Hoshi

In the end it adds another filter to the hobby: collectors challenged in their ability for critical thinking will drop-out. But a few of them would have been good additions... The problem is the hobby struggles to attract new people. This is good for the buy-side of things but terrible for the sell-side of things. The hobby is petering out in the US as most of the old guard is off to heaven and the younger generation that has money is obsessing over classic cars. A lot of it has to do with the fact that its just harder and harder to treasure hunt in the USA, which arguably was one of main motivators for new entrance. So the bounty-hunter types are off chasing other things while Stimulus checks are being spent on buffer-wheel polish. No growth in the entry-level collector population: prices for mediocre things go down. SBG is the gateway into the sword world and squeeze in an ungodly margin out of the few that cross the gate only to see that landmine blow-up in their face some time later. And then we have 99% of the buy-side in Japan for masterpieces run by a just a few whale. The GINI coefficient of the Nihonto world is more skewed than girls swiping Tinder for dudes. But the battle up there is fierce and good things are becoming harder and harder to find, and those that buy them aren't leaving an estate for poachers to pillage, rather they leave behind well-endowed museums for a hundred years which will dry up the supply. Look at the Sano Museum. Now imagine the Sawaguchi Museum. So SBG if you're reading this, welcome to the sh*it list of the Nihonto world.

Yeah I remember writing to them about their disastrous and overpriced offering of antique swords with invalided papers. No response. In the end it's their business team which chose this course: maximize profits extractable from low-information buyers reliant on our platform. So be it. Let the invisible hand do its work here. What saddens me are all the buyers that will get burned and exit the hobby once they find out the truth and go to the secondary market with their green-papered shinto swords. This always hurts.

Wonderful story, thanks to Ian for sharing and documenting so carefully.

It's a very tricky kantei, to evaluate shinto work with a soshu inspiration. These kantei shouldn't be taken too seriously. It's a best guess. I'll preface by saying again that it's a nice sword and it has a strong Shinto Soshu-inspired character, with the pronounced ara-nie, sunagashi etc. For all the anons reading this forum regularly, I would like to explain a bit more why this is typically the type of sword which will be found without papers in Japan. The reason is that it is more profitable to attract a gambler and sell it for what it isn't (late Nambokucho Soshu) than to have it papered and sell it as a mumei shinto piece. So even if it had papers in the past, the way to make money on this is to dump the papers in the fire and put it up on Yahoo JP with a fresh Sayagaki and cobble up some story. These are the economic incentives at play. Before the nitpicking occurs I will just say that unpapered swords in Japan which would kantei to grandmasters do obviously exist. However, they get trawled by the dealer filter and they will paper those worth papering and dump the gambles in YJP! or to some other dealer at their auction until the system sorts itself and that everyone can make a bit of money. Shrines, old collectors, etc, have unpapered swords. There are also discoveries being made where a "sword stash" is found hidden in traditional houses. Generally the person who finds them will go the dealer and when she or he hears the costs and time involved in the restoration and all the social stress associated with owning weapons in Japan, they go for money now. The encounter with police can be terrifying and after the stress associated with the torokusho process, these objects are more likely to be seen as problems to solve than objects to keep and restore. The social stigma helps the business model. What needs to be understood is that mumei pieces from the shinto period are radioactive in Japan. It's a big value drop. I bought a sword to Naotane once for about 5K, had the signature been preserved it would be worth 30-40K on the Japanese retail market, that's just the way it is. Which means it's also a great occasion to get top quality work from a famous school if one is ready to accept this flaw (which I accept readily given budget constrains). The most likely reason for a shinto sword to be mumei is that it's been used as a deceptive device to extract money from an unsuspected buyer via fraud. It's not just signature...even a little machi okuri can be what can be seen by new collectors as an unreasonable debasement of value. Shinto strives for perfection in condition.

That is quite right. It is indeed 2020 and not 2009, no confusion intended except my own.

