades. Kambun to Genroku shinto. I want to say second generation Hizen Masahiro, but the work is clearly a bit different, have to look more for who was similar to him in style. But then kissaki hints is a bit more towards shinshinto... need to think more.

I know I keep kicking the nihonto community, but what can I do, I simply don't like it. The way it tends to work is if you ever to sell anything you really want to do it with papers. If you have papers people look at them and say "oh, its obvious this is what it is. The kitae has this special swirl, yes, yes, can't be anything else". You sell the same item without papers and two months later you have a scandal because somebody said its gimei or it has hagire. If its out of polish there is always somebody who will say its saiha. I would not invest in NBTHK here but if there is going to be NTHK shinsa in the US, can't hurt to get it papered.

I have to admit gentlemen you are probably right. Later generation Tamba no kami Yoshimichi is a good match.

Hard to vote without hedging. My first choice would be late Muromachi Soshu influenced. Most likely Uda Kunimune. Distant second is shinshinto, somebody slightly junior, like second generation Naokatsu or lesser Satsuma smith. Would appreciate seeing sugata though.

That's a part where I have to scratch my head. At first I thought maybe for some bizarre and probably mounts related reason the nakago was narrowed down, especially with some kanji going all the way to the edge, but then looking at his other signatures he apparently did sign this way. The rundown of hamon looks very natural. Maybe he felt like adding this highly unusual and antiquated feature to this work. Maybe its indeed utsushi of something well known, which I don't know of.

I have to admit to being provoked by this: Yokoyama Bizen Katana - Suō (no) kuni Nagahiro - 周防國永弘 - SWORDSOFJAPAN.COM - Nihonto Message Board (militaria.co.za) Yokoyama Bizen usually worked in a very distinctive fashion, but most of them from time to time tried to do suguha. Those have strong Rai flavor with tight itame hada, but always tend to fail in utsuri. With one exception. This one is: 備前長船横山祐宗作 元治元年二月 Apparently Yokoyama Sukemune is not even listed in Sesko's monumental catalogue of swordsmith names. He probably started as Yokoyama Sukenaga's student, but his own active period was so late he managed to make just a few swords before Meiji took its toll. Yet in talent I should argue he stood at the level of was one of the best in shinshinto. His utsuri is second to none for the period or frankly for any later Rai influenced works, Tadayoshi, Nosada etc., a multi-layered structure of black and white stripes. The forging is exceptional. There are some Enju and early Rai blades I would value a bit more, but it stands above Nosada in quality and above much of what Rai Kunitoshi did. But I have to admit not being personally enamoured with average Kunitoshi's pieces.

Interestingly enough, it is part of Bizen production, but the time is different. I have to admit to never have guessed Bizen myself. Personally I would pick something like Rai imitators, maybe Nosada. But its indeed Bizen.

It's been a while, so here is a kantei challenge. Its one of my favorite blades. Nakago has been photoshopped to cover the writing (obviously). I can also add that unfortunately its one of those cases you bring to a club if you want to gravely embarass the experts, because this particular school is not well known for this style. Frankly speaking, atari is not expected here. But dozen in principle can be guessed.

An age old question! I would say: Your criteria right now are something reasonable collector would not typically abide by (original polish specifically). Its not a problem, it always tend to start this way. Nevertheless, select what you really like. If you have this option, first look at 100, 500,1000 swords. Ask around if its worth the money. Buy it. In any case either x years down the road you'll develop a somewhat or more than different taste. Or you drop the subject and maybe keep one sword as a conversation starter. Unfortunately swords in most books look like meh spots of something white on something black. Books are really useful when you already know how to read oshigata of specific schools.

Ara nie in its pure form is very uncommon in koto. Go Yoshihiro, occasionally others in Soshu school. It becomes common in shinto Satsuma (which instead of earlier local Naminohira was a development of Ujifusa's interpretation of Soshu), and through Satsuma learned smith, Suishinshi Masahide included seeps into repertoir of almost every shinshinto smith who worked in Soshu style. Its one of the period's distinctions. To see the difference in ara nie quality one has to look at the best shinshinto works, Satsuma preferred and then compare them with something average. Or compare first and second generation Naokatsu, where the drop in quality was quite drastic. Poor quality ara nie has no variety of nie's size, just big black chunks hanging in the middle of ji.

