Jussi Ekholm

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.

Thanks for posting this Reinhard.

With just seeing that one picture without any other info I would guess Hankei (繁慶) and Early Edo period. However as I am not that skilled in technical details it would be very hard for me to describe the features that are actually seen in the picture.

I would guess Tosa Yoshimitsu (吉光) would be the first direction that I would look into and later part of Muromachi smiths of the lineage. When you search you should be able to find several tiny reference tantō like the one you have.

Unfortunately I have stopped using Instagram so going through the photos there is impossible but I believe this should be the smith who made this sword. https://www.instagram.com/yoh.miyairi/

Unfortunately I cannot identify a masterpiece amongst very good quality swords. I understand my limitations and as Reinhard wrote out so well about Japanese taste and appreciation points, I cannot achieve that understanding. I am limited to my own quite biased appreciation of swords. Just looked out my sword diaries and it seems I have seen 21 National Treasures, and to me it puzzled me as I couldn't even faintly remember all of them. Out of them only 3 swords were items that I immidiately thought that I personally see as masterpieces in my personal taste. Of course I think all National Treasures are masterpieces it is just that I lack understanding and judgement to understand them fully. And many might think that of course they will the 3 ōdachi... well yes an no. I do think the mumei ōdachi attributed to Bungo Tomoyuki is extremely well made for such a huge sword but is it unique when compared to other historical ōdachi. So the 3 most remarkable National Treasures that I have personally seen so far are Tomomitsu ōdachi, Nagayoshi ōdachi and Tokuzenin Sadamune wakizashi. I was also thinking about Kosetsu Samonji tachi but when I spent a lot more time looking at Jūyō Bunkazai tachi by Kanemitsu in the same room, I don't think personally I would classify it as high as the other 3 on my personal list. Fukuyama Art Museum is a crazy place, they had lent 2 of their National Treasures to another museum when I visited but they still had 5 National Treasures on display in their sword room. Now the crazy thing is that I spent about 50% of my time looking at the wonderful Kanemitsu tachi that they have in their collection, to me it was much more interesting than any of their National Treasures. Another difficult thing is to judge the work among the other works of that particular smith. I saw the Daihannya Nagamitsu tachi at Tokyo National Museum this summer. It is a very good sword and definately a masterpiece but I personally cannot really judge it in comparison to other Nagamitsu tachi that I have seen. Same thing with Kanemitsu tachi that I was mentioning there above. Last summer I saw 3 Jūyō Bunkazai tachi, and in my personal appeal they were Fukuyama Art Museum item, Tokyo National Museum item, Mitsui Memorial Museum item. Even though as I said I lack understanding to differentiate items at this very high level but Mitsui Museum one might have been the best one in quality. However for me there is no comparision as the shape of Fukuyama Art Museum sword blew the other 2 JūBu Kanemitsu out of comparison for me. It is also fun to see swords many years after seeing them for the first time and see if perhaps the opinion has changed. Funny thing is that I am not a big fan of Awataguchi work in general (I think it takes much higher level to appreciate), however I still remember seeing the Nakigitsune in Tokyo National Museum many years ago. I don't even remember Masamune etc. that were in the same room, just the Kuniyoshi and Kagemitsu naginata that was in their naginata spot upstairs. For fun thing at the end we can take Yoshifusa (吉房) as the smith. I have found 41 tachi by him and 4 of those are National Treasures. I have seen 5 of his tachi and 2 of the National Treasures but there is no way I could really make a meaningful point about their relative quality amongst each other. Also human perception is a funny thing and at least for me I would optimally need to see the swords side by side, as I have found out that even seeing wonderful swords by the same smith in different location during the same day my memory already fails me. Also from someone with extremely heavy focus on books I can say the swords can look very different in real life at museums/shrines etc. I can even imagine how much more you could some cases see if you would have the opportunity to view the item in hand. Very valuable occasion would be to also look at the items with someone with very good eye. I was fortunate to visit few museums in Tokyo with a fellow member with very good eye for swords, I was so happy he could teach me parts where to specifically look and could offer so valuable insight I could not have gotten just viewing the swords alone. I really struggle with the high art aspect but threads like these are really valuable to learn and broaden the understanding.

