Jussi Ekholm

While completely out of my level and out of reach here is bit additional info on the 2 above items. They both passed Tokubetsu Jūyō 28 shinsa and were sent in by same person. Both swords were re-evaluated at Jūyō 49 with added on Kunzan kinzōgan. I believe at Jūyō 49 there were 4 previous Jūyō that all had Kunzan kinzōgan addons (since their original Jūyō pass) that were sent in by same family (however different than submitter at TJ28). The Yukimitsu originally passed Jūyō 8 as mumei Yukimitsu and the Norishige was originally passed Jūyō 24 as mumei Norishige. These are top tier items for top tier collectors. However I think personally I would rather have 10 good items compared to 1 top item. It is a choice of preference and unfortunately I probably will never achieve either one. Apart from those 2 items there are lots of items in the catalog that I find much more appealing to my own taste. There will be wonderful items at DTI, happy for everyone who will get a chance to visit there.

It is very interesting item, thanks for posting it Gerry. Unfortunately I have no clue about the price it will reach but as it is Yahoo auction by Eirakudō I am pretty sure they pull it off and don't sell it through Yahoo JP. One note about the sword, that is my speculation is that I believe the mei that it had was removed. At least it looks like that when looking at NBTHK paper. There is a Hon'ami sayagaki for Munechika (I think dated 1982 [Shōwa 57]) and I think it may have originally been signed Munechika. I would think the signature would have been thought to be gimei and it was possibly removed to achieve NBTHK papers. Now if this has happened like that I am very sad. I would rather have the tachi with gimei signature and no appraisal papers, than mei removed and with NBTHK attribution papers. Of course the second option is financially much more desirable but now the sword is forever altered.

Sorry for the bit cryptic message but the discussion got the idea I was after, that sword would either be greatly shortened or original length. Now this following is just purely speculating from measurements and pictures alone and perhaps far from truth. I personally would think the sword being greatly shortened. As the sword has massive motohaba measurement and fairly large sakihaba measurement, I would think it would have been sent to shinsa as potential Nanbokuchō blade. It is my personal guess that several wide mumei swords that get attributed to various Takada smiths might have been sent in with hopes of them passing as Nanbokuchō work. That is just my own speculation with no facts to back that up. I like the item regardless of the attribution and NBTHK panel sure knows lot more than me. The unfortunate thing financially is that there is quite a large price difference between mumei late Muromachi sword and mumei Nanbokuchō sword is similar condition and comparable level of attribution. I see it as nice and wide blade that I think would have been 80+cm in original length. Hamon looks wild and interesting on this one. As there is not too much curvature in general I think it would have been similarily curved originally. Of course I could be completely wrong in this line of thought if the sword would be in original size currently.

Nothing wrong with Bungo Takada at all. If your sword also has been attributed to a specific smith then it is most likely an interesting one. One thing you can think about is, where is the original hole on the tang?

NBTHK has certain standards that they have. Of course with 75,000+ Tokubetsu Hozon swords there might be some that are outliers. In general if you have a mumei sword with Tokubetsu Hozon it would be early Muromachi at latest. Fuyuhiro being mostly late Muromachi period school in general attributions, then the mumei items with that attribution will mostly stop at Hozon. There are 10 Jūyō swords by Fuyuhiro but they are all signed.

Jake has had multiple very nice swords for sale. In the view of NBTHK as they judge it as mumei Fuyuhiro then Hozon is as far as it will advance in their ranking. The item looked nice as far as I remember it.