My point is a tad bit different. How do we "know" the buyer of shinto Takada made a "mistake"? We have Aoi Art website which lists thousands of swords together with the prices they went for. A unique feature, which by itself made Aoi Art quite popular, but also extremely hated by many dealers. They are tired of telling their customers that their Sue Sa is much better than the one on Aoi Art and that's why it costs more. They can't openly say Aoi Art is a relatively affordable place and its unfair to compare its prices against someone who invested decades of labor into cultivating the image of a true expert in charge of a unique boutique. Most of all, such singular price record prevent quite a few swords from appreciating. If it says out there the sword was sold for million yen twenty years ago, it's what people will want to pay for it today. And that's part of a greater problem - nihonto does not have more or less transparent price formation, almost all deals being done privately. Its not suitable for real investments, as even the most experienced dealers simply don't have the full price dynamics on their hands. Compare it to fine art market where you get lists of virtually all sales for the past century, because 90% of it goes through public auctions. Unless you deal with once a lifetime find, you can reasonably guess the acceptable valuation for an auction of certain level, and going from there can guess a retail value as well. But when you buy an expensive nihonto at best your guidance is about some friend who sold something similar for say 20% more, and generally knowing such swords are "in demand". When you decide to sell it, suddenly it turns out to be much more complicated. Its great if you bought a sword for life. But as an investment nihonto I feel plainly is a bad option. The market is too opaque to have a comfortable long term prognosis. Otherwise I am in the camp "blame it on the buyer". I can't imagine selling anything without inspection period, even if its not specified outright, unless its outright specified not to be the case. But after that, its on the buyer. That's more freedom than you get in a stock market.

I think Nihonto world has a much larger hidden problem - its aversion to auctions means most higher grade items are being sold privately for unknown prices. Which means potential for huge fluctuations and no clear guidance on how much what is worth. I knew a sword which a collector sold in the US for 70k to a dealer, dealer sold it to another dealer for 120, he sold it to a collector for 250. How much would he get if he were to sell it today? Who knows. There are quite a few higher end dealers supposedly selling for investment, whose goods are one way ticket. You physically can't recover what you paid. We already saw collapse of TJ level items by 25-50% across the board in 2000s, and will likely see another one sooner or later.

One could compare it with signatures of different generations, but for lazy and ignorant people like me, judging by style its 5th to 6th generation, and quite likely the 5th (1500-1520). Its a good work and worth having. If you are thinking about selling I am sure quite a few people would be interested.

I can't say anything about this item, but a lot of Momoya Namban treasures are in actuality results of 19th century trade acquired by older clans and then redated in the 20th century to a famous 16th century Daimyo. A basic knowledge of either Continental Asian or European swords is probably absent from the community.

Conventional way: do you see dots in hamon which sparkle if you apply light from the edge's side. If yes, its nie. Unconventional way: look at the blade straight down while applying light from a side (not from the edge, but from either nakago or kissaki's direction). If you see bright, well distinguished hamon, its in nie. If its sort of hazy, its nioi. This method helps a lot when you buy swords based on scanned photographs. If its hazy, its not bad, its just a nioi blade. There are exceptions but they are rare.

I almost agree with the opinion, but have couple of very personal arguments: Keicho or very close to it. Sugata is a bit atypical for anything typical. Hada is already quite dense, too dense for koto, either shinto or shinshinto is more likely. Hamon has a wide "base", it shows very little vertical variation except in the topmost portion and is very glassy in appearance. Hamon itself is very eclectic. Its a tid bit more nie based than expected from Bizen, odd-groupings of togari, some togari are sharper than typical Bizen choice, some togari are kind of gumone-like standing by themsleves, so it has a Mino feeling to it. At the same time very thin, slanted, sharp angled togari are definitely Bizen like. Such eclectics is more shinto than koto. I would bet its more masame based in shinogi ji, but that could be koto mino as well. I think its sugu boshi. Overall to me looks like very early shinto. Is it gimei? Can be, can be not. Its not outside the realm of possible later generation Kanemoto experimenting with something like that.