Unfortunately metallurgical stuff is my weak point, I am pretty clueless about that. While some signed Hōju swords do feature more standing out pattern and bit rougher appearance they are still quite nice nice worksmanship, some really nice. Then you get these quite rough looking mumei ones that get the attribution. I do think the sword in OP has that "enhanced" look and would look much nicer in more toned down polish. I think the larger hada swirls etc.that can be common in Hōju work style look just so in your face in this current polish. I think it is sometimes difficult to say if the sword has been reworked naginata, shortened tachi/katana or and original shaped item. For me the two possibilities for this one are that this is reworked large shobu-zukuri naginata or an original form shobu-zukuri tachi. The sales description mentions original nakago, which to me might indictate that this would be more like large tachi blade rather than a naginata. I was doing some calculating from the picture and it seems the sword has roughly 30 cm nakago. I could easily seem that this would be fitted with something like 40-60 cm handle, making this tachi/ōdachi/nagamaki hybrid item. I spent quite long time trying to search such reference item from my books as the ōdachi and naginata are my thing. I'm trying to think items I've seen at shrines alongside books and I think perhaps closest fit would be short ōdachi from Itsukushima Jinja, unfortunately I have not yet seen this in person as it was not on display when I visited there. 92 cm blade with c. 26 cm nakago and it has c. 54 cm tsuka. Nakago and tsuka are my estimates from the picture as none of my books with this item have cm value for them. Mostly the ōdachi with 50cm+ tsuka also have 100cm+ blades. Generally naginata & nagamaki tend to have roughly similar sized blade and nakago lengths. And they are often fitted with 80 - 140 cm shafts/handles. There are some naginata with fairly short tangs. So it is somewhat gradual progression from ōdachi to nagamaki/naginata. I would think when it gets close to 50/50 ratio with blade and tsuka/shaft then it starts to be a naginata. Also the ōdachi tsuka in general tend to have varying amounts of curvature while nagamaki shafts/handles tend to be straight or almost straight. Here is interesting Hōju naginata (I was also wishing in 2018-19 I could have bought this). This was also polished when it appeared to another dealer several years later so we can look if we can see difference in some spots This one has blade length of 57,7 cm and 33,6 cm nakago, so nakago is quite a bit shorter bit similar sized to this OP sword but the blade is 20 cm shorter. https://web.archive.org/web/20190308105620/https://www.nipponto.co.jp/swords3/WK327697.htm https://eirakudo.shop/token/wakizashi/detail/799101

As I try to keep track of high level Japanese swords just for my own enjoyment, it is also nice to see that sometimes high end items get donated to various museums and on few occasions also to shrines and other places. To me as a sword enjoyer that is something I adore, as in my travels in Japan I have been able to see several donated items in various museums. Maybe one day I might follow this route too. Of course I understand for sword collectors this might not be seen as wonderful thing as the item is pretty much permanently out of circulation once it lands to a museum.

I would dare to guess that your sword might have been shortened around 8 cm or so. As I believe it is currently bit under 50 cm in blade length it would by my guess originally been bit under 60 cm in length. Of course that is just my speculation but would fit well within the Ōei-Eikyō Bizen size range for borderline wakizashi/katana. With my skills making guesses about individual smiths would be pretty much impossible, as so many smiths worked in very similar style. Here is a Sanemitsu (実光) wakizashi that is 58 cm in length for reference.

I do think the timeline in Sagami province is bit complicated as there are some signed and dated items that are earlier than Shintōgo Kunimitsu work. However I would not maybe consider them as Sōshū tradition swords as the mainline tradition started after active period of these smiths. But personally I tend to go by provinces instead of traditions. There is 1271 dated tachi by Yukimitsu (行光) (not "the" Yukimitsu but an earlier smith) https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/242413 Also a 1280 dated tachi by Mitsufusa (光房) https://bunkazai.pref.yamaguchi.lg.jp/bunkazai/detail.asp?mid=70066&pid=bl Unfortunately I have not seen either of these swords in real life.

