thiswake

Hello! I'm a fairly new collector, I have done a ton of research but am still quite a novice. Earlier this year I purchased a late Kamakura/ early Nambokucho mumei nihonto from aoijapan. I was wondering If I could have help in translating the sayagaki or at least confirming what I was told. NBTHK attributed blade to Ko-uda, but I was told that the sayagaki was done by an unknown judge and attributed it to "Highest ranking Sosyu Yukimitsu" a couple questions I had: 1. Are there reasons why a judge would not sign their name for the sayagaki, possibly a false evaluation? 2. I noticed the side of the shirasaya that this sayagaki is written on seems to be the opposite side that most sayagakis are written on. Is that common or possibly just an inexperienced judge? 3. I was told Kouda and Sosyu Yukimitsu are very similar, is it possible the NBTHK attributing to Kouda is incorrect or is there more chance the sayagaki is wrong? I've attached photos, I can take more pictures if needed. Apologies if any of these questions are dumb, i'm learning as I go. Thank you very much for the help! Link to hi-res of blade: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vw74sqt54utwebk/Blade%20Detail.jpg?dl=0 Best, Mitch

Greetings everyone! Long time lurker here, I've been learning as much as I can about nihonto for the past year and I've decided to finally take the plunge after recently purchasing my first true nihonto from Aoi Art. My name is Mitchell, from San Francisco CA. I am a concept designer in the film industry. The Japanese side of my family has a very long history of samurai descendant (Tsugaru clan in Hirosaki) which naturally led me to become extremely fascinated with nihonto. I hope to have a very long history of studying and owning them! I've recently purchased a beautiful Koto era katana from Aoi Art with plans of taking high-res photos very soon in order to share with everyone! There's still so much to learn, but I'm excited to be here and learn from all of you. Hopefully I may even get to meet some of you at the San Francisco Token Kai this year! Cheers, Mitchell