SteveM

於桑港 小鍛冶　義人 In San Francisco Yoshindo, swordsmith Edit to fix the name.

Check out the FAQ at the top of the page. (linking below). There is a section on polishing. https://www.nihontom...geboard.com/faq.html Then check out the links section for information on polishers.

Wonder whatever happened to @TumiM.... Hope some of this information is useful.

Looks OK to me too. An often copied design (probably because its a good design, and a lot of people liked it), but it looks like a legitimate Kinai tsuba to me. The marks on the seppa dai look authentic. Here's an example of the same design with gold inlay. https://eirakudo.sho.../tsuba/detail/013805 Same one in square shape. (I prefer yours to this square one). https://jp.mercari.c...en/item/m14494086929

兼住　Kanezumi The first character looks like 魚 (Uo), but it is 兼 (Kane).

I think 1 and 3 for most interesting for me. 1 might be a shintō revival piece (based purely on the nakago shape). But it seems to have been made with some skill. 3 is naginata naoshi, and also well-made. Interesting. Just from the shape, and without any knowledge of the activities, 2 and 4 seem not so fascinating, but I will be interested to see what the outcome is.

This one has been on the board before https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/36449-grass-writing-oh-boy/

Hello Tumi This is a topic of huge interest to me. I visited the Japanese Sword Museum in Ryōgoku earlier in the year. It was my first time to the new museum building since they moved from Yoyogi several years ago. The facility is beautiful, and, I think, for tourists it is in a much more interesting location than Yoyogi. But I found the display itself to be underwhelming, and I think of very little interest to anyone outside of sword aficionados. I think this is somewhat natural for any museum that specializes in one particular field. Anyone not interested in swords probably won't be going out of their way to visit a sword museum. But I think it is a lost opportunity to bring more people into the hobby. I've studied swords for a while, and I know a bit about swords, and I walked away from the sword museum feeling they could have done much more to educate, and to make the subject more inviting to the non-enthusiasts (for example, the partners or children of people who visit the museum, or maybe the people who are in Ryogoku and who have a vague interest in Japanese history, but aren't necessarily sword fans). My first thought was: for a three-story museum, the actual sword display area (one room on the top floor) feels small. I somehow expected the new facility would have three levels of sword displays. Or that they might have a floor dedicated for sword-related items. The small room on the first floor near the entrance gives a brief overview of the sword-making process, but that seems somehow dated and not really of great interest. (It's like a room with a couple of artifacts, with a video loop of the sword-making process. Very 20th century if you ask me). Up on the third floor, it was nice to have the QR code for English explanations, but it really was the bare minimum of effort. The translations of the explanations seem inconsistent (maybe translated by several different translators, or different translation software), and, again, only meaningful for very hard-core sword enthusiasts. The translations I saw contained spelling errors, and were in need of editing. The explanations sometimes seemed quite different to what was being displayed - for instance there was more than one occasion where the explanation described a sword as having utsuri, but the actual sword had absolutely no visible utsuri. Was it a problem of lighting? Was it a lazy description made without examining the sword? Was the description card switched with a different sword? Or was it a problem of my vision? It is (presumably) the world's premier Japanese sword museum, so you would imagine the lighting and descriptions would be perfect. In the end I walked away feeling doubt about my own ability to view swords. I wondered how bewildered a novice must feel. The swords themselves were broadly arranged according to time of manufacture, with the oldest swords at the entrance, and then getting progressively newer as you go around the room. But it was a somewhat vague timeline, and it required to visitor to intuitively understand why sword shapes changed. There was no effort made to educate newcomers about how the times influenced sword shape or sword production. I agree with Lewis that some information about the gokaden and how the gokaden influences our understanding of swords would also be of enormous benefit. The center of the display room has long cases for the display of tosogu, but here too the explanations are very perfunctory. Some paperwork was on display (like Hon'ami certificates), but these weren't even rendered into modern Japanese. It was just an old document full of old, indecipherable cursive writing, which had zero educational value, and only minimal value as an artifact. I say this as someone who likes deciphering old Japanese cursive writing. I hope to not discourage anyone from visiting, because it is worth going to as a sword enthusiast. Better descriptions would be a huge help, and probably the most cost-effective way to improve the overall exhibitions. Some more explanatory information about how/why swords changed over time would be interesting and educational. More "eye candy" in terms of koshirae, tosogu, or armor/helmets would be fantastic. I'm not suggesting the sword museum expand its remit to include a room dedicated to armor, I'm just suggesting that a few items other than swords would help draw in more newcomers, AND could help educate why swords changed over time. A broad overview of the authentication system would be interesting, or even a timeline of the changes in the authentication system would be great. I was at the Bizen Osafune museum two years ago, and I really enjoyed it, especially the working space next to the museum where the craftsmen are making swords and koshirae. I can't quite recall how the descriptions were displayed. I wasn't looking as critically as I was this year when I went to the Japanese Sword Museum. If you want more information, or if you want to talk in more detail, feel free to send me a PM.

