Markus

The second one reads: 龜徳丸靍壽 Kitokumaru Kakuju - "Long live Kitokumaru!"

I can imagine the following scenario: Blade was handed down as Enju Kunimura. It was one of these cases where a blade "had" to be shortened at one time but the desired length actually allowed to preserve the mei at the very nakago-jiri. Now blade got a little out of polish but Honma, knowledgeable as he was, saw that everything was fine with the blade and mei and so he added it to his references. Somewhat later, the (new) owner was suspicious about the whole thing and visited an appraiser who told him that if he wants to be sure, he needs to get it papered. For this, he also needs to get it polished and the appraiser also said that the mei doesn't look good so better have that nakago-jiri cut off so that it papers at all. So he obeyed and can you imagine the guy's face when he gets it back papered to ... Enju Kunimura! So he was a little upset and brought the blade to all sword meetings to get more opinions and everyone told him that this is actually a really good blade. So he submitted it for Juyo, handing in also the cut-off nakago-jiri and explaining the whole thing to the NBTHK. So they accepted it and it passed Juyo with flying colors. Then he felt so guilty about what he did and as everyone kept saying that the blade is not only very good, it is very very good, he wanted to do some "damage limitation" and felt responsible for having the cut-off nakago-jiri, cut-off on his behalf, preserved. So he was eventually opting for gaku-mei and the blade was submitted again, this time for Tokubetsu-Juyo, and passed...

Very interesting indeed. The mei of the blade was presented in Honma's 1958 ed. Nihon Koto Shi when it was still on the blade, although already down at the nakago-jiri. Ito Sanpei wrote about that issue a while ago on his blog and says that back then, the owner consulted an appraiser who told him that the mei is bad and suggested that he should have it cut off. However, it seems that the owner was smart enough to keep the cut off part as it got juyo in 1974, that is as "package," i.e. as "mumei Kunimura, with zaimei nakago-jiri." Reason I know that is because someone informed me a while ago that I feature this mei twice as reference in my Koto Meikan, one time with the cut-off nakago-jiri, and one time as gakumei, not realizing that it is the very same blade, haha.

I started one a while ago in German for my own reference. I will try to take it from here and put one together in English. Might take a little.

Brian or one of the mods, please feel free to split it from somewhere around post #30 onwards

Fully agree with that. As far as as I can tell, this whole case is more like scaremongering. It seems that a few years ago, some very few fake hozon and/or tokubetsu-hozon papers popped up and someone informed the NBTHK about that. The NBTHK reacted, in my opinion, accordingly, and posted a warning in their magazine. Exact wording was: "Fake appraisals have been discovered and this does not only concern shiteisho and ninteisho but also hozon and tokubetsu-hozon papers. A reconciliation with our register might be done by phone but for an actual authentification of an appraisal, the item and the appraisal in question have to be brought in. For this, please inform in advance our management division and visit our Tokyo office." As mentioned, the warning was in accord with the scarcity of these fake papers. AFAIK, it was about one of those dubious Japanese online auctions. Thus a small but obvious warning (thick fat box around it) in their monthly magazine. So it was not like that an investigation had shown that three of five circulating papers are actually fake. If this was a large scale problem, I am sure they would have addressed it properly as a full page insert in their magazine and probably also online on their HP. In short, relative minor issue and an appropriate warning. I mean, if there is a problem with the brakes, Toyota (or any other car manufacturer) would start a huge global recall. But they would not do so if its "just" about someone selling a couple of fake Toyota. They would react just like that, i.e. add a little warning in their bulletin or hand out a brief press release. Now we can argue about the lack of communication with their non-Japanese members, that's a different issue. Than this whole issue kept floating around in some people's minds over the last couple of years and they kept approaching the NBTHK about it and blew this whole thing up: How many papers, what kind of papers, what are you going to do, how you gonna react, will you shred all papers and start once more a completely new system, won't somebody please think of the children? So they added another note in their magazine, this time saying: "If you have any doubts or if there is anything unclear about an existing appraisal (i.e. ninteisho, kanteisho, shiteisho), please call the Tokyo office so that we can check it with our register. However, for an actual authentification of an appraisal issued by our association, it is not enough to match it with our register, the appraisal in question also needs to be examined by our staff. Thus for an authentification of an appraisal, it is necessary to bring it to our Tokyo office (by prior telephone appointment)." Again, this is not a large scale issue and I haven't heard of any dealer being affected by fake papers. It is just that some of those "bargains" bought at one of those dubious Japanese auctions that might come with a fake paper are being put into the market again. I mean, I have seen anything being auctioned off there over the years, for example fake lost meibutsu or fake former daimyo collection items with fake mei and completely fake "provenance package" (i.e. fake ancient looking box and a bunch of fake ancient looking papers), fake Hon'ami origami, fake Honma and Sato sayagaki, fake everything. No wonder that there might be the one or other fake hozon or tokubetsu-hozon paper amongst them.

