Hoshi

Kiril, What a good and nuanced writeup on your site. A pleasure to read. I second Michael's questions, and I think you're on the right track. My speculations as to the social dynamics at play in this time are as follow: Junji: Took requests and sourced elite blades for top collectors and museums, such as the Museum of Sword fittings. Sato: Took requests from each and everyone in a mission to popularize and 'open up to the public' the Japanese sword. Tanobe came later and took the middle path - not as liberal as Sato, not as elite as Junji, and more verbose than anyone that came before. I will add that it is interesting to note that Sato's demise and subsequent power vacuum may have triggered the reveal of the scandals and misgivings in the local branch. He could have been the lid on the pot. I would be tempted to further speculate that Sato's attributions were liberal on the level of Honami Koson, who initiated the path of broadening the audience of Nihonto.

I always thought the practice about sliding the blade in Shirasaya while touching only the mune was meant to prevent tiny scratches. I never thought one can break off your tip on the wood and then have a razor sharp piece of steel ready to grind a new Bo Hi on your blade as you slide it in and out. That's another one which will haunt me...

Georg, thanks for the clarification. That's harsh. It sounds like those obscure Austrian auctions are a great source of bargains, since the government is notoriously bad at pricing things and publicizing their auctions... What I want to convey by this statement is that the provenance gives this blade a chance to be real. If you had purchased it from Japan, from Ebay, Yahoo auctions, or some other sources where where is knowledge asymmetry in your disfavor, it would be a fake Kyomaro. The fact that it comes as government confiscated property from some unsavory character (to say the least...) is a good source for a lottery ticket like this blade. You have a chance. Michael S has it all outlined for you. I am eager to hear what Tanobe has to say about it in Japan.

Some interesting takes here. I strongly disagree with the notion that the blade shouldn't be inspected further and kept as is. While there maybe irregularities in the signatures, we need to compare to the full corpus of the smith and not a single exemplar to know which variations are acceptable and which ones are not. I also reject the notion that signature plays such an important role in the presence of irregularities which could fall within to the corpus of work: if the blade quality isn't there or the shape falls outside of his corpus even with a perfect signature, it's unlikely to paper Kyomaro. It's easier to copy a signature, especially in the times following Kyomaro, compared to copying the quality of his work. A window needs to be polished and checked for the traits of Kyomaro's period work. There is one canvas - It's arguable that for Kyomaro this is tricky because he was a drunk and did produce some very subpar work on occasion, and some of the bad stuff is probably considered Gimei even today. Finally, if the window reveals quality and there are no deal breakers, even if Gimei and Shinshinto, it will be worth its cost of polish provided it can be attributed to a top smith of the Period. Come on guys. Mumei attributed to a student of Kyomaro will easily fetch 5K. Now, there is a real risk that a gendai smith copied the original Kyomaro blade and it's sleepy and boring and basically there is nothing to it. This is the killer, and this was done in the past, and needs to be kept in mind. If that's the case you're going to lose money. There is a chance a good polisher will be able to discriminate and cut short your losses during the process. My take on this is that this is a bet with good upsides, and this is a tough thing to say for blades outside of the Koto range. To sum up: Gendai Gimei Kyomaro: Zero Shinshinto Gimei Kyomaro by top smith (e.g. student): you get your money back Real Kyomaro: tens of thousands of dollar Finally, remember the provenance: We are dealing with a stolen blade. If this was out of Japan nobody in his right mind would think twice.

Good on you for rescuing this one from the sharks, Brian. What can I add that hasn't been said. Excellent photos and topic description. Others, please take note! There is a chance this is a genuine Kyomaro. That in itself is an amazing thing to say. There are a lot of good fakes of him, so we will not know for sure until it gets to the experts in Japan. As others have said, I strongly recommend Darcy's services as the top person out there to handle this as your agent.

Mounting old Koshirae is always an exercise of caution especially if the fit is tight. Who knows what hides in those old sayas as well, haunting nightmares of Uchiko gunk balls... These are nice photos, I really enjoy the austerity of the Koshirae contrasting with the opulence of the gold foil habaki.

The spittle and occasional hand oils is never going to be completely avoidable, especially with older gentlemen where fine manipulation can be a challenge and beginners who are still learning. No amount of gloves and mask is going to supplant the need to take good care of the blades after the show (cleaning with isopropyl alchohol and re-oiled with good quality choji oil). If anything overkill measures can give the impression of false safety and lead to poor post-show cleaning... Shumei and other delicate inscriptions should stay covered with cellophane wrap for protection. Shirasaya should be specifically designed with play at the handle area to avoid friction with the lacquer. A lot of the older ones are completely unreadable now because of poor stewardship, it's a real pity.