3rd for most-liked (because it is unlike any of my other swords). 4th for least-liked. Well, it's not that I don't like it, its just it is similar to one of my swords. So the other ones feel more interesting to me.

There is also a sword club in Southern California that meets once a month in Gardena. Mike Yamasaki is usually the lecturer. The sword club's information is on Facebook: Nanka Token Kai. https://www.facebook...m/NankaTokenKaiSoCal

義治　Yoshiharu 昭和癸未秋　　Autumn, 1943

"Take" is not a very intuitive reading for the 2nd kanji of the name, whereas "toshi" is a much more common reading. In the absence of any other information, I think most people would assume Nobutoshi is the likely and probable reading. So, its just a very understandable error on the part of Slough.

Maybe 縣囗大井神社之印 A stamp from Ōi Shrine, which used to be ranked as a "prefectural shrine". https://www.ooijinjya.org/ The vertical bit next to it is a just a repeat of the "good luck in war" phrase.

Top right corner (vertically) 祝入営　　Congratulations on joining the army 祈武運長久　Pray for everlasting luck in battle Under that is the recipient's name. I can't get the first character of the name. Something 囗谷達夫君　(Maybe Hishitani?) Tatsuo is the given name. The rest are names, slogans, and a poem next to the drawing of the sword たゞ身にもてる真心を 君と親とに尽くすべし All I have is my sincerity, and I devote it all for His Majesty and for my parents Can't get the stamp. A closer picture of it might help.

If I recall correctly, your sword had Izumi written with the characters reversed, right? Something like 泉和 when it should be 和泉. My gut feeling is that the kanji would have been written by a Japanese person (possibly Chinese person) with the intention of selling the sword overseas. Or, at least, selling it to a foreign customer. The signature looks plausible enough to foreign eyes, but Japanese people, particularly those from Osaka, would notice the error instantly. Actually, Izumi is a funny place name because there are several ways it can be spelled, depending on the usage. The inversed kanji might catch some people off guard. But as I said, foreigners would be especially vulnerable to this. Maybe an unscrupulous dealer had the name added at some point in the sword's history, but purposely inverted the kanji to give himself plausible deniability that he was trying to perpetuate a fraud. Or, it might have been added by a Chinese fraudster. A Chinese person wouldn't intuitively know that the Japanese place name is written 和泉, as it's a spelling that is unique to Japan, so it could be a careless mistake. Well, it could be a careless mistake made by a Japanese fraudster also, but its a little less plausible. Anyway, the important thing is to focus on the sword itself. Your sword might be worth considering having the fake signature removed. When the signature is removed, you can then submit the sword for authentication. You can submit it to the NTHK already, and they will evaluate it regardless of the signature. But the NBTHK in Japan won't give you any kind of judgment until you remove the fake signature. (They'll send it back to you with a pink card telling you your sword is a fake). So the NBTHK sort of forces you to get the fake signature removed before they will spend some time appraising it. Its a controversial policy that deserves some debate/reform, but I'm not in charge of the NBTHK.)

濃州住行宗鍛之　Nōshū -jū Yukimune kitae kore. Means: Yukimune of Nōshū Province made this WW2 smith.

The group that issued this paper has been mentioned a few times on the board before. https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/search/?q=銃砲刀剣研究会&quick=1 Needless to say, if you owned a Muramasa sword you would want to get it authenticated by the NBTHK. Especially if it were 2020 (when this paper was issued) when it was still super easy to submit swords to the NBTHK. There would be no reason to seek the authentication of any group other than NBTHK...unless you didn't like the NBTHK's judgment.

I have had a few paid translation requests come in these past few months, thanks to the forum. So I'm sharing the wealth with a donation to NMB, who makes such connections possible.

Here is a papered (hozon) kinpun-mei Aoe Ietsugu wakizashi. https://tokka.biz/sword/ietsugu2.html

Yes, if its a verifiable name. This one is from around 15 years ago. https://www.e-sword....1110_6000syousai.htm

Not to spoil the fun, but I think your tsuba design is plum blossoms. Usually many buds/flowers on spindly, upturned branches represent plum tree blossoms. Kind of a quintessential design (late winter, looking forward to spring which is just around the corner). from https://wakeidou.com/pages/412/

Sorry, I know virtually nothing about Nariaki. I only know he is a few generations from Nisshū. What little I know comes from this site below https://meitou.info/index.php/本阿弥

生中心在銘 時代承元之頃 成章添状付 Ubu, zaimei Circa Jōgen (1207-1211) With paper from Nariaki (Nisshū's great great grandfather) Small typo in Jan's post 照 > 昭

There is no such surname/clan in Japan. That is a mistranslation of Ii (double "i"), pronounced "ee" as in beet.

Tomotsugu (友次) for sure.