Jean

He has bought a batch of Japanese books of which one drew my attention as quite old. It is a book of koto oshigata swords, but the paper is really old. Can someone identify it?

Late copy of Jingo?

Congrats Chris. You are right, there is a strong probability it is Mino. For the smith, taking into consideration there were more than one thousand smiths working at that time, it is difficult to pinpoint the smith

No, Chris. In this case, considering the time of manufacture, only the hacho (cutting edge). In old times, Heian, Kamakura, tachi could have several sori, one in the nakago, one on the blade... This type of blade is typical of Muromachi. At this time, 16th century, there were a lot of hira zukuri wakizashi. In the same way, at the hinge of Nambokucho/Muromachi, some smiths forged hirazukuri katana/tachi with blades around 65 cm. I have seen some Bizen blades like this. If you want to speed your research, the easiest way is to google « hira zukuri wakizashi » and you will see blades and in the des ription, the Province. The key kantei points here are « hira zukuri wakizashi », nakago jiri. Edit to add, in those times, one could say that Bizen accounted for 50% pf the blades producet and Mino for 25%.

The sword is sold to a dear NMB friend and will leave France tomorrow for its new home. I am very glad to see it gone to such a good home.

The first one is very interesting, the hada is very violent, Norishige style, the hamon screams Soshu. If the smith is Sai jo saku, it rules out Tametsugu. Hankei is also a possibility, of course Norishige is in the list

Chris, Try to make an educated guess (if you have a few books), from the nakago jiri, the nakago pattern, from the period MurOmachi (in which province were hira zukuri wakizashi forged?), in that period what were the provinces which supplied the greatest number of swords. This should lead to an answer

Same as Paul: 1 - Chinese fake 2 - not enough picture of the blade, but the end knot of the handle is dubious. Please provide some pictures of the blade. Anyway, be cautious, stay away from these « blades »

Chris, BTW, The blade is suriage and not O suriage. Should it be O suriage, the mei would have been cut off

Izumi no kami fujiwara Kunisada, a big name....

Welcome Scott and Leon

I have just a feeling, I don’t know why. Nakago jiri seems a bit strange (maybe a question of perspective), nioi deki and sue Bizen is rather nie deki, the mei centered on the shinogi and not the shinogi ji, the mekugi ana, I don’t know, perhaps a sue Bizen blade with an added mei..

I back you Jean. The nakago is , for the least, crude.

Welcome Bjorn and Michael, Another post which can be interesting: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/12646-advices-for-newbies-buyers-rules-of-thumb/

I’ll wait for the e-book, but for sure, I will be the first to get it Danny asa soon as available, pm me the details

Welcome Björn, enjoy and participate

JP, Relieve it by becoming his new keeper...

Bump

In fact, I base my reasoning on the fact that Shirasaya are not signed, even by the best craftsmen. It can be the name of the maker or of the arsenal but on what purpose as tsuka are not (for gunto or war blades at least) necessarily work of art . In fact, it can be a name rather than a signature (mei) but only someone as Koichi san or Morita san can perhaps decipher this.

Bruce, I won’t call this a mei, but rather an inscription, tsuka being expendable they are not signed per se. There are no books on tsuka makers.

Not really John, because they are very long and often cover the length of the hamon. It is a kantei point for Satsuma great smiths.

Agents: Paul Martin or Robert Hughes

Hanks Stephen, more than outstanding

Done for Jim

I don’t think so Curran, I’d rather say that the Board is full of empty pockets