Rivkin

200,000 yen, all "weapons" and all things potentially of important historical value. For the last one they go by the item's 1 line title description. If it says "Important Nambokucho autograph document by Ashikaga Yoshiimitsu" even at 175,000 yen chances are they'll get it returned by the post office and you'll need export permit. Things to avoid I guess - references to pre-Edo date, "tokubetsu" and attributions to important historical figures. But it seems you need at least 2 out of 3 before post office declines to ship it. Kirill R.

Thank you, Piers - no my comment on the sword for sale was purely related to a different, blog-related question - the one regarding the impression that something papered with special qualifications regarding the signature still means NBTHK absolutely affirmed the signature as being original to the sword. There is an example of such Juyo sword for which when the issue was asked to be further explained in sayagaki the response by leading NBTHK judges was consistent and firm that they believe it is a substantially later signature, not original to the sword. If the sword is old enough, and the signature is quite old by itself, it sometimes can be papered "as is" with an appropriate statement to this fact. Very personally and possibly erroneously, I see some lack of caution in re-interpreting such paper as an affirmation of signature's authenticity with some minor doubts. Kirill R.

Congratulations! This Taima sword is really something. Kirill R.

Would this be a shinto sword with a major signature the feeling could have been that it has slight (maybe really slight) discrepancies with what is considered canonical and thus the judgement is omitted, as it often is. Horyu for koto works is a tad harsher and without seeing the blade and signature it is hard to say anything concrete. Regarding what shinsa really means when expressing some doubt but papering... I have a rule not to comment on swords being offered by dealers, first and foremost since I occasionally sell swords myself and thus cannot be a disinterested party. So I would appreciate not pointing the sword in question directly, but as a matter of context - there is a high paper sword with a "unique signature" for which sayagaki was in the past asked from all of major three issuers (for the obvious purpose of dispelling the stated doubt), but all of them responded that the signature was most likely placed after the smith's lifetime. All opinions expressed are very personal and very likely erroneous. Kirill R.

The straightening of hamon in the boshi is a tad too drastic for koto, can't see the details but if its really suguha in the boshi then the sword is shinto. Tembun Uchigatana would typically have somewhat shorter nakago with a more "obtuse" end. With somewhat larger kissaki no fumbari and this curvature it looks probably no earlier than Momoyama and maybe no later than Kanei. The sharp yasurime is also somewhat Shinto looking. As is "glassy" very uniform hamon, though one does find similar things on Muromachi Mino pieces as well. Can be early shinto, mino-derived. Kirill R.

Well, I think those tend to come up predominantly for signed pieces, where it indicates there are some issues with the signature, but not enough to discard it as gimei. A koto piece where the signature is unlike anything recorded but sort of matches the work can get this judgement. One option - NTHK NPO will be more clear cut on this issue. I sort of see their judgement sheets are less detailed in Japan compared to the US shinsa, but they still can simply write down a comment like saying "there a chance this portion of the signature is not original" or "the work is Nio, the signature is not". The bad thing about getting this judgement with NBTHK is that it is unlikely to be overturned if you resubmit in a year, despite the judgement sort of inviting this course of action. One might be better off with yet another "Uda" that can easily transform into something more tangible on a slightly more careful examination. All opinions are personal and likely erroneous. Kirill R.

Definitely yes today, but my guess is they are so rare because koshirae was not really collectible until 1650 or so and even afterwords I just don't see in the list of sales or gifts really old pieces having a prominent place. Early Goto - sure, but just plain Nambokucho... And then quite a lot of old origami attribute armor or koshirae to ashikaga shoguns, while the pieces are clearly edo, so it was also probably all mixed up at that time. Kirill R.

Not my personally preferred style, but extraordinary expensive when made and with a solid history since the Imperial Household and very few other places can offer provenance for items like this one, so for the purpose of studying original packages often these collections are the best option by far. The really interesting pieces unfortunately or not are the ones no money can buy. Kirill R.

All are solid gold. Kirill R.

Zenshin's koshirae is unfortnately expensive as everything connected to his name, but definitely is in this material plane... In terms of quality koshirae, there are complete sets by early Goto, Omori, whole bunch of big names, but even some lesser names can still do very considerable work. Here is a semi-decent piece, a tad heavish though. But it has not been through dealers' hands and directly from the Household it can be expected to represent the original set. A nice wedding gift - yet the blade has quite issues. Kirill R.