Hm, might be Bishû Fukunaga Kazutaka (尾州福永一上)? But the only Kazutaka I have with these kanji is probably not our man: Kazutaka (一上), Genji (元治, 1864-1865), Settsu – “Kazutaka” (一上), “Gyokuryūshi Kazutaka” (玉龍子一上), “Naniwa-jū Gyokuryūshi Kazutaka” (浪花住玉龍子一上)

I think there was no rule for donations. Swords were donated in the koshirae or shirasaya they came with or either in a new shirasaya or a new koshirae when a new sword was donated. I guess it depended on the pocket of the donor how he wanted a sword to be donated.

This blade is also introduced at Sho-shin: http://www.sho-shin.com/ikkanshi-tadatsuna.html Kanzan also refers to the remnants of the kiritsuke-mei in his sayagaki, writing "Tôji chinki..." (當時珍奇云々) which means "rare for this time..." Very interesting insofar as the blade is signed tachi-mei, what is very rare for Tadatsuna. Maybe it was a presentation sword and the omote side left free on purpose for the now erased kiritsuke-mei? If it starts with "rare for this time...", maybe there was never a name but then again, why erasing it when it was not some kind of "difficult" name? Maybe it was once offered to a temple then taken out again and mounted (at least two more times as seen along the three mekugi-ana) and maybe the then owner didn't want to have that inscription (name of temple where he got it from, name of donor, ...). I guess we will never know...

I found two Kuniyoshi mei. The left two pics are from the same sword (the b/w is the hozon pic). The right one comes without "Rai." Left one is from e-sword, right one from Sanmei. http://www.e-sword.jp/sale/2013/1310_1087syousai.htm http://sanmei.com/contents/media/A47006_S3270_PUP.html There are some differences but even the two papered ones are different and I can see certain common features so quite possible that this is the guy.

Thank you for dropping in Ford! I too think that this find should not be linked in any way to iron or possible iron casting. Another line of thoughts of mine was if this workshop was nothing more than a production site for samples, commissioned by sword dealers (maybe based in Kyoto or in downtown Nara as most logical suggestions) to show their customers what could be done in iron, e.g. as sukashi. So you have a wide variety of cast brass sukashi-tsuba in your shop and if your customer has decided to have a certain piece/style to go with his koshirae, you forward the cheap cast brass sample to the actual tsuba maker and things go from there. The same could go for menuki. This would explain the lack of actual extant cast fittings. And later on when everything, i.e. entire sword production lines were transferred to Edo, these local cast workshops were discontinued. Maybe by then also the entire chain of commissioning/selling swords had changed what would explain that we don't find such cast workshops in greater number (maybe rubbings/drawings were just more economical). Very interesting but as said at the bottom of my write up, its hard to develop a proper theory on just that one find.

I think it is indeed Mitsuhiro, just with the lower (儿) radical chiseled in a somewhat "dissolved" manner and with the right hook executed like (ム).

Nice! I briefly covered the meibutsu here and some more pics can be found here.

This is one thing I want to study in more depth in the future, i.e. the family histories of the earlier renowned smiths. The Saeki for example were so to speak old-established Etchû gentry, or to be precise, the local Saeki branch once held the office of Etchû kokushi (国司, provincial governor). And by the way, the famous monk Kûkai was from the Saeki family too.