NBTHK just uses two categories in results. Usually in the Jūyō books, Book 1 is Kotō and Book 2 is all other stuff, swords generalized as Shintō followed by koshirae & fittings. There are currently some items that are made in 1900´s that have passed Jūyō evaluation. Gassan Sadakazu (貞一) has 3 blades 1906, 1906 and 1908. There is an uchigatana koshirae that has a tsuba by Gotō Mitsumasa dated 1905, meaning the package as such cannot be older than that. There is also a daishō tsuba by Hashimoto Isshi dated 1901. I believe only criteria of NBTHK is that they don't judge work of living smiths. I suspect some Tokubetsu Hozon items by quite modern smiths have been sent in for Jūyō but that is purely my speculation. I admit I have spent way too many hours with Jūyō results and some cases I still don't understand why they pass Jūyō. Just seeing the item & description in book does not give total picture, however in Japan I have seen several Jūyō that were not that special to be honest. I have never sent an item to NBTHK and unfortunately I think I might not send even in the future. As HB described above sending a sword internationally seems to be getting extremely stressful lately. Even though I have addiction in sword info and NBTHK Jūyō books are amazing resources, in general I am not a fan of multiple levels of evaluation papers in separate sessions. Of course that is NBTHK proven to work style and it brings money in. I would just personally wish it would be a single session where the sword would be evaluated and given the paper level at the same time. I believe the shinsa staff will remember many items that have been sent in multiple times. Of course that information is not really open to public how many times item X has been sent in etc. As items need to currently be Tokubetsu Hozon for Jūyō submission it would be extremely easy for them to make a file with the Tokubetsu Hozon numbers of the items that have been sent in, so it would be even super fast to check up as I believe they operate with very small time window for each shinsa.

Thanks for posting this Erik I hadn't seen this item before. Other above me will know lot more than me about fine details. Unfortunately for me the blade is very uninspiring in size & shape, as well as in condition. I think the only reason for the price is that it has the den Norishige attribution. Give it something like Kodai Hōju or generic Uda (Muromachi attributions), and it would be 3,000-4,000$. I know financially this would be an opportunity for many to get a Norishige attributed blade, as they tend to go for very high prices as mentioned above. However I would personally aim for better quality & condition item for much lesser smith for that amount of money, as I would see it as much more enjoyable option.

Large sized Kuniyoshi (国吉) signature would indeed be pointing towards Enju Kuniyoshi. The signature placement is also good sign in my books. It seems to be relatively short one if the listings 68,6 cm is correct. So far I have only found 11 signed tachi by Enju Kuniyoshi and only 3 of them are ubu. 79,1 cm one of Kasuga Taisha 78,0 cm one that passed Jūyō 15 76,1 cm one of Ise Jingū Will be interesting to see more of the sword, and even if some big issues arise it would still be very important reference item if genuine.

I think the Jūyō results would pop up around early December at NBTHK website.

Hopefully you were not too disheartened. I feel your sword is still interesting authentic Japanese sword. It would be fun to try to figure it out better but it would require some much more qualified people than me to identify the details and make a good guess on what the sword actually is and around what time it was made.

Thanks for posting this Piers, that was unknown ōdachi to me. Unfortunately it is of quite late make but really intresting none the less. While numerical measurement of sori can give a good basic idea, there are factors that affect the feeling of sori despite numbers stating factual info. The placement of sori on the blade, nakago-sori etc. factors can affect the perceived curvature even though actual numbers would disagree on that. You can have two swords of identical length and measureable sori but when placed side by side they can seem very different due to other affecting factors.

Also that certificate is a basic form (variations of which) multiple Chinese replica forges use to provide authencity paper with their sword. The certificate is not made for your sword, as all the info is incorrect when looking your sword vs the certificate. As I've been out of replica sword game for a long time I cannot identify the specific maker you can see that this sword was finished in 2024 at the end of paper. I would be very cautious if something like this would be featured with the sword you bought. As to me there would be two possibilities either the seller would be completely ignorant, or the seller would be shady. Depending on the seller I think both would be negative traits in this field. I can't figure out how something like this would be added on to the item by mistake. Thank you for the translation Piers, I was rolling options bit like that in my head but couldn't get it really correct.