The certificate is from 2009. You took a long time to show us! Someone removed the mei, reshaped the nakako and added a mekugi-ana. I suppose, to make it pass as Nanbokucho Soshu work. In this context, it's important to recognise that the attribution is more of a shinto shrug than a slam-dunk. This is quite typically the type of sword you'll find in Japan without certificate. It's important to buy it knowingly, and for what it is. It's nice work.

Gokaden is a simplifying idea, and with any simplifications, nuance and exceptions are pruned away. In statistics this is called "clustering" by maximising similarity within categories and dissimilarity between categories. You choose then the number of clusters that give you the best explanatory power vs complexity as the tradeoff. Once you get a grasp of Gokaden, quickly move towards a more granular view as, quite honestly, it isn't a great rule of thumb but it does get the job done at making you learn further as you'll find yourself scratching your head and comparing books. Great points have been in this thread. of note: - Koto and Shinto are qualitatively different things. Don't apply Koto rule of thumbs to it, it's really it's own thing, and while it has spawned from mino, it turned into a beast of its own... - The two most useful levels of classifications to understand Nihonto are: province-level + period-level. e.g. "swords of Bizen province in the early kamakura period" and you go from there. - "Provincial" vs "famous sword production sword center" is one of the most powerful heuristics. Provincial swords are often more similar to each other than they are close to those from the key schools in the top production centers. A useful way to think of it is as a default. You'll find similarity in Pre-Sa Chikuzen work, Ko-Uda, Bungo, Ko-Mihara, etc. Typically this is manifested in the methods of hada constructions, provincial swords tend to have a rougher hada and tend towards a more more dim, less active hamon. To these I will add: Try the Great Smith View of Nihonto: There are approx. 10 master-innovators that have defined the craft by being the source (or close to the source) of significant innovations and/or founding extremely influential schools. This is the canon and where everything else after tries to get back to. Once you get it, the rest will click much faster. It's similar to master paintings in this sense and probably many other fields. At the end, I think a lot more could be achieved if we had better mediums of learning. A lot of knowledge is needlessly hidden behind paywalls (physical books) or culture-walls.

It's a fake. The legions of Kotetsu/Masamune/Kyomaro you'll find on YJP have only one thing in common and that's fakery.

This one here ranks amongst the most beautiful I have ever seen.

Great entry into the hobby. -papered -polished -good condition -fine koshirae

It's a dress-up sword. Made to look Koto. Suriage, extra "drilled" mekugi-ana, etc. Whoever did the job done believed it had a chance to be sold off as Koto. Shinshinto or Showa, based on the features of the steel. That would be my guess. Notice it is also supremely healthy.

I regard Tametsugu somewhat similarly in width as Sue-Sa. It's almost more of a school/regional attribution than it is a specific call to a singular smith. So much gets baked into it and the variability is pretty staggering. Concerning this first/second generation of Norishige, at the end when a blade gets "Norishige" as a mumei piece, it means the workmanship is up there with the grandmaster, but for all we know there may be a significant proportion of masterworks of lesser or forgotten smiths baked in as well. While the NBHTK never re-attributed to Norishige at Tokuju, it has re-attributed a Sanekage to Go.

A most excellent choice of polisher. I'm relieved and happy you decided to go "all-in" without cutting corners. This is the right way to do it. This is a very technical blade to polish, the shape is complex - numerous carvings, Masayuki worked with complex hamons with soshu flavours. You did right. I'm excited for the pictures.

Wonderful, congratulations Georg. I can't wait to see it polished. You should get it professionally photographed and filmed in Japan. I suggest Ohira-san, which can be reached here.

How eloquently put Michael. I can only wholeheartedly agree.

Sanekage and Tametsugu can overlap with Norishige and Go. You'll find blades re-attributed at Tokuju to either. Some work of Tametsugu may evoke Go. In this example here, the Sayagaki mentions that in the Monouchi area, the blade is reminiscent of Go Yoshihiro. This is not the case with the blade above though, which would be later work in my opinion.

