SteveM

Allow me to push back on this a bit, because the link doesn't go into other possibilities. What it says is that there is a book (circa 1970s?) that labels the figure as Tekkai Sennin, but the author of the website says that Tekkai Sennin appears on a different panel of this item (its a parade float used in festivals), and that it is impossible to think that Tekkai Sennin would be appear doubly on this float. The other figures listed on that page are various sages located on different panels of the float. So the website does identify the figure as Chinnan Sennin - and the author then says while Chinnan Sennin is typically depicted with an iron staff, here he is shown with a bowl just as in Tachibana Morikuni's book, "Treasure Bag of Illustrations" published in 1720. If I go digging for this book from 1720, I can see the following picture clearly labelled as Chinnan Sennin. Chinnan Sennin circa 1720, Tachibana Morikuni. https://etoki.kawamu...io.com/tomo/b/b-355/ The author of the website further states that it is unusual for Chinnan to be depicted with a bowl, and that he can only find this one example - so the oddity is noted*. But then he notes that elsewhere there is a picture of Taoist immortal Lu Dongbin (呂洞賓) who is also depicted with a dragon being conjured from a bowl (picture below), so the author wonders how to interpret these various depictions. Anyway, this "conjuring a dragon from a bowl" seems to have been something of a trope in medieval China, and was a magical skill that several near-mythical figures possessed. Lu Dongbin releases a dragon from a bowl. https://images.dnpar...kDetail?id=MFA116601 As a side note, the illustration from 1720 is nearly identical to the one noted in the thread that @Tanto54 linked to earlier (which I had also forgotten about). Funny to note we've been mulling over these figures for nearly a decade now. Chinnan Sennin conjuring a dragon from a bowl. Nishimura Shigenaga c. 1722 https://archive.org/...panese_chinnan_37263 *And just to sort of further refute the claim that it is rare to see Chinnan Sennin with a bowl, here are three other depictions (all from Shinto shrines). Chinnan Sennin conjuring a dragon from a bowl. From the Suwa Jinja in Saitama. https://ameblo.jp/da...try-12759072218.html Chinnan Sennin conjuring a dragon from a bowl. From the Kotohira shrine in Gunma https://ameblo.jp/da...809-15271844579.html Chinnan Sennin with a child, conjuring a dragon from a bowl. From the Ippongi Inari shrine, also in Gunma https://ameblo.jp/da...582-15165744021.html @GeorgeLuucas the AI could well be scraping these very threads for information, so the echo chamber could just be growing louder and louder. Eventually the "signal to noise ratio" becomes so bad its unbearable. Also note that the terms you fed into the AI (Chinnan Sonja and Handaka Sennin) are mixed up themselves, so even though the AI somewhat self-corrected, the feedback is going to be slightly suspicious.

Nonsensical phrase that has appeared on swords since the release of "The Last Samurai". It has shown up on so many swords, it has its own entry in the Reddit "frequently asked questions" section.

The right hand is the name of the poet who wrote the poem inscribed on your kozuka. 其角　Kikaku https://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Takarai_Kikaku The poem is それよりして月夜烏や郭公 Who will awake first, the crow or the cuckoo it has several layers of wordplay embedded. The crow's cawing is said to follow the cuckoo's calling, and the idea is that one can spend the night listening to the call and response of the cuckoo and the crow. This use of cuckoo in this poem may also have the double meaning of someone who stays out at night, and so the poem sounds like its saying, "what sound will you hear first? the sound of the morning crow, or the sound of one returning from a night out". The left is Sōmin, but I don't know if its authentic or not.

What I meant by this is that you can find both figures being depicted with a bowl (independent of this thread). So the presence (or lack of) a bowl wouldn't be a giveaway. The figure below is identified as Chinnan Sennin. https://www.syo-kaza...hinnan/chinnan1.html But as above, I am not sure of the defining criteria. The site above could be mistaken.

I would love to know how to tell the difference between Handaka Sonja and Chinnan Sennin. I looked around, but I don't think any of the sites I visited really know what they are talking about, and I bet there are a lot of images on both English-speaking and Japanese-speaking sites which are confidently mislabeling these figures. I'm certain they are different figures: Chinnan is a taoist sage, and Handaka Sonja is a buddhist arhat/ascetic. That both are depicted as conjuring a dragon out of a bowl is an extraordinary coincidence, and is certainly the reason why some items appear to be mislabeled. Chinnan Sennin apparently ended a drought by conjuring a rain dragon, so I think he is often depicted with rain. The main narrative is that he conjured a rain dragon by throwing his staff into the clouds, or an iron staff with a whip attached to it. I don't know how he came to be identified with an alms bowl. Handaka Sonja seems to be slightly more popular in iconography, and is most often using an bowl to conjure a dragon. He is either naked from the waist up, or has his robe slipping around his upper body. His head is either bald (like a Buddhist monk) or is wild and ungroomed. All the ones in Dale's post above would appear to be Handaka Sonja. I reckon the figure in the very first tsuba in this thread might be Chinnan Sennin. Maybe one of our Chinese-speaking/reading members can give some more insight.

龍谷造？　Ryūtani-zō

It's a jumbled semi-literal translation of the Japanese name for the crest. The square figure resembles a nail-pulling tool, so the crest is called "two nail-pullers in a circle.