Great contributions so far. Some very scary tales in here, especially the sword thieves. Special mention to Ken with his sword shoved upside down in the Shirasaya following custom controls. This is one which will haunt me. I don't have any good ones to share yet. So far, the worst that happened to me is overpaying in an auction because I got swooped in by the value proposition and became greedy. While I can't say it won't happen again in the future, next time I'll be sure to: 1. Set proper hard limits based on opportunity costs of acquiring other items. 2. Don't blindly go for 'deals' as in bottom of the barrel work from a great maker which end up as problem pieces. 3. If you don't trust yourself to stand with hard limits then have someone else place bid for you Auctions are hard. Especially when you have just a few moments to decide before the auctioneer moves on. The decision process gets blurry and the temptation is high to 'win' despite it making little financial sense. It draws you in. The problem with greed is that the easiest way it gets trigger is by bottom of the barrel stuff. Top stuff is priced so high, that even if the value proposition is great, you just won't identify it unless you're an expert with this particular maker and had a chance to inspect it hands on. Bottom on the barrel stuff just jumps out of the picture because you've simply never, or rarely seen work that cheap which happens to look just like these others which were sold for more. That's a fallacy and where I got burned.

It's interesting. I find Menuki to be most often obfuscated by the wrappings of the Tsuka. It feels symbolically in contradiction to the Goto ranking of Menuki as the King of Tosugu. Somehow, as of now, Menuki do not rank higher than the other pieces in my own personal preference. However, if I valued these pieces to the degree that they are valued by the market, I would get the most classic and archetypal Goto dragon menuki, preferably from an older generation. This for me epitomizes the Goto tradition. Preferably large ones, too.

Ubu mumei with aged nakago. Someone erased the signature to make it pass as Koto. My money is on Shinshinto, probably a good smith too. It has soden-bizen/shizu mix vibe. Do you see masame in the bo-hi if you really look carefully? There is chikei and ara-nie, my hunch is Satsuma work. From there it's going to be a long shot to really nail it down so you can leave it at that and live with the uncertainty. Not worth sending to Shinsa. But it's a nice piece and when you're on a budget you can get great quality for the money if you go for radioactive mumei shinto/shinshinto.

Excellent idea. We've had some bits and glimpse of good horror stories recently over some of our threads. From Jean's triple hagire to Rivkin's dead Koto iron rod, I'm sure there is more to be told while keeping these others threads on topic. Bad buys, overpaying, cases of extreme buyer's regrets, collections losing all directions, hoarding tales, all these things are also interesting and could serve as lessons for the new collectors who read this forum. I find we often learn more from the mistakes of others compared to their success stories, and this is something seldom shared here. Write on.

How about Ishiguro Masayoshi? Why leave him out? He ranks top 10 among the Kings of Bling and Glory. What I like about the really top level stuff, is that you just can't fake it. If you see the real thing, the skill level is simply so high that the cost of producing a quality fake was just beyond the means of the fakers. For things like Omori waves you can get fooled, but Ishiguro Hawks and Pheasants, there is simply no way on earth. These guys were top of the world and some of the Tokuju pieces are to die for. Nobuie on the other hand requires a very well trained eye and a fine feel for old iron to tease apart good fakes...

I have suspicions here. Can we have a picture of the start of the hamon? Is it suriage or not? We need close up of the Nakago, Hamachi area, and Kissaki. The shape is clearly a callback to the Nambokucho archetypes. There are three phases when these blade shapes were produced: Nambokucho, Kambun Shinto and Shinshinto revival. If I would venture a guess, perhaps Kambun era Chogi Utsushi, like this one. I find the work to be reminiscent of Soden-Bizen. My money is on a weaponized blade with its signature erased to pass of as Koto Chogi school.

Jeremiah, Most will argue that how a theme resonates with the viewer is one of those immanent qualities of art. It is the purely idiosyncratic facet of art which cannot be understood outside of the beholder's experience. This view dominates contemporary art theory, and it is, deeply, deeply wrong. There are universal stories that keep being told and elicit, at least within a sub-sample of the population, a similar aesthetic response because it resonates with something so deep it is in fine, encoded in our genome. This is my epistemic stance on Art. Art encodes through metaphors things which cannot be articulated but resonate as universal truths to the beholder. As a famous poet put it, Truth is Beauty, Beauty is Truth. This is all one needs to know. Our response to Art is not some product of pure subjectivity through socialization, but a very powerful emotion which is universally shared and serves a deep and misunderstood evolutionary purpose in a Darwinian sense. I believe it to be one of the fundamental drivers of meme-gene co-evolution and the reason humanity has evolved stable equilibrium in societies. This is the case for the story of the tiger mum. It's the story of the cursed son who turns to evil in times of dire danger, it's told across cultures in different ways.

