Markus

The blade in question is featured in Toyama/Kawashima's book that I had the honor of translating five years ago: https://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=kanesada&type= First, the mei, which reads: mei, omote: “Aizu-jū Kanemoto – Kyōsen no toki juryō – Izumi no Kami Kanesada gō” (會津住兼元・京戦之時受領・和泉守兼定号, “Kanemoto from Aizu who received the honorary title Izumi no Kami whilst staying in Kyōto in time of war – [Now] called Kanesada”) mei, ura: “Okada Yasumitsu no tame Yasuhide no okuru ni saku – Kimibanzai – Keiō gan ushidoshi jūgatsu yokka – Hatsu ninodō tameshi Yasuhide” (為岡田安光安秀送作・君萬歳・慶應元丑年十月四日・初二ノ胴試安秀, “Sent on behalf of Okada Yasumitsu to Yasuhide – Long Life for the Sovereign – On the fourth day of the tenth month Keiō one [1865], year of the ox – First test by Yasuhide via a second body cut”) In the description, Kawashima writes that the strength of the chiseling and the rust at the bottom of the chisel strokes suggests that certain parts of the mei were added at different times. He assumes that the initial mei was: "Aizu-jū Kanemoto - Okada Yasumitsu no tame Yasuhide no okuru ni saku – Kimibanzai." No date. We know that the smith went to Kyōto in Bunkyū three (1863) to receive his honorary title Izumi no Kami whereupon he changed his name from Kanemoto to Kanesada at some point in time. Kawashima thinks that the Kyōsen no toki part refers to the Hamaguri Gate Rebellion which took place the year after, i.e., in the seventh month of Bunkyū four (= Genji one, 1864), and when Kanemoto/Kanesada was still in the capital. So, Kanemoto made the blade in Kyōto, likely in the second half of 1864, and had it forwarded to Okada Yasuhide, probably Yasumitsu's son, who later performed his first cutting test with it on the fourth day of the tenth month of Keiō one (1865). Kanemoto was already back in Aizu (he returned some time in Keiō one, 1865) at that time and so the Okadas' asked the smith to add the result of that cutting test, plus the info that he was now named Izumi no Kami Kanesada, to the tang.

Hi George, I've seen it but just returned from SF yesterday. Will get into Mr. Toyama's and my notes on Kanesada XI asap.

Thanks for letting me know George, and sorry about the confusion. Not sure why the docents were referring to nihonto and tosogu at all as Asian Art does not have any of them in their collection. I am actually meeting with one of the Genji curators tomorrow morning because two of our (Arms and Armor Department) swords (both Rai Kunitoshi), an important armor, and several tsuba (one by Umetada Myoju) will be featured in her Kyoto exhibition, starting July this year. So I will let her know that anyone guiding through Genji should be up to date.

The Genji exhibition is indeed stunning but I can reassure you, not a single Nihonto had to leave for it . The exhibition is held by Asian Art and all Nihonto are with our department, which is Arms and Armor. So there are still swords, fittings, armors, and related objects on display in the Arms and Armor galleries.

Thank you Dwain I think the mei reads: 関小治郎兼辰・於江戸造之 Seki Kojirō Kanetoki - Edo ni oite kore o tsukuru "Made by Kojirō Kanetoki from Seki in Edo"

Hi Daniel, I am still trying to find more info on some of the obscure smiths and then have to go through final editing/layout but work has not stopped. Hope to get it out soon as well.

Hi Ron, not an old style kanji but just a different term for "generation", i.e. (世) instead of (代).

The part that Steve pointed out is a wording used by Hon'ami Chōshiki (本阿弥長識, ?-1893) for his sayagaki. It reads: 洛北鷹峰隠士徳友齋光悦九世之劣孫 Rakuhoku Tagamanine inshi Tokyūsai Kōetsu kyūsei no resson. "Ninth generation after Tokuyūsai Kōetsu who had retired to Takagamine located in the north of Kyōto."

The very last part is: 研并記之 kore o togi narabi ni shirushite "polished and recorded this (on the third day of the twelfth month of Taisho two)" And 極月 (gokugetsu, kiwamarizuki) is another term for the twelfth month.

This ensemble of three swords and koshirae parts preserved in the Kiyomizu-dera was designated in its entirety as a juyo-bunkazai in 1981.

What Carlo posted is the one from the Kurama-dera. Regarding the other sword that allegedly belonged to him that is owned by the Kiyomizu-dera, I only have its depiction in the Shuko Jisshu.

The most common name reading of (記) would be NORI but I can't find any NORIYOSHI either.

I'm not involved in any part of that collection/publications. However, I was once invited by the Mayor of Steyr to view and possibly assess the Japanese blades in the Petermandl'sche Messersammlung but that was exactly right before I moved to the US so it never worked out, unfortunately.