The smith we are discussing currently is Senju'in Yoshihiro (吉広). In all my research I have only been able to find a single signed and dated short sword by this smith. It is dated 1343, and in the item description it is said signed items by this smith are extremely rare and that it could be the only signed short sword by this smith. In the description there is a mention of old oshigata where 1341 dated sword is featured. I cannot read that part properly where there is thoughts about it so I typed it here Unfortunately I would feel that signature on yours would not be a genuine one. I would expect a tachi mei on the sword, and a different sized and shaped sword in original shape. Also the work style does not seem as Yamato Senju'in school to me at all. I would feel like Kirills guess of something like late Muromachi would be a good one.

I think the fact that main core Sōshū works lack signed & dated work. from Yukimitsu, Masamune & Sadamune there are extremely few dated items and it makes researching quite difficult. Then For Hiromitsu, Akihiro and onwards you will find lots of signed & dated swords. I feel when making statements like in the link that "there are dated works by Gō Yoshihiro before studying with Masamune" it would be extremely important to give a source of that information or provide a reference item. I have all of these following items featured in my references. Shintōgo Kunimitsu 10 dated works 1294 - 1324 Shintōgo Kunihiro 2 dated works 1318 & 1324 Yukimitsu 1 dated work 1322 Masamune 1 dated work 1328 Sadamune 2 dated works 1335 & 1361 Norishige 6 dated works 1314 - 1328 And for the sake of this discussion 2 Senju'in Yoshihiro smiths that I have data for Yoshihiro (義弘) 2 dated works 1353 & 1358 Yoshihiro (吉広) 1 dated work 1343 One difficult thing when we are discussing lesser known smiths in English, that there can be several Japanese characters that read out same way in English. I checked my sword books for various Senju'in Yoshihiro smiths Yoshihiro (義弘) there are supposedly 2 smiths working c. 1350 , 1400 Yoshihiro (吉広) 1 smith c. 1345 Yoshihiro (吉弘) 1 smith c. 1350 Yoshihiro (義広) 5 smiths working c. 1230 , 1275 , 1335, 1345, 1469 However I believe when NBTHK etc. speak of Senju'in Yoshihiro (義弘) they would refer to c. 1350 working smith. I don't think I have any of the other Senju'in Yoshihiro smiths being referenced anywhere excluding the 1 (1343) dated work from the other smith.

I have pretty much zero knowledge on AI but I would think in the future the possibilities are going way above my head. However on personal level I just love researching stuff, I will keep doing the same thing even though AI will at some point surpass my own capabilities. Even at the current level, if for example AI would have access all the reference books I have in my personal library it could provide amazing info. Bit scary to even think about what it would be able to do with so much high quality information and data.

Thanks for the report Emil, must have been a wonderful experience.

I cannot comment on the construction style debate as it goes well above my knowledge. I think there might be even various views by experts in Japan on the subject too. For Tōken Bijutsu if there will be magazine number provided I can check the article. There are some extremely technical articles in the magazines over the years but as that is not that interesting to me personally I haven't noted them down and with 600+ magazines in shelf finding some randomly takes bit too much time. However Jacques is correct regarding Nihontō Meikan. It is focused purely on documenting swordsmiths. To bring the discussion little bit back to original topic. I think sometimes even extreme rarity is not valued that highly compared to established smith that are considered to be at high level. Here is a link to a tachi that is so far the only item of Yamato smith Yoshimasa (吉正) that I have been able to find. As you can see even the experts have slightly varying views as NBTHK goes for Senju'in and Tanobe goes for Tegai. Of course not huge difference in the attributions. The sword might not win any beauty prizes but I would much rather have it than just another Tadahiro katana for example. It also comes down to preferences in valuation. The big Japanese dealers are extremely knowledgeable on prices and getting huge deals will be difficult as they know the market most likely much better than us. However I think pricing one of a kind items might be extremely tricky, there are lots of old smiths by whom signed remaining work is extremely difficult to find. However they can be gotten much much cheaper than Nagamitsu, Rai Kunitoshi etc. from whom there are well over 150+ signed examples remaining to this date.

