Jussi Ekholm

Stefan Mäder has done awesome reasearch on this field.

I think there was a mumei blade with Tokubetsu Kichō and attribution den Masamune sold at Japanese auction and posted at NMB recently which might have inspired the posting? http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/25489-masamune-for-only-23k/ In general I will agree with Darcy as I don't think myself as smart and educated enough to outsmart the market. I will rather save my pennies and grab one decent sword somewhere along the way rather than gamble away my money with potential treasures (I just don't have funds for that). Lucky finds happen from time to time however. I remember talking with few German collectors on our way to eat in Berlin, about an ebay find which went through papering up to Jūyō papers straight away. I don't remember the details all that well so I'll leave them out as I don't want to write misinformation. Needless to say someone made an amazing find but for every one of these success stories there are dozens and dozens of failures. This might be bit harsh to say but I think here in "Western world" we overvalue low-mid quality swords. Where as Japanese dealers are more up to speed on their actual value. Which makes two slighty different markets which comes down to what Luis wrote above that we might see something in Japan as a really good deal while it in reality is just according to market prices but we know that in Western market you could possibly flip it for some money. Sometimes you can see the same swords being offered in different countries over the years if you track items.

This is the same tachi that is here in the forum. Or was here in the forum, I can't find it anymore...

They are fairly nice swords and for the shock of many I for example wouldn't mind having one of those as a cutter, granted I rarely cut stuff anymore and don't spend money on Chinese made cutting instruments. And the price of these ended up getting a lot higher than I would pay for bare Chinese made blade. I agree with Ray that these are most likely polished in China. There have been nice polishes coming out of China for several years, and they are quite cost effective. I don't know the techniques they use etc. But you have to consider that as low as these swords are selling, swordsmith(s)/polisher(s) and retailer are still all making profit on these. The lack of shirasaya is something I have never understood about these and Komonjos offerings? It would be quite easy and economical to get a decent shirasaya made for these, and in my view it would easily increase their value over the cost of making it. I can understand Brians concern about private sellers selling these as genuine swords. It happens sometimes with Komonjo blades, mostly around collectors of modern blades. They have been mostly fitted with full koshirae, so they are quite attractive buys to many who do not know about Komonjo. But for those who have seen Komonjo stuff over the years they are quite easy to spot. It is kinda weird for us who know bit more as buying bare blade from Komonjo and getting it professionally fitted runs already pretty close to affordable real modern Japanese swords in koshirae. Would be just better to buy a martial arts sword made by Japanese smith. Here is a Gassan fake for you: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Japanese-Samurai-Sword-Wakizashi/292539965590 At least they are really trying and putting more effort in these than most companies that produce Chinese made production katana. Heck I may end up liking these guys...

Here is a funny fact as I've been building my own database for personal purposes. Most of the sold swords "that can be easily tracked online" in the recent years (have been sold by well known dealers) that bear attiribution to Hōjōji are naginata-naoshi. Also to be noted that almost all of them had Jūyō status. Granted my sample size for Hōjōji is still very small 5 naoshi and 1 katana, out of them only the naginata-naoshi that is 37,8 cm had Tokubetsu Hozon. Another thing is that by looking at the asking prices of Hōjōji swords, they are almost always on the "low tier" of Jūyō. I personally really like very large naginata & naginata-naoshi and I like works of this school. I think the one Aoi has for sale is a really nice sword.

I would have guessed your teaching background from the way the session was held. Funnily enough month or two ago we had quite similar session at school but that focused on group dynamics and how well we worked with other people as the subject was totally different. Activating participants is great and you have to dive in and learn in different way so it is also motivating, or at least I think so.

Token Society of GB and NBTHK EB are putting up another amazing experience. So much interesting stuff happening throughout the weekend it will be a blast

I think it is Kanemasu 兼舛. In the brackets it is indicated it is attributed to Shintō era. There seem to be 2 Kanemasu working that time, one Ryōken school smith during Keichō (I have 1 oshigata of him and mei seems different). There is also Kanbun era Kanemasu who had title Harima no Kami. He used 3 different masu characters in his signatures according Sesko Index. Unfortunately I don't have a mei example of his.

Apparently there are some difficulties with the tickets. I just got refund by Paypal as the account I paid to never registered through Paypal. I was wondering as there is now new page reservation for tickets, will there be limited number of tickets, or can you just buy ticket from the door?

Pavel Bolf has impressed me for many years: https://www.katana-kaji.cz/en/and he might not be as well known internationally as I think he should be. Likewise Stefan Roth might not be too known internationally: http://www.seelenschmie.de/wordpress/

Amazing display Chris!