Lets get back on track... This is also why I think there is more room for ladder shuffling in Tosogu compared to swords. Some students of the big masters and more obscure Goto lines have been sidelined in my opinion. It would require a tall collection specialized in these underdogs to really make the case, but it's possible and there is much more room to do it than with swords. As an example, Goto Seijo got completely dumpstered by Goto Ichijo and his incredible pupils and had to compete in the time of Natsuo, Ishiguro, Omori and all around unbelievable talent. Meiji and pre-Meiji is just an explosion of artistic talent and its hard to keep track of it all. Unearthing the custom orders he or his students got and making a tall collection out of it could arguably cause some shuffling in the middle tier of that era if high quality work is found. Some of his work in iron especially great and unique design, such as this evil bald dragon. But as it stands it will never go Juyo. Regarding the student work, it's risky. A snowflake tsuba signed by Goto Ichijo is basically a serial production work which doesn't come close in value to his realistic work. While these are designed by Goto Ichijo at a very advanced age, I think the actual execution is student work. While I do find these works to be highly aesthetically enjoyable, it just doesn't come close in value to Ichijo's carved tsuba in his earlier, more realistic style. I think someone called it his Andy Warhol phase and I quite like that. There is also a case to be made that he did make poor work on the occasion. For instance I struggle to believe that this comes from him and that the signature is authentic, I'd take a snowflake tsuba over this one anyday. What are other cases of students working as the master that one needs to watch out for?

18 patents is on the low side to really get the field. Tbh you can't understand Tosogu aesthetic without a PhD in computational neuroscience. It's just the way it is I'm not going to even argue.

Jeremiah, You argue that ratings keep new collectors out. If I understand you correctly, you argue that this is because it affects demands thus driving prices for desirable items upwards because everyone chases the same thing. I would like to propose a different opinion. There already exists explicit ratings for Tosogu. However, these ratings are less known than the ones governing swords such as Fujishiro or the Meikan. If anything, those who keep counts of Juyo, and Juyo to Tokuju pass factor for Tosogu possess knowledge above those who don't in terms of what is deemed desirable and what is deemed less desirable. This is an information advantage because it correlates with the market's willingness to pay. Simply put, having this knowledge, and knowing what work of a given Tosogu artist is the most highly rated gives you an edge in creating a valuable collection and reducing your rent. This logic also applies just as well within-artists as it does between-artist. There is a ladder within the corpus of an artist. Ichiguro hawk themes will go for more than Ichiguro flower them. Top Tomei is millet theme. Goto Ichijo's realist work goes for more than his later serial impressionist work. This is the second ladder that you need to be aware when making purchase decision to rightly appraise, or set a price. All this data can be gleaned from the Juyo and Tokuju volumes. Thus, my argument is that having explicit ratings for Tosogu would in fact serve new collectors by leveling the playing field. In turn, new collectors could then make decisions which are more closely correlated with the market's appreciation which means less rent and less suckers. Now I don't want to be the bad guy here but I will state an unpopular opinion: We pay far too much in the west for average Iron Tsubas and bad Kinko work. These things are so plentiful in Japan they're used as paperweights. Why? Because we got our ladder all wrong. Dealers create the impression of scarcity by setting prices and gating supply. This in turn leads collectors to repeat the process when they sell off their pieces. This is worrisome to me. Because the ladder is not explicit and gated by expert knowledge, dealers can exploit this information asymmetry via arbitrage to impose a higher rent on you. Experts have an incentive is preserving the status-quo. New collectors do not.

Thanks Kyle for the signature comparison. From the samples you provide I clearly agree with you, too many discrepancies. That's a pity because the story of the custom order and the dating seemed to be in line. Steve, I took a closer look at the blade, there are lamination flaws as you say. Naokatsu made close to perfect blades. He would not have had any lamination flaws on a custom order blade. Still worth to have it handled by a local collector or two. Sometimes we have variations in signatures that are not accounted for in the documented examples...