Well, I am not much of an authority - just expressing my personal observation that even in collections inherited from the late Edo-Meiji times with no record of later changes I still can't help but to observe a common dissonance between the quality of blades and koshirae. Regarding the gift traditions of Edo period, including tsunagi, "imitation koshirae" and so on, there are dozens of Ph.D. thesis and many more conference publications. People are welcome to register at a decent university library, find them, read them and to form any kind of opinion on the subject. This obviously does not negate the fact that today koshirae and blade often part, which can be traced in many cases based on auction records, or that there are great blades in great koshirae - though I have to be honest in saying the examples cited in this thread so far are not what I would classify as great koshirae. Say, Shibata Zenshin and Goto Ichijo is likely to be a great koshirae... and the only example I am greatly familiar with actually came with a gimei. Or the fact that often blades considered gimei or so-so today were in their time a prized (but maybe a tad burned) meito. So the problem is quite multi-dimensional to begin with. Regarding the top dealers, I have to readily admit this is not really the type community I am comfortable with. 20 years ago I was always eager to collaborate with dealers, I mean they saw it all and been doing it for so long. Yet every single time after many reminders I would finally get a writeup - and the first 5 pages would be the dealer's biography. How he was the first person to visit this, and the first person to photograph, and the first person to see things no one have seen. Another 5 pages are about prime ministers and museum directors begging him for advice, accompanied by the list of all important people he claims to know. Another page is about hinting to Secret Knowledge only he received from the last words of the Great Sword Sensei on a snowy mountain. Another page filled with dealer's titles (like the Chief Scholar of the greatest Sword Club). And then there is one page on blades, which basically repeats things said 100 years ago, peppered with big words - Scholar, Research, Expert, Eternal Student of a Sword. So now I am as a simple simpleton simply try to visit old collections and relay what I see with my own two eyes. Kirill R.

My point would be a little different. From the early eras like Nara and Heian the blades were deposited in shrines usually without koshirae, which was supplied if needed, and then again discarded. Some of the blades were taken out to war - and returned without koshirae. So there was already an unusual for us perception that koshirae is utilitarian add on, unless it is of extremely high quality. Skipping forward into Edo, from the records I saw I don't think the trade in old blades was actually that active following about 1660, especially as the great economic boom of Kambun period began to wane off. There was gradual loss of blades usually through them being pawned, but even exceptionally troubled clans like Uesugi did everything they could to keep the core set of blades they owned intact. And this is the clan regarding which accusations and suspicions of infanticide were common thing. However good swords did change hands, in the very least to fufill the requirements of unoficial-official tax imposed by the core families like Tokugawa in terms of gifts that needed to be supplied for superiors on various occasions. The thing is that these requirements usually demanded a blade of certain level (never mind the koshirae at all), and on some occasions could accept a high level (and likely contemporary made) or even mid level (lacquer and makie, contemporary) koshirae, but there are really no instances I saw (I am sure they do exist, but must be rare) where the two were requested as a set. So having great quality koshirae gifted with tsunagi or tsunagi level blade was not offensive and absolutely normal, just as it was normal to gift a high quality blade in shirasaya or low to mid range koshirae. As a result, there is a myriad of absolutely historical packages with great blades and utilitarian koshirae, or stunning solid gold koshirae and bland blade (well maybe at a time this was a retempered meito, who knows). Kirill R.

One is date another one is signature, and where the signature is (ending in saku, the one before last image in the first post) the transition from the polished steel into the nakago right above the signature is unusual, its almost like a step. There are other things as well, which make one wonder what was done to the nakago. Kirill R.

Saw maybe once or twice packages at high level where koshirae matched the blade in quality. Otherwise if one wants to collect quality things, koshirae and blades will sort of have to be purchased separately. There are some exceptions, like Shimazu sale was filled with blades with koshirae, but I also saw Daimyo catalogues where all blades were separately in shirasaya, and all mounts separately as is. It feels like there is a notion that can be substantiated to an extent through historical documents that blades and koshirae in Edo periods were considered as separate entities with separate values and were seldom combined as a "package" - either of the two was just a holder for the one with a true value. Kirill R.

The signature is written without any elegance and with an uncertain hand, and also some really weird cutout made in the nakago just above it. I would say not only the signature is bad, but also the nakago is essentially damaged in this appearance. Kirill R.

I have to readily admit to limited experience with Naotane so I can't comment on whether there was a change, and Naokatsu died younger almost at the same time, so there is this factor as well. But on the other hand there was a large group of smiths working in roughly the same general style, even Kojihei somewhere around there and so on. And big name smith are very seldom known to officially retire and stop signing blades, the blades signed with the year of smith's death are not uncommon, so the question of how much the "school" was taking over the orders from the "master" is probably always something that keeps popping up. Kirill R.

I don't know by heart whether its documented, but all chances are at that age and beginning considerably before he was not the one making them. Simply because his signature commanded higher price than Naokatsu's. Kirill R.

