Jussi Ekholm

Here are 4 Jūyō swords by Gorōzaemon Kiyomitsu that are currently for sale or have been in the past. Jūyō 15 - item 148: https://buyee.jp/item/jdirectitems/auction/r1205155585 Jūyō 15 - item 149: https://asahitoken.jp/contents/01_token/details/token-A/A_sd406.html Jūyō 45 - item 91: https://www.touken-sato.com/event/katana/2015/10/K-kiyomitsu_gorozaemon-01.html Jūyō 13 - item 121: https://www.token-net.com/juyotoken/juyo-20230501.html

The original shop is asking 3,600,000 yen for the Hosokawa Masayoshi At shop: https://bizenya-katana.com/?thoken=作陽幕下士細川正義造（刻印）-2 At Yahoo: https://buyee.jp/item/jdirectitems/auction/w1123570814 Just to be noted that some Japanese dealers do not deal internationally.

I believe it is authentic and among the longest Yasutsuna tachi in existence today. It was featured as a reference item in 2019 Kasuga Taisha Yasutsuna & Ko-Hōki exhibition book. In the brief text for the book it is mentioned to have been shortened c. 10 cm making the original length of c. 90 cm. It was also in Japan in 2022 as part of The Heroes exhibition: https://shizubi.jp/exhibition/20220702_theheroes/220702_01_eng.php However I believe it was not among the swords that NBTHK authenticated for Boston Museum in 1976:

I must say your Sukesada looks like a wonderful sword, I am personally liking it more that the Kiyomitsu. However the Gorōzaemon Kiyomitsu must be a wonderful sword in overall. I admit I do have a very soft spot for these late Muromachi "named" Sue-Bizen smiths. They made wonderful items, and I personally value them very high in appreciation. I think the quality in my eyes is often better than some of the cherished Kamakura smiths for example. Some items by Yosōzaemon Sukesada that I have seen in museums have been just stunning. I think Jūyō submission might always be a very complicated process, and to be honest I don't really have a clue what they are searching for. As was discussed in one other thread there are pretty much always "the usual suspects" that will pass regardless of the session. I was looking that Gorōzaemon Kiyomitsu has currently 16 Jūyō swords passed. The last one passed in session 65, unfortunately I haven't yet got that book. However the one before that one passed in session 45. So 20 year gap between passes, and I am sure some nice swords by the smiths must have been submitted within the 20 years. A rough guideline drawn from the last c. 15 years of results is that unless it is a "named" Sukesada (and among them most notably Yosōzaemon), your late Muromachi Bizen might have hard time passing through. Here are the total numbers of the 1500's Bizen smiths passed in last 16 sessions Jūyō 55 to 70. There are 5 Yosōzaemon Sukesada, 8 other named Sukesada, 7 non-Sukesada Bizen smiths from 1500's. So 20 1500's Sue-Bizen blades passed in total in 16 years. Now just for fun comparison in the same 16 years 39 unsigned Rai Kunimitsu blades have passed...

These are the ones I have info so far 96,1 cm - Jūyō 27 76,1 cm - Tokubetsu Jūyō 2 (Mutsu Shintōgo 陸奥新藤五) 74,2 cm - Jūyō Bunkazai - Seikadō Bunko 73,6 cm - Ise Jingū - Dedicated by Tokugawa Ieharu in 1769 73,4 cm - Tokubetsu Jūyō 7 70,5 cm - Tokubetsu Jūyō 12 68,8 cm - Private collection - Was featured in 2002 Masamune: A Genius Swordsmith and his lineage (4 Museum combination exhibition) 65,4 cm - Jūyō 20 For the Ise Jingū item it is explained in the book that mei is good but the upper portion of the sword is in rough condition. Text also states that this particular item is noted as Bizen Kunimitsu in Tokugawa Jikki. However it is now seen as work of Shintōgo Kunimitsu. Unfortunately I have never seen a Shintōgo Kunimitsu tachi in person.

