Jussi Ekholm

Here is my guess, unfortunately there are still some blanks. I believe the smith is Masateru from Kai Province: https://www.nihontoclub.com/smiths/MAS973 Signature & date - 甲陽住真定□源正照鍜是 / 明治巳二年八月日 I am quite uncertain about this, this is rest of the signature on ura side as far as I got it - 鉄甲棒□□之 / 相陽住平井信宜□依造 Sorry I don't currently have time to give translation of it and as I did it fast there can be errors.

The second sword linked by Daniel has been made by Gassan Sadatoshi (月山貞利)

Unfortunately I have only 1 mei example of Ōan period Sekishū Kanetsuna, and it seems bit different but the oshigata is bit unclear. I do think some of the Muromachi Kanetsuna from Mino might be better match based on mei & nakago but of course the workmanship of the blade should be the thing to judge.

I do personally think the attribution for a mumei sword is the best option the shinsa panel is able to give at that exact moment. As Barry said earlier the higher you go in level the more time is given to each item. I remember few years ago I wrote a small topic where I praised the expertise of the shinsa panel, as there seemed to be lot of negative opinions about NBTHK shinsa around that time. Here is an example, in 2020 I saw live 0 new swords, while NBTHK shinsa attributed thousands of items, and most likely saw lots and lots of stuff aside from evaluations. Just for Jūyō 66 session 805 swords were sent in (of which 119 passed), add all the Hozon & Tokubetsu Hozon submissions and you'll understand the NBTHK shinsa handles very large amount of items every year. I do believe they will judge the item and appoint a plausible attribution to it with their combined knowledge. When you get to Jūyō and Tokubetsu Jūyō NBTHK provides more information about the item, which as described earlier can be fascinating. Lot of the items will have multiple possibilities but in their current format I believe they will choose one and I do think they go for the one they judge most plausible one at that moment. With higher level attributions you have the luxury to be able to read more about the item, where as for Hozon & Tokubetsu Hozon you will just have the attribution. I know there are some evaluations that are generally seen as "low level" or "buckets" but I do think sometimes the kantei features point towards making these attributions being plausible ones. There are still some good mumei items within these attributions. Also NBTHK can change their judgement for partial signatures too. I posted this topic on an interesting tanto I did some research on: I have seen similar thing happen also at Hozon/Tokubetsu Hozon level but it is much harder to track down than at Jūyō. Another shinsa session has judged the same sword to be the work of different smith (relations can vary). For example Mino swords signed 兼□ Kane X, there would be countless possibilities for the smith, hence usually the safe option would be just to put mei: 兼□ and possibly something like (Seki) in brackets etc. I know many seek commercial value with NBTHK attributions. I believe most people would be furious if the paper would come back with just something in the lines of Tachi - Mumei (late Kamakura), I assume people would prefer something like Tachi - Mumei - Enju etc. where the kantei points towards to as a plausible attribution.

Very interesting item, thanks for sharing Adam.

Yes you are correct Adam. Do you have pictures of the whole item? It looks to be an interesting item.

Here is some info about the frontside of the papers, that I have grasped from papers presented online. Date perforations were probably added around the beginning of Heisei 7 (1995), as both Hozon & Tokubetsu Hozon papers from Heisei 7 now have this feature. The location of small "日刀保" seems to have changed around beginning of Heisei 9 (1997), as Tokubetsu Hozon from February of that year still have old placement of these but Hozon papers bit earlier in February already had the new placement.

My guess would be 岡代鍛之 for the 4 remaining.

I've been tracking interesting swords down bit obsessively for the last some years. When your item is really high quality (unfortunately I don't have any of those yet) you can see it appearing on publications etc., if it is for example Jūyō sword by NBTHK it gets pretty easy to track it down if you know some data on it. So I can (relatively easy) track down if/when that same sword has been for sale by online dealers that I am aware of . Sometimes it is possible for other papered items too as they can appear from several different dealers over time. The longest ownership history on a piece that I have personally owned was for a tachi from Nanbokuchō period. The previous owner that I purchased the sword from relayed me info and copies of his purchase from a Japanese dealer that he bought the item from. And I gave those printed pages to the new owner when I sold the sword. So he has documentation for 1 step further down in ownership tree.

I think auctions here in Northern countries are extremely poor representation of actual market. Japanese swords are very rare in here (at least they appear so to general public). Like John said I feel that 800 would be much more reasonable estimate for it than 8000€ reserve price.

I think 上野 in this would be often read as Kōzuke, and I would assume Hōshū in this would point towards Bungo (豊後). I do have a book "Bungo Taikan" but unfortunately it does not have any smiths with name Kanesaki listed in the province. Of course it does not have every single smith historically working in there but it does all of the well known ones.

