SteveM

Or woman

Hello Moley/Gwen, I think normally the site here likes to think of itself as a learning site, and not necessarily a free translation service. So the ladies and gents here prefer you to pick up what you can from the other resources available. Most of the official certificate is boilerplate, and the only things unique to your wakizashi would be the items #2 and #3 as shown in the nihontocraft site linked to earlier (as Jean said above). What we do do quite often is try to decipher, decode, and otherwise translate signatures on blades. These can be very tricky, even for experts. Other short bits of Japanese would also be fair to pitch to the crowd here. This is my 2 cents. I used to frequent the board regularly many, many years ago, and am just coming back after getting my interest re-kindled, so I may not be the best person to pontificate on the what is acceptable. Steve

Also, Your wife is right - the alignment of #2 is correct. And... you say this is a tanto, but the paper indicates it is a wakizashi. .

Looks like an unusual collection of kanji 臣忠夫倅之 Jin Tadao Segare Kore (with a very stylized "Tada") Which one might translate as "made by the son of Jin Tadao", but that would be a very loose translation because A) there is no "made" in that mei, and -B: "Jin" is not a typical Japanese last name C) Segare, meaning son, is not a kanji I have ever seen on a mei. A bit strange. These together with the highly stylized Tada make me think the signature is a bit suspicious. You have the other side right. 勝永 Katsunaga

I see the same design, different mei here http://www.geishasblade.com/shop/accessories/nagamushi-snake-brass-tsuba/

Did you grandfather just buy this from Yahoo Auction in Japan yesterday? Cause the same sword is showing up there. Edit: Seems like a very obscure smith. The reading might well be Yukitoshi, but that still doesn't turn up much.

Funny, I just noticed that the person who wrote 鳳凰 got the kanji reversed. On the box its written mistakenly as 凰鳳 (ō coming before hō). Could be an honest mistake, as the kanji are indeed similar, but.... the great Kanzan Sato making an error like this on hakogaki?? Seems unlikely.

Hō-ō Ryū 鳳凰竜　

Kanzan 寒山

Found two other examples of this motif 「乃字猿」 http://www.tokka.biz/fittings/TS533.html http://okazakipark.com/museum/db/kikaku/E/e041%20token.htm Still searching for an explanation... Edit: Found a third one http://aucview.aucfan.com/yahoo/b166820306/ 2nd Edit: Found a fourth one http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/jcbmy121/14051071.html This fourth one hints at the tsuba being from the Yasaka school. Yasaka is the name of a temple in Kyoto that is associated with the three wise monkeys mentioned above (hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil). The Japanese name of the temple 八坂庚申堂 (Yasaka Kōshindō) has the zodiac character for "monkey" in it (申). May be getting close to something. Grev I think the accompanying kanji for 乃 would be 禾 (ine) instead of 末, but my guess is that this line of inquiry is a dead end. I don't think the monkey is Hideyoshi. Will keep looking.

No. It is possible that over time he changed his signature to include the Fujiwara name, which is a name that is associated with nobility. Unfortunately you also have to consider the possibility that this is a forgery, and the forger left off the Fujiwara kanji, for whatever reason. It something I can't determine from the pictures, but as I've hinted a couple of times above, I have some suspicions. Sending it for shinsa would be one way to help determine its authenticity. Good luck!