I have collected c. 80% of the Jūyō books and for statistical nerd like me they are worth their weight. Most important thing for me are the actual cm measures of the swords, they allow me to create a good mental image of each sword. However I couldn't really say much about those swords quality wise by just reading the entries from the book. There are many things that make me scratch my head but I must just agree that the experts know so much than me and their view is much more valid than mine. I tried to look into Ichige Norichika as unfortunately I am compeletely clueless about that smith. I believe he is sometimes regarded as the best Mito swordsmith by experts. His contemporary Naoe Sukemasa also has similarish Jūyō record 6 passes between sessions 17-27 and then 2 passes 41 & 42, while Ichige Norichika has 5 passes in sessions 17-25. Their teacher Ozaki Suketaka has 3 passes in 14-20 and 1 sword passed in session 63. Now for some older Jūyō sessions NBTHK gave out very detailed submission and pass numbers in their magazine. Here I will focus on the very large sessions 23,24,25,26, that have fairly large submission numbers and extremely high overall pass rate. So lot of Jūyō items in these sessions. It might not be known that well but during this time NBTHK gave Kotō and Shintō submission numbers. Session 23 Kotō 557 submitted and 337 passed - Shintō 364 submitted and 156 passed -> so Kotō has 61% pass rate and Shintō has 43% Session 24 Kotō 590 submitted and 356 passed - Shintō 428 submitted and 127 passed -> so Kotō has 60% pass rate and Shintō has 30% Session 25 Kotō 450 submitted and 250 passed - Shintō 369 submitted and 91 passed -> so Kotō has 56% pass rate and Shintō has 25% Session 26 Kotō 366 submitted and 282 passed - Shintō 211 submitted and 88 passed -> so Kotō has 77% pass rate and Shintō has 42% I know people have done pass rate calculations etc. as many would want to "beat" the game and get the maximum amount of info would be helpful in this. However NBTHK stopped giving out the submission numbers for Kotō and Shintō and just had overall number for swords from session 29 onwards. Roughly from 29 to 39 sessions the number of swords submitted in overall reached c.1500 swords per shinsa session and only between 8% to 15% items in overall passing. So pretty radical change was made at that time.

I think Jacques has a valid point above that would fit well to me, I cannot differentiate the smiths or generations from 2 character mei. However there is also another point that can be seen from Nihontō Kōza page. For Kunimitsu there is the text for tachi "As for tachi, there is just one piece..." Now so far I have been able to find 1 ōdachi and 7 tachi that are seen as work of Shintōgo Kunimitsu. There are also some more unknown Kunimitsu smiths, even in late Kamakura. I didn't even remember there was this Senjuin Kunimitsu tantō (which is the only blade I know by him) in Jūyō 20 as I am going through the book. NBTHK puts this as the work of Senjuin Kunimitsu and identifies it as late Kamakura piece if I understood the text correctly.

To me these both seem to be very good swords. This is just a personal opinion but in my eyes the Yasumitsu is the better sword in overall but I would go for the Ko-Mihara. As many might know my love for ōdachi it is funny that there are wonderful ōdachi by these smiths. Well the Ko-Mihara ōdachi is by Masaie (signed) so specific work instead of school work. What is also funny is that they are pretty close in size to each other. The Masaie ōdachi is in the collection of Yasukuni jinja and the Yasumitsu ōdachi is in the collection of Futarasan jinja. In overall usually I like Yasumitsu work style a lot more than I like Mihara work. However unfortunately the Futarasan jinja Yasumitsu is not in as pristine condition as the Yasukuni jinja Masaie, out of those two the Mihara ōdachi is more to my liking in overall, and it is of extremely high quality craftmanship. Also the Nagoya Tōken World has absolutely stunning Ko-Mihara Masahiro blade that in my eyes is a lot better than lot of the swords by "higher valued" smiths at Tōken World museum. So battle of my favorite swords by these smiths go to Mihara, however I have huge appreciation for Morimitsu & Yasumitsu in my opinion both are top tier smiths and I have seen stunning work by both and in general I like them more than Mihara smiths.