According to this site, the Yuda (Yuta, Yuden, etc.) family used this. No doubt other families used it too, though, so do not put too much faith in that reference. https://irohakamon.c...ichigaikuginuki.html

Hello Pete, My first guess was 尉, as in 金左衛門尉 (Kinzaemon-no-jō), which would have been a very common naming convention/construction in late Muromachi-Edo times. Some of the vertical strokes on the inside of that final kanji are poking through the horizontal strokes, which shouldn't happen normally with 尉, but there are variants of 尉 which have idiosyncratic constructions, so some deviance should be tolerated. My gut feeling is that the deviance is probably too great in this case, but I throw it out there as a very far possibility (I do think its Nakamura, by the way, and not Chūson. "Nakamura" has been used for a very long time in Japan). At any rate, it looks like your smith is one who slipped through the cracks. Otherwise, the mei, even the partial one, would show up in a search. And, as a partial mei, the one you have is quite substantial, and should be sufficient to pinpoint who this is. Since nothing is turning up, it leads me to believe he is unrecorded, or the mei is a fake one intended to give the appearance of authenticity.

The blade part is called a kogatana. Yours says Shizu Saburō Fujiwara Kaneuji. Check out the thread that was just posted recently...it has a kogatana with the same/similar signature, and provides a bit more context.

Hello Dolf, It means you have an old blade that was put into a Navy scabbard, presumably for someone to use during WW2. It was relatively common for soldiers to outfit their family's heirloom blades in wartime mountings, and take them off to war. So you have to evaluate the blade separately from the mountings. The blade, if authentic, and in good condition, will be worth a few thousand dollars - maybe a range of US$2000 - US$4000. The better the condition, the more likely that your sword will be worth the high end of that range. The fittings are 20th century military fittings, so these are not so interesting to antique sword collectors, but they are obviously not worthless and have value, especially if the parts have matching assembly numbers, and if they all are bespoke for that sword (i.e. the parts were made specifically for that sword, and were not assembled after the war from various loose parts). If the fittings are all in good condition, the ensemble might be worth ~$5000. Things that will drag the value down: rust, fingerprints on the blade, small chips in the blade edge, disparate parts. Also, for a sword that is worth a few thousand dollars, the question of the authenticity of the inscription comes into the calculation. Forgeries are very common in the sword world. It was (and still is) very common to take a sword without a signature and put a fake signature on it to try to increase the perceived value of the sword. Ideally you would compare your sword to a known, authenticated, example of a Kanesaki sword. You would want some idea that the signature on your sword matches known Kanesaki signatures, but also that the sword style matches the style of Kanesaki swords. Ideally, you would send your sword off to Japan to an organization called the NBTHK, who provides authentication services - but this can be expensive and time-consuming. Another organization, the NTHK, occasionally provides authentication services in North America. For a sword that is around the $5000 value or below, the question of authentication becomes problematic because the sword is often not valuable enough to justify authentication, and yet at the same time it is not cheap enough for bargain hunters to buy. I don't know if the signature on your sword is authentic or not. I have some doubts, but there were actually several smiths who signed with that same inscription. Several generations of master/apprentice used "Inaba-kuni ju Fujiwara Kanesaki". Regardless of the signature, it does look like a 200-400 year old Japanese short sword. But there are many, many unauthenticated short swords on the market. I would say the value of this ensemble is at the lower end of the range I indicated above (~$2000-$3000).

kogatana 以正應元歳相翁鍛鐡包氏重代孫志津三郎源兼氏作 Made by Shizu Saburō Kaneuji (兼氏), descendant of Kaneuji (包氏), circa Shō-ō 1 (1288) Not entirely sure of the one in red. and not completely sure I've captured the meanings of the ones in blue, but basically this is Shizu Saburō Kaneuji. Edit: It should go without saying, that these signatures are often an homage to a famous smith, and not necessarily written by the person named in the signature.

Yes - that's right.

小縁＝こべり= koberi Means rim, or border.

Also, there is a Heianjo Nobuyoshi who worked in the mid 1600s.See the below for reference. https://toyuukai.jp/products/平安城住藤原信吉-2尺8寸1分-特別保存刀剣鑑定書-品番-ｋａ０１５ I'd be curious as to why Aoi feels the sword in this thread is Muromachi. I haven't dug deep into Nobuyoshi...maybe there are obvious signs that I am missing. The shape of the sword in this thread feels like a mid 1600s sword.

浜野矩随 Hamano Noriyuki A big name (hence, an often forged name) in the sword-fittings world. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/浜野矩随

I'm linking the Yahoo Auction site with the Onogi Naoharu sword, but I think many in Europe cannot access Yahoo Japan due to internet regulations, so I'll post a picture as well. https://page.auction.../auction/e1055942330

林政臣 Hayashi Masatomi would be my first choice at a reading. Masaomi is also possible.

於囗広州小野応需鍛之 Made in (illegible) at the request of Ono. Ono (小野) is a common surname. The location name should be a location in Japan, but I can't identify it.

I'm seeing a WW2 smith on Yahoo Auction (JP) named Onoki Naoharu (小野木直治).

直治　Naoharu

中野 Nakano

This is a shinto phrase: Samuhara. The kanji aren't standard kanji (in China or anywhere). They are a kind of made up kanji, meant to invoke a feeling of self-protection. The final kanji on the sword is different from what it should be, but I think the intent is clear.

Hello Hunter - -the tsuba says 彦根住宗典作 (Hikone-jū Sōten saku - made by Sōten, resident of Hikone). Think of this as a shop name, rather than an individual artist's name. The Sōten school produced a lot of tsuba, and then other people started copying them, and it just kind of ended up as a much devalued brand name.

Here is some information regarding the submission schedule. Regarding the "nuts and bolts" of submitting your particular sword, you can look on the forum for details, but basically you will have to find an agent in Japan who will manage the importation, registration, submission, and then de-registration and export. Robert Hughes at Keichōdō can handle this (he wrote the post below).