Excellent news! I didn't know about Miyamatsu. I just arrived at Shigematsu by doing a quick search of the stamp.

I am not 100% positive but I think that the oshigata collection might has once been in the library of Prof. Mitsuya Shigematsu (三矢重松, 1872-1924) who was a linguist and scholar of ancient Japanese literature. I looked for the stamp (矢氏蔵書之章) Morita san deciphered and this stamp is mentioned in a bibliographical research paper (see link below, page 24 of PDF, page 367 of the text). I did not read through the entire thing so I don't know for sure how the paper is structured but it is possible that we are facing his stamp. http://koara.lib.keio.ac.jp/xoonips/modules/xoonips/download.php/AN00106199-00000020-0345.pdf?file_id=64348 However, this does not tell is who the initial compiler/owner, Nakamura Naoya (中村直矢) was, as a quick look up for his name result it any usable hits. FYI, picture of Mitsuya Shigematsu below.

You are right Steve. I was just focusing on this isolated part because like mubeppô, as seen on the sword, is an abbreviation for shinge mubeppô and that in turn is just an abbreviation of sangai yui isshin, shinge mubeppô, shinbutsu kyû shujô, zesan musabetsu (三界唯一心, 心外無別法, 心仏及衆生, 是三無差別), a line in the Shôbôgenzô. That means, you so to speak presented an explanation of the entire meaning of the line, what transports much more context, whilst I was just focusing on one part of it what was too narrow and what I realize now. Are the others still following? Kind of Inception here The fact that we all ended nowhere with the first trigram makes me think that its meaning is somewhere buried in a deeper Buddhist context, maybe an allusion or wordplay, that we might not get today.

No problem here from my side, of course. Gordon got in touch with me and I ended up at a dead end with this one, thus my literal approach of the first trigram.

I can only agree with everything that has been written so far. The Nihonto community has lost a great man, and the NBTHK-EB a great president who managed the branch in a highly sensitve way for 20 years, always trying to bring together collectors from all camps, even if that venture was quite difficult at times. Unforgettable, in particular, will remain my two road trips with Michael from Munich to Hamburg. In those hours over hours driving through the dark of night and chatting about everything and anything, I think I’ve learned more about the Japanese sword world than from a shelf of books. And we were hardly talking about swords at all…

@Steve: It's actually a common rendition of 公 http://clioz39.hi.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ships/ZClient/W34/z_list.php?title=%E5%85%AC&resourcetype=0&firstPosition=281&dataLimit=20

Hm, not sure but seems to be SHOAMI MATSUNO KORE O SAKU (正阿弥枩埜作之). Also not sure about the date. 己卯 equals, among others, to 1999. Don't know if the right side of the date is kind of a " compound form" of Heisei eleven (i.e. 1999). Also odd that one character has been removed...

Hi Bill, Thanks for your support. Best would be JPG format and with black background. Please send them to "gendaitoproject@gmail.com". This is where I collect the data for the book. But if you want to discuss some things with me, please use "markus.sesko@gmail.com". Thx! Markus

I am sure we are all learning together and looking forward to our first meeting! Again thanks Jason for organizing the facilities and also thanks for your kind words. Happy to be of any help.

The article elaborates on the connection of Naokatsu and his friend Kujirai Katsuyoshi for whom he made the blade shown on page 26 as a gift. The very blade had been introduced in the course of the TOBI shijo-kantei in issue 702 and this is so to speak a detailed follow-up article on the background of the present and on Kujirai. It also deals with the nickname "Murasame." http://www.touken.or.jp/english/translation/702.htm

Thanks Brian for your kindness! I just added a note to the DTI thread because I didn't want to spam NMB with too much advertising of mine. Strange, eSwordsmith should be there. Maybe some temprorary thing? Direct link is here: http://www.lulu.com/shop/markus-sesko/e-swordsmiths-of-Japan/ebook/product-22166224.html @Klaus: Prices are already the reduces ones (eBooks work without voucher codes, so I have to lower the prices manually). I know, kind of expensive for an eBook but I just have to price every book in view of the entire whole, that means the better selling books kind of also have to finance those where I put much work in but which are more for the Nihonto nerds and don't sell that much in general