I think Brano made a good comment that the majority of Jūyō swords come from pretty small number of smiths. It is just NBTHK style of appreciation. Now the Kotō portion of Jūyō passes usually pretty much looks like this Few Awataguchi A lot of Rai Few Hasebe Few Nobukuni Quite a bunch of variety of 5 Yamato schools Few Shintōgo / Yukimitsu Maybe Masamune / Sadamune / Hiromitsu / Akihiro Some Shizu / Naoe Shizu Few Nanbokuchō / Muromachi Mino Few Tametsugu Few Norishige / Gō Some Ko-Bizen Lot of Ichimonji Some Osafune mainline Few Hatakeda / Ukai Few Motoshige Bunch of Sōden-Bizen Bunch of sideline Bizen Some Muromachi Bizen Few Ko-Aoe Bunch of Aoe Few Ko-Mihara Bunch of Sa school works Few Enju To me this above is not all that exciting as it happens year after year, I want to find unique an interesting pieces passing. For example a jō-saku smith that I like for some reason is Taira Nagamori (長盛). However there are only 2 wakizashi by him that have ever passed Jūyō. To me it would be much more important to have 3rd sword by him pass the shinsa than 190th Mumei Taima blade or 216th Mumei Aoe blade. Unfortunately NBTHK does not really value Bungo stuff (Excluding Yukihira and Sadahide). I was thrilled to see a first blade by Bungo Norisada pass in Jūyō 67. I do not have the art eye for details but even I must admit that many of the mumei Jūyō items are actually stunning swords and well deserving the Jūyō title. It is just my personal feeling that too much suriage mumei stuff pass. I would rather steer more passes towards very good quality signed work by Muromachi period smiths than bulk of suriage mumei Kamakura/Nanbokuchō stuff over and over again. Still it is NBTHK's game and their rules apply. There are even Tokubetsu Jūyō swords that are in my opinion not awarded by their artistic merit but rather extremely valuable historical value. Then in my personal opinion there are also the opposites where just the artistic merit pushes the sword up to Tokubetsu Jūyō level as to me the sword itself is not that interesting just the workmanship is stunning. I have seen both variations in person, and it is just personal opinion and quite possibly I might not understand the intricate details.

That is a super rare item Steve congratulations. It is so far the only Ko-Aoe Tsuneyoshi (経義) sword I have been able to find anywhere. I think sometimes it is really difficult to identify generations for various smiths and sometimes the various genealogies have slightly different working eras and generations. If I understood NBTHK text correctly they wrote that there are famous Hirotsugu working Meiō (1492-1501) and Tenbun (1532-1555) but by reading text I was getting that this particular sword might be seen as work after Tenbun, and hence they specify (時代室町末期) for the particular sword. Now I generally just classify 末期 & 後期 both as Late XX but I believe there is more specific notation that 後期 means late period and 末期 means end of period. It is very slight nuance and to me it does not make that big difference but there is noticeable enough difference for NBTHK to make these tiny classifications. Now what classifies as mid- late- end- that would be a whole another question. How many generations of Hirotsugu smiths there were in total, etc. For example Nihontō Meikan has different main periods for some Hirotsugu smiths when compared to Sesko Index. Nihontō Meikan has the Meiō and Tenbun Hirotsugu listed that NBTHK stated in their text. Now to make it tricky Fujishiro actully has 2 Hirotsugu that are listed as jō-saku. They are listed in Bunmei (1469-1487) and Eishō (1504-1521). Maybe Markus has combined these two smiths under one smith in his index entry. So it can be tricky as all of these various sources have slightly different information about the Hirotsugu smiths. The Hirotsugu in Jūyō 20 book NBTHK specifies that item as Meiō period work. Unfortunately I don't have book 61 that would have 2 signed Hirotsugu. Also NBTHK has sometimes upgraded their view on things over the years which is only reasonable. So for some smiths there can be genealogy differences if you compare for example Jūyō 12 text and Jūyō 68 text (just hypothetical example but there has been increase of knowledge in 50 or so years)

