SteveM

Wow - now I'm really intrigued. I thought for sure that Steven K was correct with Handaka Sonja (半託迦尊者）. There are other artworks featuring the motif of Handaka Sonja (or Panthaka, or Pantha the Younger) conjuring a dragon from a bowl. http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-handaka-sonja-handaka-sonja-one-of-the-sixteen-rakan-or-arhats-one-60196774.html http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/handaka-sonja-10336 http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/isida_tooru/GALLERY/show_image_v2.html?id=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.c.yimg.jp%2Fres%2Fblog-9f-18%2Fisida_tooru%2Ffolder%2F818926%2F59%2F61864059%2Fimg_1%3F1365387714&i=1 But Mauro's post above indicates the same theme coming from a different place in Japanese/Chinese lore https://archive.org/details/mma_the_chinese_sennin_chen_nan_japanese_chinnan_37263 Now I don't know which one is correct (and how unusual that the two exact themes seem to be independent of one another). Note that the book to which Mauro linked lists both legends: Chinnan on page 38, and Handaka on page 109. If I had to pick one, I'd say that the lack of any obvious Buddhist paraphernalia makes me think the figure is, as Mauro suggests, the hermit Chinnan, rather than the Buddhist disciple Handaka Sonja.

Something a bit more prosaic, I think. To me it looks like a fairly common Japanese surname, Abe (阿部). Possible to get a look at the other side? "Goodbye" in Japanese isn't normally written in kanji - you can write part of it in kanji, but its a bit unusual to do so.

This is a particularly good thread that might be of use to Julian http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/12646-advices-for-newbies-buyers-rules-of-thumb/?hl=%2Brules+%2Bbuying&do=findComment&comment=130767 Also, Guido's article is good for a bit more food for thought for the person thinking about nihonto collecting http://www.nihontomessageboard.com/articles/Collecting.pdf

Well, you can judge for yourself how close she is to my translation. The skinny tag is simply a name/address tag, and there isn't a whole lot of room for artistic license. The address names still persist in one form or another,. So Mamedo (let's call it a village) in Imajuku city in Hiki county in Saitama prefecture is still Mamedo village, Imajuku city in Hiki county in Saitama prefecture (even though it may have been merged into a larger municipality since the war). In Japanese its pronounced as Saitama-ken, Hiki-gun, Imajuku-shi, Mamedo-mura. So your friend has just rendered the Japanese into an approximate English pronunciation, give or take a few errors on her part (pronouns are notoriously difficult to figure out) . The village name of Mamedo （大豆戸） does in fact contain the two kanji for soybean 大豆 which is in fact pronounced daizu, but in this context the three characters go together and form a location name. Hope this helps.

It is laughably incorrect. The person who wrote that quite simply doesn't know what he is talking about, or worse, he does know, but he is deliberately obscuring things in the hope that he can trick some gullible person into believing the sword is a Kamakura artifact. Fun fact: the kanji he says is 浓 is not used in Japan. It is only used in mainland China.

Sorry - it gets confusing. I was trying to say the orientation of the photo should be horizontal (rotated 90° to the left), which would then make the writing on the tags vertical, as they were written.

Hello Geoffrey, Plug in Takada ju Fujiwara Munekage into a search engine and see if you get any hits that appear with NBTHK papers. If that doesn't work, try the Japanese version, which Sebastien has provided above. When I did this, one of the hits I got was the link below. It isn't certified, but the seller says he/she will guarantee it to pass NBTHK. http://www.ricecracker.com/inventory/c1_katana_munekage/c1_katana_munekage.html This signature is quite different from yours, particularly the 景 kage kanji. Dig a bit deeper and you can find a certified Munekage on ebay, that has a significantly different signature, one that looks more in line with yours. http://www.ebay.com/itm/WAKIZASHI-ANTIQUE-Japanese-SWORD-NBTHK-TOKUBETSU-KICHO-SIGN-MUNEKAGE-EARLY-EDO-/131719320774?rmvSB=true&nma=true&si=JH19JdVe4wI4nc9JF765DuxRRuo%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 At this point I start to wonder how many Munekages there were. I would look into one of the swordsmith databases that are linked somewhere on one of the links at the top of this page, to find out more. I can't say anything more than the signature on your swords kind of looks like the one being sold on ebay. What you ought to be doing though is looking at the sword itself, and looking up in a good reference to see if your sword has any characteristics of a Munekage sword (other than the signature). The Connoisseur's Guide (forget the actual name) is a very good reference for this. If your sword has the same characteristics as a Munekage sword, submit it for shinsa.

