Jussi Ekholm

Looks like it has nice wide shape. Good quality Sanekage works are very nice.

That is absolutely amazing sword. To give some idea about the rarity of Chikafusa (近房) tachi. In all my years of searching I have so far found only 3 signed tachi by this smith. Kyoto National Museum has Jūyō Bunkazai tachi of 74,9 cm There is 70,6 cm tachi that I do not yet know the provenance but it has been published by NBTHK And there is this 70,3 cm Jūyō tachi.

I think it is a decent sword. It has an attribution to quite good smith who has very few signed tachi remaining. Honestly I cannot really tell Nanbokuchō Bizen smiths apart from work style. Personally I don't like the size of this as I would want something bigger if looking for a Nanbokuchō sword. For me that bo-hi would be a large negative in this case, just a personal preference. This sword has been around, and it has been listed at several places. Last time was late November 2024 at Yahoo Auctions: https://buyee.jp/ite.../auction/x1161730631 Still old sales are old sales and some time ago it was on eBay listed with asking price of c.15,000$. I feel the current asking price that Aoi has is perfectly reasonable, just that for that amount of money I would look something else. However Motomitsu attributed swords do not pop up online that often and they are often highly appreciated.

I would agree that changing angles is important. Of these I would choose 4, horisontal edge up and supporting mune with cloth. From the horisontal position you can turn the sword on either side and to me it is the easiest to catch the light at good angle.

The answer is 豊後国行平 Bungo Yukihira and the answers were starting to be quite one sided. I think the text was pointing fairly easily towards Yukihira as so many got the answer right and many even knew the actual sword. This sword is indeed the Jūyō Bunkazai tachi of Futarasan Jinja, and that was one reason I chose this one as I have personally seen it at the shrine in 2023, and their book has fairly good photos. Unfortunately, the photo of a photo didn’t come out too well so text description was better. The sword also has dedication inscription on the blade as it was dedicated to the shrine in 1461. I tried to mask it by taking a sugata picture with flash on top of that. The katana-mei in tachi is usually hinting towards Aoe as many wrote down their reasoning. There are some other smiths that made use of it too. Bungo Yukihira is actually quite rare smith, I have been lucky to see 6 tachi by him in various shrines and museums in Japan. The 3rd oldest dated Japanese sword is made by Yukihira. It has a dated signature of 1205, unfortunately the sword is saiha. I was lucky to see the sword at NBTHK in 2023. It is still a remarkable historical sword. I have so far gotten 46 signed works by Yukihira for data. 31 of these signed swords feature a horimono, so it can be very often seen in the works of this smith. Unfortunately, I lack the understanding in giving out fine details in workmanship. From sugata and written description people were going for early Kamakura which was really good thing. I think Bungo Yukihira might be a rare one for kantei as his blades are so rare and highly appreciated in general. Making these is a lot of fun and I think I will try to come up with another one fairly soon. Perhaps I try to jump out of my comfort zone and not do an old sword next time. However the difficult thing is that as the sword should be typical for the smith, I don’t really know Edo period smiths that well. I’ll try to make an interesting next one too.

You are correct Piers the sword in question was made by Masanori (政則) and what I have read he was Daimyō Akamatsu Masanori. I have few reference signatures by him and they all feature multiple lines in signature. I was just aiming to show how extremely rare character 魚 is in signatures.

I am not qualified to say anything about the language. However I personally believe that was the way it was historically written in signatures. I have probably viewed thousands of KaneX signatures from various sources and that is just by far the most common style. Kashū Kanewaka smiths seem to have used form like this. Very unknown to me smith Mino Kanesada from 1699. He used the very rare form that looks like the modern style. Another very unknown smith to me Kanemune dated 1870. Also looks like the modern form. 魚 seems to be featured in signatures extremely rarely. Here is a signature from 1489 that has it. However the form is completely different than modern version. The line is written as 為魚住又四郎実安. As NBTHK has identified the characters I can type it, however if I see an oshigata like this and no proper Japanese description I would just put X for this character as I cannot read it.