400 pounds for rusty-scratchy wak? My first instinct is to run and take the money. ...except I have a good feeling about this blade. If it's a genuine custom order Naokatsu then you're onto something. Provided it's genuine, without fatal flaws, It is worth the cost of a new polish and habaki (~2K). This is a generally valued shape for short swords, throwback to the old days, and my guesstimate is that after polish, it should be possible to sell it at moderate time horizon at ~5K-7K (A dealer would sell for perhaps 8-10K on the retail market). Add about 1K handling fees and Shinsa process, and you end up positive 2K-4K. With the proper signature homework done and reasonable certainty on its authenticity, I'd venture to say 1-2K, which contains the lowerbound upside price and takes into account all the uncertainties. If the signature is fake then its worth basically zero. Provided I have good reasons to believe the signature is authentic, I'd price it at about 1.5K for the gamblers, all risks considered.

Interesting read. There is a clear hierarchy in desirability in Tosogu makers, just as there is with swords makers. Just as there is with European old master paintings. Things differ in desirability, this is not only an axiom in collecting but also one that we implicitly follow in life. Opening this argument drives us straight onto the philosophy of aesthetics and post-modern anti-aestethics... Basically my point is: to deny the existence of the ladder is nonsense, but to argue on its nature is very much an important question which every collector should consider at some point. Indeed,determining who steps of what level of the ladder and what the ladder is made of is a very valid point of debate. While most agree Ichijo, Natsuo, and Somin sit somewhere in top, its get murkier below with more space for disagreement in debate. For the iron tsuba makers, it's not even clear if they belong in the same ladder. While Kaneye can arguably sit on the same ladder for his impressionist wabi-sabism infused representations, it gets trickier when we look at Nobuie and other workers of old iron as they veer into the purely abstract domains which is less approachable and closer to European modern art. Initially it is quite clear with the Goto line working soft metal, and the Tsubako working old iron in pure functional form as tools. But starting 1800 it gets murky, with Goto makers working in Iron, and once we reach Meiji the lines get completely blurred. The Meiji explosion in artistic innovation is quite spectacular. A priori, it seems that it makes the most sense to outline objective criteria of execution and appraise these works in their separate categories. Just as Soshu school isn't evaluated with the same criteria as Bizen work, we should keep in mind what makes a tosogu of a given aesthetic line top quality versus lower quality. Precision of the carving Quality of the composition (use of space, use of themes) Thematic innovation It's easy to see how Natsuo and Somin dominate when we use these criterion. However it's also interesting to note that pre-1800 Goto makers would score poorly on thematic innovation as they have very codified styles and composition all the way down to the great Goto Yujo. At the end of the day, it's clear that the search for the objective criteria leads us to some problems of comparability between different periods and artistic lines. Old Goto vs Meiji work vs Old Iron is just an example, and I'm sure we can break down these categories even further. While we all agree that there exists a ladder of desirability, the analytical approach to evaluating objective criterion inevitably leads to problems. It's the same with Sword. What makes Top Soshu is different from Top Bizen from Top Yamato. We appraise and value different traits expressed differently for different schools. This is where the Juyo/Tokuju count or Juyo/Tokuju pass factor comes in. Rather than trying to come up with a top-down ranking of things based on dimensions of reality, we can ask the 'market of experts' what they think is best. This comes with the premise that the longer one studies, the more expert his judgement and the more accurate his opinion in determining what is value. The second assumption is that the aggregate judgement is more accurate than the singular judgement, which is something which is defensible given what we know about the wisdom of the crowd and how markets work. Finally one can raise the problem if circularity in this argument. But in my opinion one should consider that artistic production <--> artistic appreciation is something which is locked into a co-evolving loop. What gets highly appraised gets imitated, what gets imitated gets boring thus leading to the valuation of innovative composition, etc. This is one of the big drivers of Art, and there is a thread to be made that this loop has gone into overdrive in the 20th century following the impressionists, but that's a topic for a completely different forum...

