Jussi Ekholm

Very nice gift and it is good to enjoy and research it.

It was Jūyō sword but in current state with hagire I don't think it would pass even Hozon shinsa. I checked the Jūyō 23 book and the item is featured there. One or two times from shady sellers from Japan there have been faked Jūyō book entries with the items. Japanese swords are not too tough in general so someone might have dropped it to the floor etc. and that might have resulted in hagire. Even though there has been lots of criticism by some towards the few sessions in 2X Jūyō shinsa where lots of items passed, I am pretty sure they would not let this sword pass with hagire like that. I feel the item in current state would be extremely low value, what keeps the price so high is the old Jūyō paper. I remember Darcy and few others were forming a theory you can find some good older posts about it. In short it would generally be summarized that a Jūyō sword would have minimum price of X - just because it is a Jūyō, regardless of the actual quality of the item. So even though the item in eBay post in current state to me would be almost worthless, the seller still is asking for Jūyō price for it.

I struggle in understanding kodachi, as to me they are a peculiar type of swords. So far I have documented 158 kodachi from late Heian - early Muromachi periods. There is a lot of variety in them in shape and size. Some are short and fairly wide while some are long and narrow, and there will be an item for most of the possible varieties in between. I saw several kodachi this summer in Japan, including the Rai Kunitoshi kodachi that is one of the national treasures of Futarasan-jinja. I just don't seem to grasp these where as I do love their opposite, ōdachi. For Norimune I currently have documented only 8 signed tachi by him. Only 1 of them is in private ownership, others are in various museums, shrines etc. in Japan.

So far I have documented 3 dated items by Aoe Ietsugu. 1357 dated tantō 1367 dated ōnaginata 1386 dated tachi I am not personally a fan of mumei attribution towards specific smiths but that is often the traditional way.

Oh sorry if it came out that way. I do feel your sword could have a legitimate signature. By timeline I would think it could be potentially one of many Tomoshige smiths working during the late Muromachi period. I just don't think it would be work of the early & famous Fujishima Tomoshige smiths. I do think there were some Tomoshige smiths unrelated to Fujishima school too working during that period in time.

I would feel similarily to Kirill that late Muromachi is a plausible time guess. I have been tracking signed items by early generations of Fujishima Tomoshige (Nanbokuchō - Early / early midish Muromachi). I believe I so far have 45 signature references, and only 1 tachi is signed 友重作 Tomoshige saku, and that signature is bit different to my eye .

Unfortunately I cannot find this particular smith in any of the swordsmith indexes. I cannot find a Yasuhiro smith who would sign like this. One thing to consider is also the very long length and lack of curvature. As the sword has been shortened by considerable amount it would likely be 85cm+ in original form. I feel my thought might wander towards kinnōtō, however that is just total speculation and the nakago looks fair bit older than I would think for them. Of course there were some long and straightish katana produced in multiple periods, just that they were bit outside of the norm.

While bit difficult to say from pictures alone, I would think the sword is ubu, original length. To me it just looks like the most logical thing, I would feel it is a Muromachi period sword, I cannot pinpoint mid, late etc as even the experts at NBTHK gave Uda attribution, which in my books puts it to mid-late Muromachi. I think swords are very often stated to be ō-suriage by dealers, however I am having hard time wrapping my head how some of those swords would be ō-suriage. Even though Nobuo Nakahara might have some bit controversial thoughts I like that he points out how ubu vs. ō-suriage should be studied as some are made to look like they were shortened. That however is not problem with your sword. I do think it is an honest sword in original form. Of course I could be wrong and the dealers correct but I would feel this is original shape. No faking or shady business going, I would just feel there was misinformation by dealers.

Thanks for looking it up, unfortunately I made an error in the index that I now corrected. The item in session 46 is actually a tantō. Unfortunately I don't yet have the book for 65 session but indeed there seems to be a second tantō with earlier 1398 date but I don't yet have good info about it. I believe both would be works of the 2nd generation if the historical timeline would be correct. For working times of the smiths Seskos index gives Eiwa (永和, 1375-1379) and Nihontō Meikan gives Shōhei (正平, 1346-1370) for the first generation. And both give Ōei for 2nd generation.

I believe Enju Kunifusa in general is a quite new attribution that NBTHK uses for mumei items. So far this is the only sword I have seen feature it. I needed to check the background of Enju Kunifusa as I was not that aware of him. It seems there were 2 generations. I only have 1 single signed item on record, a tantō dated 1418. So the smith is extremely rare.