It is right up my alley. NBTHK judged it as den Hōju and awarded Tokubetsu Hozon for it. I am personally a big fan of Hōju but it also tends to be an attribution bucket for items of "rougher" side like this one. Bit similar way how I think about Uda attribution is used. Some of the signed Hōju and Uda swords I have seen in museums feature quite nice workmanship, while some mumei work that gets attributed towards them is on rough side. Here are two similar very big naginata-naoshi attributed to Hōju as reference. I was actually hoping there would be a chance I could buy this one. Unfortunately not... this one is now in Funassyi collection and it was just on display at Osafune Sword Museum. Unfortunately they dont feature this sword at 2nd part of the exhibition that starts next week. https://web.archive.org/web/20220920221746/https://www.aoijapan.com/katana-mumeijudged-as-hojunbthk-tokubetsu-hozon-token/ https://www.city.setouchi.lg.jp/site/token/1315.html Here is a second one, these are not the most beautiful items in general but I like them. https://kako.nipponto.co.jp/swords2/KT218307.htm

I think Ray is correct, I would dare to guess the mei would read 談議所西蓮 - Dangisho Sairen, and in your picture the last 4 kanji are seen. So far I have only 3 tachi with Dangisho mei in my references, I know there might be few more but those are the surviving ones I have been able to find.

My opinion might not be popular one but I think often the bit rougher or plainer mumei blades just get an attribution thrown at them as they need to do it fast in shinsa session. I think Yamamura is an unfortunate attribution that for me personally feels that NBTHK sees the sword as lower quality in overall. I tend to think that even the school founder Masanobu is not seen as high quality smith, and very few signed works remain. One funny thing that supports the attribution bucket a bit is that I don't think I have ever seen a long sword with Yamamura attribution, they are always short swords. Good thing about Yamamura attributed blades is that you can touch late Nanbokuchō to early Muromachi blades for relatively low price. Sure they don't win any beauty contests but like this particular one we are only talking about 400,000 yen. As the prices have gone up a bit, it is getting harder to find anything decent and that old for affordable price. It is getting difficult finding anything interesting under 500,000 yen nowdays. I understand the appeal for these hira-zukuri blades of relatively long length, as I too am liking them.

I don't think Rayhan is saying anything that he couldn't reasonably explain where he stands for with good explanations. I wouldn't personally invest money on this sword. In my opinion the vast majority of Japanese swords can be polished, however it is another thing if it is economically reasonable at all to get them polished. Unfortunately I don't know the correct terminology for such horimono placement if there is a specific term. I do think I have seen it done few times, as if there is bo-hi present there is really no other space for carving. Unfortunately I have too many references and I cannot easily find them as I don't remember them well. Here is one historically important naginata-naoshi attributed as work of Yoshioka Ichimonji Sukemitsu, it is signed and dated. However I cannot personally stand the horimono... https://web.archive.org/web/20220112040404/https:/www.aoijapan.com/wakizashi-ichi-bishu-yoshioka-jyu-saecut-after-that/ I was actually thinking/dreaming about buying this one when it was 1,500,000 yen. It has passed through 4 dealers and was 3,500,000 yen at highest asking price I've seen, and latest one was the 2,200,000 yen it was listed at Aoi. It is historically super important item but for my personal collection I would rather have unimportant item that I personally love. Here is a Jūyō sword that I personally dislike because of the carving. It is a signed tachi by Bizen Nagamitsu and most likely a good sword but I cannot get myself to like the sword. https://web.archive.org/web/20230203101526/https://www.samurai-nippon.net/SHOP/V-1979.html This one has also passed through at least 4 different dealers with fluctuation in price, latest one being 11,000,000 yen.

I think it is totally understandable that there are several different forums and closed groups floating around various places. In my ideal world there would be just 1 huge meeting place where everyone would get together and share info freely. Of course real life doesn't work like that... People are people and not everyone will get along, and there are probably studies on why certain groups will form etc. Just checked that my membership here at NMB is closing in 18 years, and to be honest this is one of my favorite places online and has been for a long time. I hope to be a member in here as long as the forum is up. I have met so many amazing people through this forum online and some I have even met in person in various places. I admit that I am too grown into the forum that I feel quite puzzled how people are not joining in for gold membership at such cheap overall price. For me it is about the community in here, maybe the difficult thing is getting the new folks feeling welcome in the community.

The dragon horimono style is called 珠追龍 - Tamaoi Ryū.

My best guess might be 法師 hōshi - priest.

I believe the end of mei is Buddist name Kōshin 法名光心

Here is the item, I believe the actual date is Shōwa 4 正和二二 judged with current research, the old book just has a small error on the date. Unfortunately cannot say anything with real substance about the signatures.