I like it quite a lot, I admit it was on my "watchlist" unfortunately I cannot afford items on my list. As crazy as it sounds for me about the only negative was that there is the illegible katana mei. Perhaps the sword was not that greatly shortened in length. And personally I would want a sword like this to have been a massive one. Here is a link to another kind of similar sword that I was saving up for years ago long before Aoi had it: https://web.archive....-hidemotsumasamitsu/ Shape and size look quite similar to me, of course it too doesn't have the super long blade that I would desire but both have wide sugata.

Should check my own files before posting stuff For years I have just memorized that the Bungo Yukihira 1205 blade is the 2nd oldest dated sword. However it seems that there is a 1201 dated Ko-Bizen tachi, that is fairly recent Jūyō. I have the Tōken Bijutsu magazine where this item is featured but not yet the Jūyō book. Still for us mere mortals late Nanbokuchō Bizen is in my opinion the way to look into onwing an old dated sword. Also if you happen to have a connection/status/relationship with a Japanese dealer most likely you could ask them to look one for you and they would be able to find one fairly quickly through their dealer network.

For something possible for normal collectors I would recommend looking into Bizen and the "unpopular" schools/smiths. I think these are pretty much the only option to get a fairly cheap dated tachi from 1300's. For tachi I would recommend 3M yen budget and for short blades 1,5M. I think this might be the only affordable blade dated in 1300's that is currently available. Morimoto dated 1362-1368 (as actual year is unreadable). Asking price is now 900,000 yen. What is to be noted that this is the 5th dealer that has had this blade for sale in fairly short time. It first popped at 380k and I wanted it, still wanted it at 550k... Now currently at 900k it is not that appealing to me anymore. https://www.e-sword....isashi/2410-2021.htm Here are few other short swords. Just note that historical prices on sales ads would be much higher today. https://www.aoijapan...safune-ju-morishige/ https://www.kandatou...tou/wakizashi16.html https://www.aoijapan...ai-5-nen-nigatsu-hi/ Then some long ones. I know I really wanted this one. I was actually saving money for it when it was with different dealer. Then it appeared to Aoi at lower price later on. https://web.archive....-hidemotsumasamitsu/ This one was also one I considered as plausible buy when it was with another dealer. Then it vanished and Meirin had it for much higher price https://web.archive....swords2/KT222174.htm Yoshii is a school to keep an eye open for, not highly appreciated https://www.samurais....jp/sword/08119.html

Oldest one in existence is tachi by Naminohira Yukimasa dated 1159. The second oldest is tachi by Bungo Yukihira that is dated 1205.

Unfortunately there is no specification on the generation. Paper just states that there is a mei Katsuie.

I think it might have been bit of a language barrier. I posted the missing spine chunk as a reference for the post by Ali D. where a chunk of spine is missing from European sabre? or other type of sword. Showing that you can find similar in Japanese swords. I don't think the flaw on the naginata I posted is related to forging. However I translated flaw in my head just meaning a flaw/problem etc. in general. I cannot say how the damage was inflicted but I think impact damage could be a plausible explanation. The naginata is in rough overall condition but I got what I considered to be amazing deal from the dealer. People in general just don't want naginata and I would think missing chunk of blade made people avoid the item.

I feel one issue for the bulk of rusty swords is that you can buy similar level blades in polish for cheaper than professional restoration costs would be. Many of the items are also below the level that professional polishers would preferably work on. If it would be financially profitable people would be buying these items and having them restored. However there is not much demand for example lower quality mumei wakizashi be it Shintō or Kotō. Therefore you would just lose money in having these professionally polished. Of course it would be amazing that each and every sword would be salvaged but for majority of the lower end items it is just not financially feasible. Personally as I know I cannot afford restoration of items I just look for an item that is in condition that is acceptable for myself. Now I think the different view that people might have is what to do with items that do not deserve professional polisher? For that I don't have an answer as I don't really even look at items in really bad condition, if it is not something like an ōdachi or a big naginata. Would be amazing to be a treasure hunter but with tiny budget it is not happening.

Here is a chunk of a spine missing from Nanbokuchō period naginata that has been attributed to Ko-Uda. It is about 2 cm piece missing. I know for many flaw like this would be unacceptable but it doesn't really bother me. I will rather have flawed item like this that I like in my collection than a pristine item that does not interest me.