Hello, In Wakayama's reference of artists, there are ten artists who used these particular kanji for Toshimitsu. Unfortunately it doesn't give pictures of each smith's signature, so it would be a bit hard to pin down exactly which Toshimitsu this is (or if it is genuine at all) without sending it to shinsa, I think.

前川助房 Maekawa Sukefusa. Modern smith, I think.

The picture should be oriented horizontally, with the tsuba on the left hand side, the big tag in the middle, and the thin tag on the right. The thin tag is an (old) address and name, and it reads: Saitama prefecture, Hiki-gun, Imajuku-mura, Mamedo. ARAHATA, Seiichi 埼玉県比企郡今宿村大豆戸新幡精一 (Arahata can also be read as Shinhata, and maybe a few other ways. Arahata is the family name, Seiichi is the given name). The big tag with the letters blacked out looks like a shop tag for a department store in Nagano prefecture. It says Ueda city, Matsuo town Kaizuya Shōten Wholesale Section Stockings, Imported Goods then it lists a long-defunct telephone number 上田市松尾町 足袋、洋品　海津屋商店卸部 (Not completely confident about that middle kanji, but I think its not as crucial as the address and name above).

That's what I would have thought, but then the writing on the box seems to be contrary to that. There is no honorific on the box for Imai, which would be weird, yet there is an honorific for Ono (on the box). So... that's why I'm puzzled. Edit: Yes I think John is right again. It must be Imai who is the recipient (and the sender is Ono). The lid is strange to me. Maybe it was written by a third party, but its still odd. At any rate, there are no other clues as to the year or the organization. Could be wartime, could be post-war veteran's association. The kanji for prefecture - 懸 - is the old style kanji. The Ministry of Education simplified some kanji in the late 40's. Of course not everyone follows the government guidelines, and old habits persist, so the old kanji could still have been written in the 50's or later. The cup itself is in beautiful condition. (Maybe Imai-san wrote the description on the lid himself, to remind him who gave the cup to him?)

I think Jean is right. Bracken fern sprouts (or, 蕨 - warabi - in Japanese) https://www.google.co.jp/search?q=%E9%90%94%E3%80%80%E8%95%A8&hl=en&biw=1456&bih=811&site=webhp&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjkvKafk-PMAhVJH5QKHZAoD2wQsAQIGg

The box. The cup itself says Ono 小野 and Present Imai kun/kimi? 　贈今井君 I'm confused about the 君 in the line above. Kun attached to a name is an honorific (used for subordinates or those younger than yourself) so you wouldn't attach it to your own name. In another context it can refer to the emperor (君万歳), but it doesn't seem have that context here. So, I'm slightly puzzled.

山形懸出身 小野貞六氏贈品 朱木杯一個 今井鍬吉（花押） To Ono Sadaroku (born in) Yamagata prefecture Crimson Sake Cup (one) (From) Imai Shūkichi

↑ Yes I think John is right. Isshin, and there are at least 3 artists who use this name.