There are very many alloys that are blackish and are historically found in Japan. Tin-rich alloys can be very dark, but the color is permanent - this one is common with Kofun since they naturally retain more tin over long periods. Sulfur alloys (related to modern niello) can be blackish. Finally, shakudo is a huge range of alloys of copper with some gold (usually 1%), silver (usually 1%) and if the piece is late - likely arsenic, that was oxidized by boiling in urushi... There is no guarantee even if top quality shakudo is left in the air that it will result in production of 5-10 nm particles of gold or silver on its surface - and that is exactly what is needed to create the shakudo color. Essentially black is due to overlap of scattering on the surface from very small particles (blueish) with copper oxides' natural absorption spectrum (reddish). "Natural" oxidation will strongly depend on the environment. If your surface particles will end up being larger in size, you will be in a completely different scattering regime (Mie) and the result will be different. Kirill R.

I suspect a typical high quality pre Muromachi blade at this point of time would be mumei, and possibly still longer than shinto katanas. Every single signed piece here is on the other hand likely to be shinto. Just a guess. Kirill R.

I would say the answer strongly depends on the blade's level. If it is upper juyo or strong tj candidate I personally lack contacts which could be immediately tapped, but I would also strongly suggest asking advice at sokendo or some other very top dealer in Japan, and seeing if they agree to find someone best suitable for the particular style and condition. I don't have experience with Paul Martin so can't comment here, but very personally - I would not go with an agent with this particular task. If it is below - Bob Benson, Woody Hall. There are also a few polishers I don't have a lot of experience seeing their work first hand. Kirill R.

Actually found it. Two books (actually pamphlets) by Suzuki Hisashi in Japanese, bones of Japanese, and bones of Daimyo respectively. Daimyo are in 150-160cm range, especially Tokugawas and their class. Wealthy peasants on top of the distribution. Much larger spread of distribution for Nambokucho. It is a well known topic in historical publications. Japanese did extensive jobs studying old remains, and high ranks from Edo period are plainly speaking problematic. Also lots of lead from cosmetics. There are even articles in medical journals on sword wound mortality rates or studies of decapitated heads, or analysis of bones from different historical regions of Japan for different nutrition. Kirill R.

There is a documented weird thing about Edo samurai is that their height was at about 160cm against 170cm country average and kept declining with class. Tokugawa were nearly all in 140s (mistake - in 150s). Strict monastery diet in childhood, and narrow rice diet (with common beri-beri) in adhulthood. A wealthy farmer arguably enjoed a much higher quality of living. Compared to Nambokucho bushi with their 180cm and meat-venison rich eating. Kirill R.

By far the hardest path since its always tends to be somewhat speculative. The last thing Daimyo families wanted is to publish the list of what they registered with the police so one can track what they sold - for the same reason you almost never see their names on nbthk papers. What happens however is one buys a known Daimyo sword with the registration number such and such, and then its highly likely that similar numbers will come from the same family. There are some dealers in Japan who say such and such range of numbers are all from such and such collection. The registration is obviously with the police and most torokusho that are called Daimyo ones are from 1956-1957, the earliest registration dates. But there are also those executed in English by police stations or occupation authorities in 1946-1948, which will actually state the family owning the blade. They are however of almost arbitrary form and the English is horrible. Alas, I personally don't know what are they for Mori. Very important blades you are sort of supposed to find in 大名家・著名家刀剣目録 Kirill R.

There is a range of torokusho numbers that some claim is associated with Mori (I have no opinion on that), but also there are chapters in various books that show the lists of Mori swords. And then there are sayagaki which tend to mention Daiymo attribution if such was suggested when it was written down. There were quite a few books published until early Showa with Daimyo collections, such as Marquis Kuroda exhibit or the sale catalogue of Shimazu, or small format series covering quite a few families - but I am not sure Mori had one done. But there were also very many Daimyo sword exhibits after the war, but none I think Mori-specific. Kirill R.

The state was about 70% in polish on one side and about 30% on the other. There was no additional polishing done. The gentleman is very well regarded, very experienced and his spoken opinions are referenced here. He claimed for certain that nakago was wielded on to pass it as genuine old Rai, remains of horimono was rather damage from kozuka blade, and likely there were fatal flaw or flaws in hamon, but he was uncertain on this point. The lighting was poor (just standard overhead lights) so that was one factor, and the other one was I guess an expectation that people don't come out of nowhere with good swords they just bought on the corner. I don't position it as a criticism of anyone in particular. An example of someone making really bad judgement. I saw worse. It was an unpleasant moment for myself at the time and same goes for the tanto's seller, to whom I retold the speech, but in the end was a nice learning. Kirill R.