Adam posted at the same time another nice set. Looks like good quality daishō koshirae and 2 good blades by Hosokawa Masayoshi. In here you can also see the swords have almost successive numbering so they were sent to a same shinsa session by I believe by same person. I think they might have been tried as a daishō but there is a large gap between the production of the blades. However to me this is also a very good daishō set that I would be very happy happy to own.

The set at Mandarin Mansion is amazing and owning a set like that would be great. To me it is a daishō set in total regardless what the NBTHK says. The blades were sent to NBTHK together but papered separately, hence the successive numbering. So theoretically the swords are not daishō without the koshirae, so they didn't paper them to same paper. You can also see this successive numbering sometimes when dealers have sent in items as their items have rolling numbers. Looking at the pictures both blades are very high quality and the daishō koshirae seems very high quality so an amazing package.

I have the 1st book. Some day I might get the others too but I have not been in a hurry, I have narrow scope of interest and it seems NBTHK high end fits more to it than NTHK high end at least based on this one book. The book also has English index. The format itself seems very similar to NBTHK Jūyō books. The item descriptions are actually pretty short for most items.

Thank you for posting this awesome item Raymond. Would it also be possible to see a picture of nakago and possible signature? As well as curvature and motohaba and sakihaba measurements? It is splendid that this has the original koshirae still in such a pristine shape. I think I might have largest documentation of ōdachi at least outside Japan. I would love to add yours to the list. I am currently at 129 ōdachi, 86 Kotō and 43 Edo period.

To me it looks like a late Muromachi Mino piece signed 兼道 (Kanemichi).

I admit I have always liked the kantei threads a lot and made few of them over the years. So I thought it would be also fun to start a year with one. Unforutunately I don't have any items in my collection that I could post as a kantei item, I will improvise from the massive amount of books I have. This is not too serious as the pictures are far from perfect and my text description is not either. This is supposed to be fun experience and possibly make you open a book or 2, some may of course get it correctly by just quick glance. Then of course after the reveal we can have some discussion in the thread. I will post the answer some time on 11.1.2025. I don't know my schedule for that day yet, so it can be any time during the day. Type: Tachi Nagasa: 77,3 cm Sori: 2,2 cm Motohaba: 2,5 cm Sakihaba: 1,5 cm Kissaki: 2,1 cm Nakago: 18,0 cm This is a shinogi-zukuri tachi with iori-mune. It is narrow style and width of moto and saki are different. Sugata picture is shown. Jigane is tight ko-itame hada. Hamon is shallow ko-midare with some ko-chōji. There is yaki-otoshi. Bōshi is thin ko-maru. Unfortunately, my pictures of hada and hamon are not showing details and I do not have the knowledge is tiny details to give more accurate description. There is horimono as seen in the picture. Horimono are commonly seen in works of this smith. Nakago is ubu and has 3 holes and there is a long signature. Usually this smith signed katana-mei.

Thank you for posting this Luca, what a wonderful result. I think it shows your good eye in noticing this being worth of restoration and Manuel doing amazing work with this.

Get well soon Jacques! I would have gone for Tsuda Sukehiro guess initially. I admit I am not at level where I could tell Ōsaka-shintō smiths apart from worksmanship, and most likely will never be as they don't intrest me that much. However as Jacques gave the extra hint I had to refresh my memory from encyclopedia to figure out what yahazu is. Seems like this detail is often seen on the 2nd generation Kanesada work, as well as his tōran hamon is slanting. Also it seems like the three gunome elements right below yokote are often seen in his work. I am often very puzzled by Japanese descriptive terminology, as katayama-midare elements in hamon are described being featured in his work. As there are many different styled mountains in the world I am trying to understand just what this "half-mountain" element means. If it is the very steep drop compared to more gradual slope? Things like bright nioiguchi, wide nioiguchi etc. I cannot really say Ōsaka-shinto smith differences from those extremely fine details. I do confess I am better with the picture and text kantei than I would be in real life kantei. They are quite different even though of course some same basics apply. My eye is just not trained for extremely small details, and most likely never will be.

My guess is 於肥後下地 / 橋本一至 (花押) Hashimoto Isshi is quite famous maker and guys focused on fittings can most likely offer more assistance.

That is awesome collection Gary and thanks for sharing some of the items with us here at NMB.