I was thinking about bit more simpler solution. Of course you have access to the sword and can see things differently than is possible through pictures. This would be the one possibility I see when I look at the pictures. (yellowish gold thing is supposed to mark for habaki). Red parts would be blade in the original length. Few things that made me think of this are the following, I do think the sword is in original shape, aside from moving the machi up. I see good shape to the sword when I look at it, and picture it as in my above picture. I can see this being a Muromachi Bizen wakizashi from 1400's to 1500's. Might be my eyes playing tricks but I might see some wear on the area behind my proposed habaki, which might indicate tsuba wear as also koshirae needs to be considered too. As the tang has only 1 hole, how has this been mounted? When you add tsuba & tsuka, where would the hole approximately be, would it be logical fitting wise too?

京X中尉 - Can't see the 2nd character well enough to identify it. I believe 中尉 - is a military rank, possibly Lieutenant. Those that know their WWII stuff would be far more qualified for this than me.

That is good to take a moment and analyse what you have. I feel you are on the right track. I believe 55 cm would be overshooting but I think you are quite correct with c.50 cm. I think this picture in particular might help a bit. I would think both hi were done at the same time and they are executed quite well in my opinion. I made a very rough paintjob of this pic but as you are analysing well, I thought I'd ask how you think this part of the sword looked when you think it was original?

Ed your sword has what is called a kiritsuke mei (切付銘) added signature. Those are slightly different from original signature and they can be judged on their own. Sometimes when a sword passes shinsa with a kiritsuke mei that needs bit more research there can be a addon after it [と切付銘がある] which just means there is a kiritsuke mei but in this case they do not totally confirm it.

I think a lot depends on with what budget you are shopping with. In general I would recommend somewhere around 2000 to 3000€ as that will get you a decent package. Sometimes you can find signed & dated wakizashi (even with koshirae) at least in decent polish and NBTHK Hozon for sub 2000€ [even though I would personally recommend skipping koshirae in that price range and invest as much as possible to the blade]. The problem is the majority of them will be in Japan (well not necessarily a problem), and of course good deals can go very fast. Unfortunately I cannot point out good deals in Europe at the moment as prices in here seem to be lot more than in Japan. There are sometimes very good deals at this very site. I remember late last year there was signed and dated + papered Goami school wakizashi for very affordable amount of money. Of course quite obscure school etc. but someone got a good deal there. As for the price of this current item. I think the 300€ that it started with was quite reasonable start. I might have thought somewhere around 500-600€'s so I can't really understand how it is close to 1500 now... So in auctions it depends a lot of who is making bids. And of course asking prices can fluctuate a lot, basic items are worth what someone is willing to pay for them, exquisite items can be above pricing. For similar price than this auction piece is going for c.200k Yen, here is an offering that just popped up at Tōken Matsumoto: https://www.touken-matsumoto.jp/eng/product_details_e.php?prod_no=WA-0429

I believe NBTHK gives approximately dating like following Ko-Mihara = Nanbokuchō Mihara = Early to mid Muromachi Sue-Mihara = Late Muromachi

Just found the wakizashi as it was sold previously 2016 by Swedish Auction house, I would advice skipping that item as you can find much better items. https://auctionet.com/en/402582-sword-Japan-sueyuki-1624-kanei-1644

It is not a NBTHK attribution paper but from JTK. Seems like the attribution would be towards Sueyuki 豊州住藤原末行 - Hōshū jū Fujiwara Sueyuki. Period would be around Kan´ei (寛永) 1624-1644. Do you have pictures of the item?

The signature on yours is - 和泉守兼定 - Izumi no Kami Kanesada but it is in my opinon unfortunately gimei. I might think this is later sword based on the nakago.

I think the signature is - 備州長船住人 / 横山上野大掾藤原祐定 - Bishū Osafune jūnin / Yokoyama Kōzuke no Daijō Fujiwara Sukesada

Perhaps multiple shorter videos instead of one long one? I know Youtube field has been throughly studied and there are probably hints for optimal video duration etc. I feel people of modern age tend to have such a short attention span I am not sure how many will watch long videos.

Luis can you post measurements, nagasa, sori, nakago length and moto & sakihaba?

I do not have great interest into the very early swords of Japan. Have you read the amazing write up by Carlo Tacchini - On the Origins of Nihonto? I believe it can be found from NMB. I do have the above mentioned Reborn book and also some Shōsō-in (and other early) items featured in my books. Also as I have plenty of Tōken Bijutsu magazines there are several of them that feature very detailed articles on early swords but unfortunately my Japanese is not good enough to fully read them. I can try to look for some of them as I remember some featuring maps in pics etc. similar information.

Added an item that I missed, there are now 3 Bunkazai axes, as the missing one was recently posted to the forum. 00558 – Axe (金銅蛭巻柄入峰斧) Corrected few kanji as I saw I accidentally used incorrect forms for them. They looked bit different on Word document than on PDF. Here is the updated file Kokuho & Bunkazai Index.pdf