Markus

This might be useful for the one or other for the fair: http://markussesko.com/2015/11/12/dti-ebook-super-sale/

It is a poem by the famous waka poet Ôtomo no Yakamochi (大伴家持, 718?-785), written in view of his relative Sukune Ôtomo no Koshibi (大伴古慈斐, 695-777) when the latter was slandered and removed from office. The setting was about that the name of the venerable Ôtomo clan was questioned due to Koshibi's alleged dishonorable deeds, which was answered by Yakamochi with this poem: "Like a sword is always polished, this/our name [Ôtomo] is untarnished since oldest times."

In a nutshell, and what I tried to allude to: There is a Masamune provenance and there is a Masamune provenance

I second Dirk, it can be nice to have a (obviously great by its own) blade that was handed down as Masamune in feudal times, so to speak a blade that initiates chat like "you know, this one I have here was once treasured as Masamune within the XY family." But if already the Hon'ami paper is fake, and everything points towards that, I as a potential buyer would ask Tsuruta san to find out about the pre-origami provenance. So maybe either the origami was later faked to "underline" the provenance, or all the provenance just goes back to the fake paper. Former being ok and origami can be disregarded and left in the drawer, latter not ok (if you consider buying because of the alleged provenance)...

I think the name might read "Nagayoshi" (長好).

Not commenting on your "theory" but you really have to be more careful selecting your references Karl. The Tadayoshi blade in the middle of the last pic, that is somehow presented as 1596/1601? work, is actually dated Ansei six (1859).

Excellent Kunitaro! Search is over (although if some were preparing to send me scans from Kataoka's book, they are of course still highly welcomed).

Would give vouchers of 50% off on any of my print books and several eBooks (full, no vouchers of course). Also have a signed copy of my Japan's Most Important Sword Fittings here that I will put in. [Edited as initial post didn't make much sense ]

Danke Peter! Unfortunately, no mention of his son or adopted son... Search continues.

Hi Klaus, The mei reads: Tôto-jû Minamoto Yoshiharu saku 東都住源義治作

Hi guys, Is anyone able to provide me with scans of some of the text parts of the book "Sa Yukihide to Koyama Munetsugu Sono Ichirui" (Kataoka, 2000) or with scans of old Token Bijutsu issues, No. 118-223? Assistance would be much appreciated as I am trying to clarify some issues about his adopted and his natural son. Thank you!

Let me get that straight Karl: What you are preparing is an overview of the individual features of the character HI in HIZEN as used by several Hizen smiths, right? And what books are you talking about that are "totally wrong"? Well, I mean I honestly don't want to sound egocentric but as you mention "referring to at the moment", there IS a slight chance that one of my books is concerned. If so, I would be eager to know about possible errors or ambiguities (and transparent backing info) in order to correct them. Apart from that, the "full" Koyama Munetsugu mei is still in the pic (and titled 1602) and this smith is not at all related to the Hizen Munetsugu line. What I would recommend is that you also incorporate Yokoyama Manabu's extensive studies on Hizen-tô (as published in the Token Bijutsu) in which he also goes much into detail about various daimei and their individual features.

Why is there a Koyama Munetsugu reference in this pic titled 1602?

Indeed. The abbreviated form 広 of 廣 was not in use before the Meiji era (and only become common in the early Showa era). In olden times, 広 would have been abbreviated as 广 (if at all). http://www.kanken.or.jp/project/data/investigation_incentive_award_2010_yamashita.pdf#search=%27%E5%BA%83%E3%81%AE%E5%AD%97%E3%81%AF%E3%81%84%E3%81%A4%E3%81%8B%E3%82%89%27

@Joel: Thanks a lot for your offer! Still sorting out things how to tackle this one best and first of all, how to let it go through as a crowdfunding project. I am on vacation from tomorrow (7th) and back on Oct 19 and will PM you afterwards if I have any questions.

"Rusu" (留守) was the minumum emergance part of a division that remained stationed in Japan whilst the actual unit was deployed to overseas/outside territories.

Not a big thing Joel and I also saw your reply to Tom. I just thought why not adding a short info in the first place, like "I found some interesting stuff here" and then the full quote, regardless of if Tom is on this board or not. No need to edit your post and also I didn't want to sound rude.

@Joel: Why not mention you got that 1:1 from Tom?

Jon, I have to see if I can make it to Tampa. There is an armor convention in Italy around that time that I am attending and I fear it might be on the very same weekend. But will be in Orlando in June for sure (although that's quite some time til then .

Excellent article! FYI, I briefly touched the subject of shin jûgo-mai a while ago on my site: http://markussesko.com/2013/02/15/rare-mentionings-of-forging-techniques-in-sword-signatures/

Just wanted to let you know.. Found via: http://markussesko.com/ Or directly: https://japaneseswordlegends.wordpress.com/

There will be a book of course in the end and I think it will be something like if you donate a certain amount to the crowdfunding you get the book, for a certain lower amount you get the eBook, and for a certain higher amoung you get both. Try to figure out which platform to use and how much I gonna need to make time available to feed the online database. Oh, and the sending of photos and oshigata is already going on for some months. Got quite a nice basis to work with in the meanwhile, thanks to NMB.

It is indeed a work of Kotani Yoshizô Kaneyoshi. He was born in 1894 and mei like "Mino Yôrô-jû Kokaji Kaneyoshi saku" (美濃養老住小鍛治包義作) or "Mino Yôrô-sanroku-jû Kotani Kaneyoshi saku" (美濃養老山麓住小谷包義作) are his early signature variants. Later on, he was assisted in developing his cursive script mei by the local calligrapher Ôno Hyakuren (1864-1941). And as Peter said, Kokaji is just a nickname that refers to Sanjô Kokaji Munechika. More info on Kaneyoshi will be found in my upcoming Gendaito book but this is one of those cases where a living online database makes sense. One quick adjustment, and the info is updated (with pics), easily available for future generations of collectors.

It is actually the character for (友). Just an older way of writing it that resembles the character (支). See below mei of Ko-Bizen Tomonari (to whom I think this mei alludes to).

@Peter: That's true and an eBook will still be published but here too, I can't pack in everything and have to make cutbacks. That means, I have about 1,100 smiths what would potentially end up in a 2,000~3,000 pages eBook if I try to put in everything. Below I (very briefly) visualized what I am thinking of: A start page from where you click either on the alphabet or scroll down and click directly on the character, i.e. first part of the smith's name. This brings you to a page with all smiths using that character from where you pick one and get to the separate, detailed page that introduces all the data, oshigata, and pics.