There are swords that pass through Jūyō by smiths that are not even featured in Fujishiro. It is not surprising as there have been thousands of smiths throughout history. However it is good guideline that smiths who are generally rated highly are more likely to pass through Jūyō, however it does not always maybe hold through as NBTHK might have differing opinions from Fujishiro. For example in this thread is discussion about Shiga-Seki Kanenobu (兼延) who is jō-saku smith in Fujishiro, however there have only been 3 swords by him that have made Jūyō. These are the smiths from last 3 Jūyō books that are not featured in Fujishiro (I only did a quick check from Seskos Index and did not check each one from my Fujishiro) 67 Tegai Kanetsugu 3rd 包次 Sōshū Hirotsugu (late Muromachi) 広次 Mino Takatane 高植 Fukuoka Ichimonji Chikafusa 近房 Reisen Sadamori 貞盛 Bungo Norisada 則貞 Heianjō Yasuhiro 安広 68 Ko-Bizen Kunitsugu 国継 Ko-Bizen Kunitsuna 国綱 Ko-Bizen Sadakane 定包 Bizen Saneyori (late Kamakura) 真依 Ko-Aoe Tsuneyoshi 経義 Reisen Sadamori 貞盛 69 Senjuin Mitsumasa 光正 Osafune Shigeyoshi 3rd 重吉 Out of these only Reisen Sadamori was surprising (for him I needed to open my Fujishiro) as many others are really rare smiths. However Reisen Sadamori has 22 Jūyō swords (2 signed short swords and 20 mumei long swords)

I am just on my phone so away from references but the signature would seem to be 備州住助家 / 永仁六年 Bishū jū Sukeie / Einin 6th year (1298) The rarer form of 州 used but I cant easily find that kanji on my phone.

My condolences to family and friends. I remember 20+ years ago as a young kid when I sent him a first private message at Sword Forum International, bit nervous but I was so happy that he replied. He was kind to help people with various topics and could scale his explanations so that discussion was possible with everyone.

I believe these are the fittings that are on your sword Tsuba: https://www.seidoshop.com/products/minosaka-tsuba-washi-tm001 Menuki: https://www.seidoshop.com/products/minosaka-menuki-kuromon-m013 Fuchi & Kashira: https://www.seidoshop.com/products/minosaka-fuchi-kashira-higo-karakusa-fkm105 I would assume it is an iaito, and possibly made by Minosaka brand. I think many places sell these, for example Tozando, Seidoshop etc. You can see Tozando Higo Koshirae iaito has these same fittings but different tsuba: https://tozandoshop.com/collections/minosaka-iaito/products/minosaka-higo-koshirae-iaito however for long time it has been possible to customize iaito, so you can see the selectable basic tsuba options have the Eagle tsuba as 1st one in options. Also when you showed the 2nd nakago picture on the side without markings to me that looks like the iaito nakago I have personally seen. Unfortunately I haven't really been checking martial arts equipment for last 10 years or so as that is not my thing.

To me it seems like very nice sword based on the oshigata, I like it. However I think the sword has been shortened. Like Ray I think the lower ana is the original one. While that might not be a huge deal for me personally I think for Jūyō shinsa it could be a major point. There are only 3 Kanenobu (兼延) swords that have passed Jūyō. In sessions 41, 49 and 58 (unfortunately I don't have the 58 book yet but I will post the 2 others). They are both ubu and you can see that 41 session sword is hitatsura like yours. I have never sent anything to shinsa but I think I would just enjoy it with current papers it has.