I was happy to read the posts in the thread and learning many things from here, even though some advanced info is difficult to grasp and understand. I know I chose Hizen Tadahiro as an example and I do not understand nearly enough about Hizen to say anything, that is why it is interesting to read the advanced posts. This might seem really ignorant thing to say but personally for me all of the 3 Tadahiro swords in my example looked pretty much them in overall. Now after reading the great posts that discussed the swords in detail I am able to realize some differences but not enough to me personally. In overall I would agree that the one with the cutting test would have best quality, however I still like the one with horimono more. I think the cutting tests are very rare and they add a lot of prestige to the blade. I feel it might have potential to advance in NBTHK rank, however the more I look into Jūyō items the less I seem to figure out why some items pass... To me it seems extremely complicated and the NBTHK standards today might not be the same as they were 20-30 years ago for example. I like to have actual reference examples in discussions as I find it helpful and I hope others will find it too. While theoretical examples are sometimes fun, discussing some actual items is fun too. I did a small search on Tadahiro swords that are currently in the available market, I think I found something around 25-30 swords quite easily. However I found only 1 Jūyō sword currently for sale. Of course these are all just online listings by dealers with modern NBTHK papers, and the actual number of authentic swords for sale is a lot higher. There are so many Hizen Tadahiro swords surviving to this day I can't even guess the total number. Of course big battles and wars were not going on during the Edo period. Here is the sword from Jūyō session 50 that is being currently sold for 6,6M: https://iidakoendo.com/4573/ Of course Iida pictures are always like this and you can't really say anything from it. Personally I am not wowed by that particular sword at all and I would take the 2M sword from Aoi with horimono over this one, if purely going for personal taste. With items like this you will probably need very high Hizen knowledge and appreciation to really get the most out of them. Items like these are not for me, I have understood that fine details are not for what appeal to me (which might be contrary to high level Japanese sword appreciation). Now here is a TH sword that to me is absolutely amazing. It comes with a price tag of 5,8M and is joint work of Tadahiro and Mutsu Tadayoshi: https://www.kusanaginosya.com/SHOP/164.html This sword looks amazing to me immidiately when I look at it. I would choose this rather than the above Jūyō without blinking an eye. Of course impossible to fully judge and understand from pictures but I would feel sword like this might have a shot at Jūyō, as it seems to me to be high quality craftsmanship combined it being a joint work. For the fun ending and coming back to reality if I would by miracle some day choose trying to get a Hizen sword it would most likely be around the "lower" level item like this Hozon example wakizashi tagged at 580k yen. https://www.toukenkomachi.com/index_ja_tachi&katanaA040324.html As I don't really appreciate Hizen or Edo period items I cannot justify putting money from small budget towards something I would not want. And I posted this item to also show that you can find even signed items by some famous smith for reasonable amount of investment. Of course with the lower investment you will not get the best quality items but it is only normal. It is fun to see how huge the range is for Hizen Tadahiro and you can definately find something from low-mid-high tier to satisfy you Hizen desire.