I think definitely this is supposed to be Kunitake. The mekugi-ana (peg hole) is placed such that one might suppose uji (氏) is a possible candidate for the last kanji, but from the other parts of the name it seems obvious that its supposed to be Kunitake. As to whether it is authentic or not, I leave to the experts. It slightly resembles the engraving on the lance/halberd (槍) posted above. But the kanji for Kuni and Shiro in your sword are quite strange, and strangely-rendered kanji are usually a hallmark of fake signatures. Engraving the kanji into the nakago is a very deliberate process. It's not like signing your name, where occasionally you slip or put too much strength into one part or the other. Engraving the kanji is a somewhat time-consuming process where each stroke requires some deliberation. It's almost impossible to have an "oops" moment where you would slip and screw up a kanji in an engraving. Sword-related terminology is a unique thing, and requires some study. Japanese people unfamiliar with swords would not know what to make of any sword jargon. Terms that we casually throw around: nie, nioi, shinogi, nakago, boshi, jihada, hataraki, etc... either have no meaning in everyday Japanese, or have meanings other than what they mean in the sword world. It is a specialized vocabulary. Likewise, signatures from even a hundred years past, like yours 「平安城住國武作」 means nothing to modern Japanese, and I'm not surprised that a Japanese person who is not a sword enthusiast would think it is Chinese. Edit: Actually Uji (氏) can't be a candidate because the long vertical stroke of the final kanji on your sword is piercing the top horizontal line. This isn't the way to write Uji, so we can rule this out as a candidate.

Probably not a child's katana per se - that is to say, not one that you would give to the kid so he can run around the house with it, terrorizing the cat. But it might be something made for a wealthy family for "Boy's Day" (端午の節句). There is a similar katana that shows up every year at one of the dealer's stands at the Daitoken Ichi here in Japan. A very small katana (actually wakizashi size, but it is meant to be a miniature katana) in a kairagi scabbard. I've looked at it a couple of times, and I think the dealer explained to me that it was a festival sword as above. Always tempted because the scabbard is lovely, and it is reasonably cheap, but since I've seen it there year after year, I can only conclude that its not a popular item. As Ask says above the other side says Nihon Kaji Sōshyō　日本鍛冶宗匠

Looking through some old maps and found where Ujina-cho, Kanda-dori 4-chome would have been. Thought Jesse might be interested. Alas, the address system has changed, and that old address is no longer valid. Today it would be close to where Motoujinaguchi Station is. The map is from 1940. I've put a yellow circle where Kanda-dori 4-chome would be.

Hello Thirdtuck, Your sword may be much more recent than the 1600s. It is possible that it was made in the 1800s, and someone added the Kunitake signature to give it the appearance of being much older. It is extremely common in the sword world (then as well as now). I'm a bit of a purist with regard to swords, so I would be very careful of using any solvents because if you don't know what you are doing you could end up doing harm to the blade. Even if the signature is fake, the sword might still have some merit, so best to take care of it until someone can tell you for sure what you have. The uchiko is a good idea - look on Amazon if you don't know what this is. And, as above, get a book on swords. John Yumoto's book used to be the default beginner's book. Maybe there is a better one now. Wakizashi or Katana depends on how long it is. Traditionally a katana is anything over 2 shaku (about 23.8 inches). Anything under that would be a wakazashi. There is some elasticity in this definition, but that is the general rule.

I'm a bit suspicious of it because; 1. The unusual rendering of shiro (城). 2. The unusual rendering of kuni (國). This looks like no kuni I've ever seen before. Don't know if it's acceptable to link to the following commercial sites or not, but The respected smith of the 17th century looks like the following http://kako.nipponto.co.jp/swords2/KT213238.htm (Typically with Fujiwara added to the name) Here you can see a "Heian-jo ju Kunitake" (w/o Fujiwara) that is supposedly authenticated. Looks quite different to the signature in the sword above, and quite different from the OP's sword. http://lll.pro.tok2.com/sword/sdata97/ja606b.htm

Hello Shan, I'll take a stab at this... I can't really read much (any) of the writing, but it almost looks like some sort of shop ledger; the way there are certain lines that end at a specific point on the paper, terminating in the same repetitive kanji. You sometimes see things like this in antique shops here in Japan (I guess people use them as interior decoration). The only thing is that usually these old ledgers and inventory lists have the thickness of, say, a telephone book, and are long and thin - like the ones in this photo... so I could be wrong on this. SteveM

If you are researching so you can try to return the sword to the UEDA family, you could start with the Kochi City Hall (maybe the board of education), or the Kochi Police Dept. (public safety section - the guys that handle sword registrations). Maybe they would be interested to try to track down this person's family. I was just reading about the kinds of gunto that are allowed so there is a chance that you couldn't repatriate it, I guess. If you are just looking for info on UEDA-san, I don't know where you would start, but its kind of tricky because its not such ancient history. His relatives are no doubt still around, and if you get in contact with them, but aren't considering returning the sword... its kind of awkward. And of course, its not entirely implausible that UEDA-san himself is still alive.