Thank you guys for the feedback so far. I got a proof copy here which looked jut fine like Grey said and when I was asking around here in the US, no one was experiencing that weird phenomenon. So that's why I was already positive that the glitch is connected to the edition I had to chose with Lulu for non-US orders. Back in the days in Austria, I was receiving my Lulu copies from France and I think that all EU deliveries, maybe even Eastern Europe and Russian deliveries are catered from France, except for the UK where Lulu has another printing partner. So any of the UK readers, do you have the issue too? My working theory is as follows: The pics of the series are in gross rather on the low side and also Fukushi says at several points something like: "Unfortunately, I only have that a bad picture of this or that piece." As stated earlier, I was scanning the whole series with the same scanner and with the same settings, so differences in picture quality reflect Fukushi's pics he provided to the NBTHK accordingly. As Lulu is a print on demand provider, they are of course cutting costs everywhere. So I think that the same PDF I uploaded is "interpreted" differently depending on their print partner. That is, I think that the France/EU printer renders/aliases/converts pics that are under a certain quality threshold in a way that differs from what the computer things is a decent image. As Andi said, one pic on page 312 is fine whilst the other one (one of the low-quality pics in the magazine) is crap. I don't know yet how to solve that because it seems that the US and non-EU printers don't do that, i.e. make the already low-quality pics worse by some faulty aliasing algorithm. In other words, I would have to make the EU guys use another algorithm/program whatever. Or, play around with the low-quality pics, upload the PDF again, have a proof copy shipped to someone in the EU (Germany?), and rinse and repeat until these pics look okayish...

Hi Andi, So with your copy, it is only certain but whole pages, not all pics throughout the entire book, right?

Joining the conversation I was made aware by Chris and a couple of other readers about that issue. For some reason, I thought to have narrowed it down to prints delivered to Germany as I was asking around if others are experiencing it too. Short background: I had to use a slightly different print option for international/non-US destinations (Lulu doesn't offer certain things outside of the US) and only readers from Germany told me that they too have checkerboard images to some extent. So that's why I was first positive that this is an isolated phenomenon that firstly may only concern readers outside of the US and secondly, may only concern German buyers. However, I was a little suspicious about that because from the past I know that Lulu caters German buyers from their printing partner in France, so French buyers should be affected too. Now as Jussi says he too has the issue, I am getting even more nervous. I have been in touch with Lulu of course since Chris and my other (German) buyers made me aware of the issue. Lulu is very courteous and always offers me to send out another copy if something is wrong with a delivery on their account but I need to know if this is something more sensitive (what I guess it is) rather than an one-time glitch with a certain printing partner. Discussing concrete printing issues with them basically ended up with the "maybe baby" game, i.e. they were suggesting maybe I did something wrong with the DPI or maybe with the PDF or maybe with the raw JPGs. But that's the thing, all pics were scanned at the same time with the same scanner and everything was written with the same MS Word version and exported with the same Adobe PDF app. So I know for sure that I did not do any changes I am aware of between volumes one and two. This now leaves me with a "stupid/weird" decision to make: When the identical approach yields different results, what approach do you take to achieve the same results? If you know what I mean. Still trying to wrap my head around this issue but I want to go sure that everyone who got a subpar copy gets a proper one on the one hand, and that this is not an ongoing nightmare with local Lulu print on the other hand (I have a few more book projects in the oven). So if anyone is reading that and noticing, hell yeah, my copy looks like crap too, please let me know as I really have to narrow this down. Thank you!

You are welcome Ron. Was just quoting from my book, i.e. I thought I might better add the quote rather than just translating the term for those who haven't heard of that kind of ornamentation. Cheers, Markus

The term is suri-hegashi. From my Encyclopedia: suri-hegashi (摺り剥がし) – Areas on sword fittings where the iroe coloring shows abrasion and exposes the underlying metal. Usually along protruding, e.g. takabori motif elements. Fittings with such areas have a special taste as they suggest age and wear. The term suri-hegashi is primarily used to refer to decorations where the abrasions were artificially applied. Areas which were actually abraded by use and over time are namely referred to as suri-heri (摺り減り).

The (刀) reads horu in this context, i.e. "carved (this)."

Glitches like that will be eliminated in the upcoming Gendaito book.

Its was originally the Saikoji. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g1066459-d8733671-Reviews-Saikoji_Temple-Sumida_Tokyo_Tokyo_Prefecture_Kanto.html I think the original grave was destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake and they put up a new gravestone at the Sofukuji in Shinjuku. http://www.kanko-shinjuku.jp.e.xm.hp.transer.com/spot/kw-%E5%8D%9A%E7%89%A9%E9%A4%A8/article_406.html

Got your PayPal, thank you!!

@Chris: There will be oshigata for sure and the book will also be in the ballpark of the Koto-kantei, i.e. around 700 pages. What you addressed is exactly why I am between a rock and a hard place: Slightly less information but great pictures or great info and lesser pictures (also taking into consideration the recent Lulu quality drop for non-US prints as you know). The book will feature more than 1,100 gendai smiths and I think that hardly any (non-Japanese) publication has come anywhere near that number and depth of information. Also, and halfway through the project, I have met with Chris Bowen who has an incredibly extensive archive on gendai smiths. So I have to wrap my head around the best way to incorporate the valuable info that he has (and that we would have to sort out together) into the book too. EDIT: Just checked my Gendai folder. It contains of more than 10,000 pics/files, many of which I have received from supporters of the project. So the final website should be an awesome database on gendaitō.

Sorry for being slow on this lately. I am about two thirds-through with the book. When reaching the half-way-through-the-book mark, I realized that I slightly have to change the concept. That is, I had to remove oshigata and blade pics and focus more on details in the careers/CV's of the smiths as I was foreseeing the physicals limits of the book. All references will then anyway be available for free online on the website of the project. Apart from that, I still try to edit/add a few smiths every day so that there is no standstill.

Will keep my eyes open as well and update if I find one depicted/mentioned in a period painting/source.