There have been excellent posts made above. I think I will just expand this with various examples, as I will have plenty of those to add substance to some of the various points made in posts made to this thread. I made the Hizen Tadahiro comparison just to show some variety. Given they would all be priced equally I would personally choose the one with horimono & koshirae. However these swords are all of size and shape that I would not buy. To me personally I do not find this shape & size interesting and I would look for something else. Like Jacques I don't like to talk about the price of items that much. Of course I am in fortunate/unfortunate spot I cannot buy anything for several years, so for me it would all be speculative stuff anyways. And I do think sometimes we might get too attached to attribution the sword has been papered to or the level of papers by organization etc. Historical provenance is highly sought after, yet blades with proven historical provenance are pretty difficult to obtain to the collection. I am currently doing lots of research on provenance of famous old swords and there are still lots and lots of blades that have varying from of provenance. Sometimes I am not absolutely certain how the Japanese experts can connect the dots on some swords & provenance but I bow to their authority. I have only quite recently started being fascinated with this and there is so much to research and learn, I am bit shamed to admit I have previously overlooked this subject. Blades with proven provenance will be available for buying but they are often high quality items which of course puts them in expensive price bracket. I completely agree what @dyn @Mushin wrote about zaimei & mumei earlier in the thread. However there can be curveballs where other factors override the signature. For the smith Rai Kunitoshi, here is a signed tantō: http://web.archive.o....net/SHOP/O-225.html that was listed for 2,7M asking price, and here is a mumei tantō attributed to him: https://eirakudo.sho.../tanto/detail/750496 that was 3,5M asking price. Both items being Tokubetsu Hozon, and in my opinion they are now at their current end level with NBTHK classification. I couldn't see either of them going any higher. Small disagreements with attributions are perfecly understandable, as kantei for mumei blades is extremely difficult. Something like Mihara Masaie vs. Aoe I could very well understand. Here is another example that I found interesting as it was long very old tachi https://yushindou.com/生ぶ無銘太刀（伝古青江）（古波平）白鞘/. NBTHK attribution was Ko-Naminohira and NTHK attribution Ko-Aoe. Now while they might seem very different to me there is not too big difference between them. If I would had somehow acquired that item, would had been fun to send to Tanobe for 3rd opinion and see what he thinks of it. Unfortunately I am not yet that aware of NTHK attributions and I only have 1 of their 4 Yushu books. I plan to get all of them some day. However there are items with both NBTHK and NTHK attributions. Some of the famous so far might be Norishige tantō, Motoshige tachi, Yasumitsu tachi that are both Tokubetsu Jūyō and NTHK Yushu. Also I think there will be very high level experts in Japan even if the old guard passes. Of course often in Japanese way the students feel they can never surpass their teachers. However I would give props to modern generation of NBTHK staff too, reading the Jūyō setsumei, Tōken bijutsu magazine etc. I feel comfortable with their expertise as it far surpasses mine. Also what I have heard there are multiple unaffiliated experts in Japan too, and they teach too, so I feel confident the next generation of sword researchers keep it going. I have never met any of the top Japanese experts, just read their knowledge from books and I think same will happen in the future too. While the old experts had/have their mountain of knowledge, they were generous in sharing it and we have ever expanding amount of data in various easy to access forms currently. While it is possible some information will be gone, there are new things being discovered and researched.

It is very complicated subject and sometimes the asking price can be whatever the seller decides it to be. In ideal world the sword should be the deciding factor for price. However things like apprasing organization, who the dealer is etc. will of course affect the price. Likewise the perceived value & rank of swordsmith to whom it is appraised to for mumei items for example. If you get a desirable attribution from NBTHK the price will go up, get a lower tier one you might have difficulties in getting a good price. As it currently stands NBTHK appraisals have a huge impact in the market. You get attribution to a top smith for a mumei blade, it will be very valuable with just Hozon certification. Then another mumei sword with lower attribution even if it would have passed the Jūyō shinsa it might not be at the same level in pricing. Here are few items to show some differences Hizen Tadahiro is a very famous smith, here are 3 sword by him, all 69-70cm. Prices are 1M 2M 3M yen and all the items are Tokubetsu Hozon by NBTHK. I do not know much about Hizen as I focus on early stuff but I know which from these three I would personally pick up if price was not a factor. https://www.aoijapan...kubetsu-hozon-token/ https://www.aoijapan...kubetsu-hozon-token/ https://www.aoijapan...kubetsu-hozon-token/ Here is the mumei Jūyō vs. Tokubetsu Hozon to show bit what I was talking earlier. Jūyō Senjuin is 3,5M yen and Tokubetsu Hozon Ko-Kyōmono is 8,5M https://eirakudo.sho...katana/detail/289562 https://eirakudo.shop/084932 Truth to be told I do not like either of them that much. There are dozens of much cheaper items that I would rather take than either of those two. However it is just variation in appreciation and possibly my lack of fine refined taste.