I almost forgoet, Den Tametsugu can also mean "almost Go yoshihiro" I think there was a blade no too long ago with its Sayagaki alluding to Go on a Tametsugu...

More shots of the Hamon would be helpful here. At first glance, the togari elements evoke mino. If this is later mumei Muromachi Mino, it might not be worth the trouble. Other than that it looks good. It's old.

Oh my. Let's not throw the baby with the bathwater. Remember that in Kantei the right answer is to nail down the archetype. Whatever obscure look-alike smith comes from under the rug is of little importance for scoring the Atari. Next. Agreed that for a beginner these types of kantei are not useful. One must master the basics firsts. That said, Kantei with obscure look-like smiths are not "useless" after a certain level of ability. Once you know all the classics, you need to become aware of the exceptions to the rule. Even if these are not distinguishable, you will build a deeper understanding of what an attribution to a certain smith or school could mean. For example, great many smiths have been lost to history and their extent zaimei work are nill or very few. Hata Chogi, Soshu Kaneshige ...many early soshu disciples of Kamakura and beyond, and the list goes on. Fukuoka Ichimonji had a substantial amount of mastersmiths whose zai work are lost or extremely rare. Attributions to masters like Rai Kunimitsu, Shintogo or Nagamitsu can be product of their respective "corporations" or student work and vary wildly in quality (and price) - there are simply too many extant to be the creation of a single smith. All of these nuances require experience, and being confronted to atypical kantei can help in acquiring it. Finally the idea that internet kantei is pointless is no good. In this day and age there are beautiful videos being produced, or photos with description to fill in the gap. While these do not replace the real in hand experience, they do come close and will improve your knowledge. And these will keep getting better:

Go for quality. Some gimei blades are of high-quality. This is rather the exception than the rule, but one can typically find Shinshinto stunners with gimei throwbacks to Nanbokucho top smiths, along with all sorts of deceptive elements such as artificially aged nakago, extra mekugi-ana, etc. I would take a beautiful Shinshinto gimei to Kanemitsu over a run-of-the-mill soshin muromachi sukesada any day. Shinto and Shinshinto high quality swords get their value literally obliterated down 80-90% when they are mumei or gimei. So if you're hunting for top quality and on a strict budget, this is where to look for. You'll never know who made it as attributions in the latter periods on mumei blades are (mostly) statements of quality. But one needs to train the eye...it's an ongoing process. The blade above doesn't fit in this category. These dress-up packages on YJP, you need to think of all the elements as recently cobbled-up together, including boxes, fake Kinzogan or Kinpun, fake honami docs, fake sayagaki etc fake (and ugly) habaki...These guys run a business of turning low-grade shinto-to-gendai blades into national treasures. It's an investment for them to get the dress-up "done right" - so expect to pay for it. Much much cheaper to get an "honest gimei"

Tametsugu is one of the high variability Soshu attributions. "Den Tametsugu" broadens up the possibilities even further. In context this can be understood as some smiths working in the Nanbokucho period up in the northern parts (Echizen, Etchu, etc...). What we know for sure is that this is Soshu Nanbokucho. If we go a little further, it's very likely to be Soshu Nanbokucho from a smith working in the Northern parts in this tradition. And I agree with both comments above, the blade shares characteristics with both Sanekage and Hasebe.

Nagatsune and Ishiguro, can't judge if soshin but the workmanship is good. Unusual theme. Reveal more, I am most curious what comes next!

We cannot agree to disagree to misconceptions of this magnitude. The idea that Tanobe-sensei would lie and fabricate some nonsense to please a gaijin by stating a notion that goes against the surface level understanding is beyond preposterous. Where to start... And also the ubu zai ichimonji in suguha being the “majority” is plainly wrong. Early ko-bizen phase work of its founders may be found in suguha. Such works are less than 10% of extant ubu zaimei ichimonji. Mumei they would have gone to Ko-Bizen. May Hachiman give us the strength.

Market value will not increase here with papers once you account for the cost of the process. Better off to keep it as is or move it on.