Flaws are indeed kantei points. In this discussion I find it useful to break down flaws into their sources to understand how we should value them. Something to keep in mind is that in Koto and Heian, there no such thing as a death sentence. It's all a balancing act and you can think about it as scoring and losing points, without any flaws setting value immediately to zero. This is hard to comprehend and it becomes more true the older the blade and the more desirable the maker. Lamination flaws: Ware, Fukure These flaws can be unearthed by repeated polishing. It's possible that the sword in its original state did not have such flaws. They do not pose a threat to the functional integrity of the blade, and they can be quite well corrected by the best polishers. These become a bigger problem when the sword is very tired and the shingane comes out. Generally, ware are very much disliked in the west, and in Japan that's not so much the case. In my opinion the presence of ware and a tired blade together impinge the value more than the sum of their part. For top koto swords, you can be sure that they've had the beauty treatment to minimize these flaws. Tiredness flaws: Shingane coming out, Kasane too thin, toothpick impression This is the big one. Healthy (kenzen) is a huge factor in getting Tokuju for an old sword. This is what sets aside Juyo from Tokuju on top schools. Study the health of a blade carefully. Beware of shortened 'Kodachi' and other euphemism for toothpicks. Functional flaws: Crack in the cutting edge, interruption in the hamon, chips that interrupts the hamon, no Boshi These hurt the most. Nothing can be done to correct the blade, no amount of polishing, it is what it is. A sword that must be retired because it loses all functional value. Does it make sense nowadays to value swords on the basis of their functional merit is a different question altogether. Does that drop the value of the blade immediately to zero? Absolutely not. Think at minimum that the blade should be worth its equivalent as a shortened mumei wakizachi minus the cost of the restoration. Does this bring the value of great many koto blades to zero? Yeah, it does. Value is Zero for Ko-Mihara, but it remains in the low six figures for a Masamune. Be meticulous in examining the Boshi. This is where makeup can really hurt you. It's possible to make a near indistinguishable thin boshi line with expert polishing. Accidental: Retempered blade That's a tricky one. If it's a retempered by Yasutsugu following the Osaka castle fire or by Naotane's teacher and its been documented then we're talking about very unique pieces with a great value to begin with. there is also one retempered short sword by Awataguchi Yoshimitsu. It's the only non-tanto piece left by him. Now as you go down the ladder of rarity it starts to chip off value exponentially, and to be fair I don't understand it very well but I'd stay away from all the borderline juyo school with risk of rempetered blade (Mihara, Uda, Enju, Tegai, etc). Proper useage: Kirikomi This one is interesting. In my opinion, Kirikomi are neutral in value, and turn positive if the sword has a history and these kirikomi can be attributed to battles fought by its past owner. A Kirikomi is not just a battle mark (like a chip) it's the sign that the sword has been used to properly parry a blow. It denotes skill and increases the value of the item as a historical artifact.

No money issue? A collection that traces the great Soshu experiment. It starts with Gotoba's smiths that went to Kamakura, then goes to Shintogo, then moves to mainline Soshu, before branching out to Shizu in Mino and Chogi in Bizen in Nambokucho and then fades off in the obscurity of Muromachi with its hitatsura death rattle. For me this is the most epic story to tell in Nihonto. All compressed into a hundred and fifty years of peak art and influence, and then dies down in the dark ages never to resurface again. Now realistically. I take what I can get which has high emotional dividends and comparatively low rent. I have the Soshu and Awataguchi bug. Worst of all, I put a big premium on storied pieces with honami attributions and tasteful Koshirae. This ultimately means I need to spend less time on the forum and more time making money. Perhaps my tastes have evolved beyond the point where I will not be able to afford anything anymore in the future. I accept it.

I think there is a fair chance we're still midway through. The customs of the sword world are strange because they come from the warrior's world. An interrupted hamon means a blade no longer suited for battle, as it would pose a great risk of breaking. This is where these 'fatal flaws' come from. It's like a rifle that is are great risk of irreversibly jamming or misfiring. In fact, one could even say these dimensions of valuation should now be completely obsolete, since they come from the Feudal times and nobody would use such a sword in war today. The dice has already been rolled. The polish doesn't throw the dice, it reveals the result. If you prefer certainty, then look at the roll. If you prefer to live with the uncertainty, then keep it hidden. There is no shame in testing the market. In the West fatal flaws are a hard sell, in Japan there is a more balanced view. Who knows what the future holds. You suggest you have time on your hand. You're probably better off investing the 10K into top-class restoration and making the blade discreetly tour the big Japanese collectors for a year or two. The alternative is to wait for offers from Western collectors, who are more timid when it comes to flaws. As Ray says, I hope it survives and gets the best care it can ever hope for.

After careful examination it looks to be a potential Soshu hamon, even though it's a bit strange (gaudy) and seems like it could have been etched in at some point with acid (as it looks on your first thread). I'm assuming it's mumei, the nakago is passable, and there are no fatal flaws hiding in there. High probability: Muromachi Shimada Low probability: Tametsugu It's a decent lottery ticket.

These are quite likely to be Goto dragons but they're slightly subpar quality wise.