I think what Jacques and Hamfish said above is fitting to traditional Japanese appreciation. It is much too complex for me to really understand and as I personally am not oriented on quality (and I cannot fully see and understand it) but items that personally speak to me. I actually wrote a post to this yesterday but ended up scrapping it as it is really punching above my weight class. In overall I think books tend to be focused on the highly appreciated schools so reading common references will give more and more exposure to high ranked schools. Aoe school has many very highly ranked smiths, and it does span for a long time from late Heian period into Muromachi. In general I do think Aoe is very highly respected in overall but I think the very late Aoe smiths of early Muromachi get pretty much no respect in sword appreciation. I do think sometimes following rankings might leave some amazing smiths and swords unchecked. Futarasan-jinja has for example amazing tachi by Aoe smith Yukitsugu (行次), amazing 87,2 cm ubu tachi from early Kamakura in great polish. Yet the sword is "only" prefecture Bunkazai, not national level. Also I think my favorite sword I saw at Tokyo National Museum was 86,0 cm tachi by Moritsugu (守次) that is dated 1356. The sword is Jūyō Bunkazai (of course extremely high rank) but I much preferred it over the 2 National treasures they had on display. I just cannot yet understand either the Yukimitsu Kokuhō tantō nor the Kikkō Sadamune Kokuhō. I saw several Sadamune that I preferred personally over the Kikkō Sadamune, still it is just my lack of understanding the fine details. Likewise I absolutely loved the unranked Ōmiya Morikage naginata that Tokyo National Museum had on display this year, I was so thrilled to see it as it has been very difficult to dig info of it. Crazy to say but I would prefer it over National treasures too... Awataguchi school has produced some amazing items and it is held in super high regard. I still remember seeing the Nakigitsune wakizashi by Awataguchi Kuniyoshi many years ago as it is super item. However now I've seen the Awataguchi Kuniyasu JūBi tachi of NBTHK two years in a row, and the worksmanship of it is to my eye not what usually is expected from Awataguchi. Similarily I remember seeing another signed Awataguchi that did not feature the super fine quality usually associated with the school. However as my memory is slightly fuzzy on this as years have passed I cannot say confidently which tantō it was. For Yamato tradition Taima is also often very highly valued. However with Taima the lack of signed items is to be noted. However there are many very fine mumei swords attributed as Taima. Personally I like Bizen a lot as there are so many schools within the tradition and so many of the items are signed making studying the works much easier than many others. However has Bizen is such a huge amount of items remaining you will have to slice it to much smaller pieces as there are just so many branches within. This summer I saw several amazing signed works by "lower ranked" Bizen smiths that without signature I believe would be attributed to much higher ranking smiths. That is for me exactly why I value the signatures so much as they give us reference points for the smith. I do agree with some of the things what I wrote 7 years ago to that thread but on some things my view on things has evolved a bit, perhaps I could say I know more stuff now than I did in 2017 and I think that is a good thing. Still I think I have 0 interest on the financial side of things as I cannot ever collect at that level, and I want to focus on the swords not the money.

There is a Kanagu set for Sekijoken Motozane, item 121 in Jūyō session 54. It features tsuba, kozuka and fuchi & kashira. I don't think there is a single item by Ishiyama Mototada that has passed Jūyō evaluation.

Amazing work Dale

Glen Cordner did a great compilation for tsuba in here: You can see this list up until session 66 I shared few years ago in here. So you can search all the items you want. Unfortunately like always with so massive amount of data gathered over a long period of time there are always some errors. I have been correcting them every year when I find them, most of them have been minor mistakes but still irritating me a lot when I find them. Hopefully after the next session when we get to 70 I will have corrected most of previous mistakes and I can update the info with a current up to date file. Fittings are not my thing so there could be mistakes in names, that is why I write the Japanese characters, so they will be correct.

Very nice work John!

Sent you a PM and also what Andreas said above. I think pretty much all groups would be really happy to get new enthusiasts and potentially members as this is such a minor hobby.

Thanks for the pictures Thomas, looks like there were many interesting items in those pics.

I would think similarily to Kirill that late Muromachi Shimada would a direction worth looking into. Impossible to say anything from those pictures but that would be what I would look over Nanbokuchō Sōshū.

It is very interesting item. NBTHK has attributed that sword to Ko-Bizen Hidezane, and Tanobe has written sayagaki for it. Nihontō Meikan lists him as c. Middle Kamakura period smith. This is actually the only sword that I have seen from Ko-Bizen Hidezane anywhere. Hidezane is extremely rare signature in old swords. I know 1 signed tachi of Senjuin Hidezane and the smith I haven't seen mentioned in any smith references. I think he would also be a Kamakura period smith.

Congratulations Manuel!

I might be way above my head here but I do think it is interesting signature. I wanted to get home first before trying to tackle it as I have all my available references in here. However unfortunately I cannot find a clue towards this smith. I would see the signature potentially as 出雲国住中村金左衛門X - Izumo no kuni jū Nakamura Kinzaemon X (X could be potentially be a form of Kuni?) In this I would think Nakamura Kinzaemon would be the personal name of the smith. However unfortunately I cannot find such smith anywhere and Kinzaemon seems to be extremely rare in swordsmith names, and for family names Nakamura seems to be pretty much family lineage in Satsuma province. However there are few later Izumo smiths who seem to have signatures in style Izumo (place name) jū (personal name).

Thank you for the recommendation Peter. Have to keep an eye out for this.

Might be the pictures or my limited understanding but I dont find that blade very appealing to me. When I look at it I just keep looking at the horimono. While I dont have deep knowledge of the school, I have seen many Masashige works with what I feel is much higher quality. For me the size of this is a definate big + and combined with horimono it is nice combination. Still I feel I personally might rather enjoy shorter blades of what I see as better quality of Masashige more than this long one.

Looking at the pictures at airport. Identifying fine details is not my strong point but I would think the general direction people are thinking is plausible. However for me the differences between schools sometimes feel very tiny. One thing to note that the sword could have been shortened quite a bit as it is now only 51 cm. I think the lower hole might not be the original either. If it is the sword would be c. 60 cm in blade length. With shortened blades it is often bit tricky trying to imagine the possible original shape for the item.

Nice looking koshirae. I personally like doeskin.