Looks like 下真 (Shimozane?). There is no such smith in my reference. I think your suspicion (cast copy) is correct. Or, it may be something for the tourist trade. The artists had birth names (of course!), but they usually adopted a name based on the specific school they were affiliated with, or their employer/master would grant them the use of a particular kanji. Some artists went a step further and created their own "artists" name (called Go, or 号 in Japanese) which usually comes in the form of a 3-kanji name. To keep things confusing, some artists used more than one Go in their life. Use of the personal, birth name on an artwork is rare, I think. The most common thing is a two-character adopted name, but Go are quite common also.

Well I just threw that out there because it was the first one that came up in a Google search. It would be wrong to draw the conclusion that this mon is only for that clan or that it started there. Looking a bit more I found an entry in a book on Amazon that lists any of the following possibilities (plus a few more): Gotō, Tawara, Nagata, Nishide, Matsui Note that the list isn't exhaustive (or exclusive). There are probably more families who use this mon. And the above names are not unusual names (well, Nishide is somewhat unusual), so there are many mon associated with these names. If you search for "mon of the Gotō" you will come up with many possibilities. Without knowing the specific provenance of this item, it would be hard to pin down. https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=F1VdUz1RUosC&pg=RA4-PA66&lpg=RA4-PA66&dq=%E9%9A%85%E3%81%8D%E3%82%8A%E8%A7%92%E3%81%AB%E8%94%A6&source=bl&ots=LXiWPtIdTj&sig=KwbkaqZq6SKCfGQfcysd5D4lNQY&hl=ja&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_xbuyt93MAhUmxqYKHdSUBOcQ6AEIVzAO#v=onepage&q=%E9%9A%85%E3%81%8D%E3%82%8A%E8%A7%92%E3%81%AB%E8%94%A6&f=false page 318

Did a bit of googling, but haven't found a lot. It seems to be the crest of a famous sumo wrestler in the 19th century, but haven't found anything else yet. http://www.ippongi.com/2011/12/23/tsuta-2/ https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%94%9F%E6%9C%88%E9%AF%A8%E5%A4%AA%E5%B7%A6%E8%A1%9B%E9%96%80

Try this one http://www.benricho.org/kamon/database/jpg/115_Sa/146_Sumikiri/Sumikiri-007.jpg 隅切り角に蔦 Sumikiri kado ni tsuta

You've read it correctly. Here is another one for comparison. http://www.e-sword.jp/sale/2014/1410_1044syousai.htm

Interesting. Very unusual. For the collector with 550,000 yen burning a hole in his pocket.

Can't quite get it. The bit on the right looks like 宗作（花押）　Munesaku? Not showing up in my reference. The bit on the left would be an art name (and therefore usually easier to track down in the reference), but this isn't showing up either 有楽刻　Not sure about the last one. Edit: There is an artist by the name of 有楽 (Yūraku? Ariraku? I think probably Yūraku). So perhaps the bit on the left isn't an art name at all, but is 有楽 　刻 (as in, "carved by Yūraku"). But Yūraku himself had a different art name (臨楽斎) so it doesn't seem to be the same artist... but I could easily be wrong on this.

And another sword story that came out of Kyoto this week... Sakamoto Ryoma's sword, which was surrounded in doubt due to the sword not quite matching the historical descriptions, was found to be genuine after some supporting evidence showed up in a completely different place (explaining why the sword looked the way it did - short story is that the sword was damaged by fire and repaired). Anyway, something else to see along with the above next time you are in Kyoto. http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201605120071.html

Looks like Gendaitō smith. I found a few styles of this mei on some websites here in Japan (linked below), I don't know enough to comment on the hamon, other than to say the very obvious thing that it looks like it could be a nice hamon if it got a proper polishing. http://ohmura-study.net/753.html http://kako.nipponto.co.jp/swords/KT126104.htm http://kendoinfo.jugem.jp/?eid=240 Edit: Oops, I just noticed that John answered you in another thread already. Mods feel free to delete or merge this with the other thread.

Don't know about the sword, but the mei on the kogatana is The mei on the sword could start out the same, but it could also be something completely different. Not enough of the sword mei for me to take even a wild guess.