Hi Henry, It could be new or restored. The insides look old enough, but the outside is in superb condition. There are a couple of places where the saya has slight impact damage (like it banged into a wall corner or something). There is a seam on the opposite side, and the shark skin is very fine (small specks) as it gets closer to the seam. I haven't thought much about the fittings yet, but I have some fittings that I bought years ago that I might work with. Love the Saotome kiku tsuba! Steve

I'm 44 and have been admiring/collecting(?) since 1988. My first sword was the obligitory gimei wakizashi (seems to be a rite of passage) bought from a dealer in Tochigi prefecture. I still have it. I found a koshirae a couple of years ago that happened to fit the wakizashi perfectly. I should have resisted, but I ended up buying it, and now have a very average gimei wakizashi with a nice koshirae. I find the complexity both daunting and fascinating. Sometimes its so daunting that I sort of go cold on the whole nihonto thing ("I'll never know as much as I'd like to know...") but then something will catch my eye and pull me back in.

Yes the two top pictures are memorial stones commemorating the town and place of his birth. The top right stone is apparently marking the place of his house, although it says the owner of the existing house had apparently been absent for some time, and the whole place was now overgrown with weeds. The picture on the bottom right is a gravesite, but it also says there are three known gravesites for Saneo, so I guess it would be more proper to call it a memorial stone. The pic on the bottom left is a stone lantern that was erected outside of his house when Saneo was 28.

Gave up on the egg-shell koshirae (for now), and instead got a hold of a cracker of a sharkskin wakizashi saya with inro-style ribbing at the top. In excellent condition, with no cracks and a kozuka space opposite the kurigata. Attaching pics for the koshirae fans out there.

Koichi-san, Did you think it was significant that the person used 「三めぐり」, rather than 「見めぐり」, which contains the kanji one would expect to see in this poem? I read this as a kind of pun, replacing "God responsible for the fields" with "God from Mimeguri Shrine". (三囲神社). Or, maybe not a pun, but a kind of invocation of this god. SteveM (getting back into this after a long hiatus away from swords and tosogu) 　

Hello Malcom, You are talking about this here > http://w1.avis.ne.jp/~i-junko/zenbun.htm right? I couldn't find anything in English. Its short enough that I thought I might have a go at it, but its a bit heavy going since a lot of the words and word endings are using forms that aren't used anymore. Intriguing though... SteveM

I agree that we should avoid pointless restoration. If the same is good and serviceable, no need to throw it away. I'd be careful about mind-reading the original owner's intentions. For all we know this could be a 3rd or 4th or 5th generation koshirae for this blade. (It could also be 3rd or 4th generation same as well). The original creator could well have wanted his blade to be fitted with the most garish koshirae imaginable. The previous owners could have been dying for a flashier set of f/k, but simply didn't have the cash. It could well be a koshirae that is an amalgam of parts collected over a few hundred years, and that it once had even more austere (or even more flashy) furnishings. It would be impossible to say at this point. I do think that if the previous owner were striving for subtlety, he probably wouldn't have chosen the mottled lacquer with the pauwlonia crest, and with the kurikara fittings on both sides of the saya. Its a loverly old saya, and needs a bit of care, so I would say to look at it objectively and find some kind of balance between what makes sense for the blade, and what you will be happy with. In any event, preserve where possible and if there is intrinsic value in the thing being preserved. As far as same skin and ito, and even the core wood... I wouldn't lose any sleep if it turns out these things need to be replaced.