Now I am someone who collects sword books, yet still I wouldn't recommend getting a huge amount of them in the beginning. Getting some is perfectly fine and recommended, just blowing thousands of dollars on books in the beginning is not really feasible. However to me personally owning a huge reference library is more benefical than owning a Jūyō sword. Unfortunately here in Finland the reality of having hands on experience with high quality items is extremely rare. Getting to meetings in Europe would be one way to go but as travelling is somewhat expensive, I plan to cut travelling in Europe to extend my yearly visit to Japan. Here are some things that for me are facts about books vs. real life. - Even in Japanese museums the items might not be perfectly presented, and at least with my eyesight & eye for details, it doesn't always work out with fine details. I am happy as overall shape & size is my main thing but I struggle with small details. - With books you can spend as much time viewing and studying as you like. Even though I spent a lot of time at few shrines looking at their awesome items, having the books of their collections I can open them any time I like and do research with plenty of time and other books for extra resources. - It is somewhat rare occasion to be able to study multiple items by the same smith side by side. In various NBTHK-EB meetings this has been possible for me. Tōken World in Nagoya has the most swords I have ever seen at one place. However due to their layout their items are scattered in various rooms and display cases. For example they had 4 Rai Kunitoshi blades, 3 Chōgi etc. however difficult to compare the items. Then as I have huge amount of books I can pull a massive amount of Chōgi blades side by side and have a good study with all the background info about the items featured in books. Of course seeing the items in person would be amazing but having the possibility to pull huge number of items by smith X to study is amazing, even though pictures and text only. However I do think Jacques is correct in some things. - It is a fact that enthusiasts in Japan have the opportunity to advance knowledge very fast. I have personally seen friends advance really fast with access to top class teachers with super high knowledge. That way you will learn things that would be next to impossible to learn just from books. - In order to understand kantei you need to see and view swords (with a teacher if possible). My own knowledge is theoretical vs. real knowledge as I have not seen enough items in hand. So always it is extremely nice opportunity to view swords with the owner, or experienced people who can tell more about the sword(s). I would strongly recommend reading the forum a lot, there is a lot of knowledge in this forum and threads. I think having an open mind to learning is important. Often when visiting here I learn something new, I remember reading few nice tidbits even this current week that I try to remember in the future.

I feel you had wonderful experince Lewis. Many people me included would love to experience things like this, and I am very happy you are posting info about the items and pictures to the community. Uncovering items and studying them is something that is very rare to experience. Personally I would not be that stressed about the quality of the items, just the experience in general would be a special one. Even though some blades would not be what they were described to be, they could still be nice items in general. It is extremely difficult to judge from just the picture of the mei alone. I do think the Kanesada could very well be a plausible signature. I am not liking the Sadatsugu / Masanori signature. I am not liking the Yukihira signature either, I could think that if it is a legitimate signature it might be some unknown much later Yukihira. Of course this is all just speculation based on single picture of signature and I am not even well versed on any of the smiths in question. Still in general it is extremely fun to research and look into the subject together as a group

For signatures I would guess 1. 兼貞 - Kanesada 2. 備州長船XX / 天正XX年八月日 - Bishū Osafune XX (c.1573-1592), cannot identify smith or year with certainity. 3. 越前国下坂貞次 / 大和大掾藤原正則 - Echizen no Kuni Shimosaka Sadatsugu / Yamato no Daijō Fujiwara Masanori 4. 行平作 / Yukihira Saku

I believe he did achieve the Mukansa title in 1981. You can find him in Tōken World list, and you can read his bio: https://www.touken-world.jp/tips/12869/