Great thanks to Peter Janssen for hosting this wonderful event for us, and to all others involved in organizing this. It was wonderful to meet old friends and new people, especially to get to meet some NMB members for the first time after knowing them by online for a long time. The lineup of swords was simply stunning. Rai Kunimitsu and Nobukuni tachi were pretty much perfect swords. However I am not a total "art sword" guy as definately my heart chose a different sword. Brain kept telling me that one of the 3 Tokubetsu Jūyō swords (there was also the Kageyasu in display case) in amazing state of preservation should be the pick. For me it was the signed and dated (1338) tachi by Osafune Nagashige that won my heart in a close race with the Nobukuni. Also there is an array of splendid armours all over the museum. Some of the armours were breathtaking and truely masterpieces. Even though I do not know anything about armours I can say they are top notch. To be noted for lovers of sword fittings the museum houses extremely impressive tsuba collection as well as other fittings too. I believe the tsuba are arranged by school/tradition basis. Even though I am not a tsuba guy I still could identify some traditions and guess some others. The good part in having a meeting with a bunch like this is you can just ask and someone can most likely answer to your question. So for example if some tsuba was giving you a headache then tsuba dudes could help with it and Martyna Lesniewska also offered her help and explained about the items. The funny thing is with so many items in display room I think I did not even notice nearly every item that was for display even though spending the day at looking at the items. There were so many items positioned in display cases, and now by looking at the few pictures I snapped on my phone I can see the many items I didn't notice.

Nice one Steve, I figured it might be shodai but I couldn't fit it for sure. 1st generation Kanenori would point it towards Ōei period and founder of San'ami school. I think references mention only signed tachi and tanto by this smith. I'd think some later Muromachi period Kanenori would be better fit. As it was so short katana I might guess somewhere late 1400's to early 1500's.

In general I'd say Taira-Takada attribution hints to pre-1600's. From 1600 onwards is usually refered to Fujiwara-Takada. At least that is my own view of this.

I guess this side is 慶応元年八月日 - 1st year of Keiō (1865) a day in 8th month 八木性依頼造之 - Yagi (a place) (shō/sei?) Irai tsukuru kore - I don't really understand this my guess is made in Yagi at commission?

I keep mine upright in my bookshelf. Can't say if it is correct way but it seems logical to me as text is oriented correctly and the books are "ready" as you can just take one out without the need to remove multiple books in order to get to one.

I tried and unfortunately I can't get two of the characters right, and it bugs me a lot. 関?六住?代兼則之作 is my guess with the 2 missing blanks. The addition is most likely made by some previous owner. He/she has scratched wakizashi over and changed it to katana. Sword length in current state seems to be 1 shaku 9 sun 8 bu 8 rin which is really close to modern "accepted" katana length requirement.

So many awesome deals in there... too bad I can't get any books this year. Someone will score great book deals.

12th generation is listed at working c. from late 1860's up onwards on Meiji period. I was going to ask same as John above, if the indication for 12th is on NBTHK paper or in Aoi description? Just to note about the confusions, I read from Seskos that the family split to Echizen & Edo branchs, other has 12 generations listed and other 9. That may explain some of the confusion.

I agree with Geraint, I'd also guess the magazine to be a sales catalog. Some Japanese sword sellers have catalogs like these and but unfortunately I cannot tell what the catalog is as it's format is bit different from the few various ones I have. At quick glance I did not see asking price listed anywhere on that page but the page is in so small font.

In this particular case at least, the tanto just has tsuba & seppa. It seems you can see all the parts featured in the dagger here: http://islandblacksmith.ca/process/making-the-tsukimi-tanto/ If the koiguchi is flush with the fuchi then you can call it aikuchi which is a "seamless" connection. If you have a small tsuba that may be just slightly larger than fuchi or koiguchi you can call it hamidashi tsuba.

I do not follow Shinshintō swords so I cannot really comment on their pricing. However it is quite easy to find signed swords by Saneo (I just found out he used a big bunch of different names). Multiple Japanese shops have had signed swords by Saneo for sale. So spending 2,7M yen on mumei Saneo seems bit too much for me. Needless too say if I'd ever had money like that to invest on a sword I'd be looking at lot earlier swords. Here is a signed one at Asahi Tōken for 3,6M yen: http://asahitoken.jp/contents/01_token/details/token-B/B035_K.html

There seems to be Sukenao 助直 working at the turn of 1800's in Edo. As he probably is lesser smith not much info on him. By google searches I could only find info about the famous one. So unfortunately I can't get you any mei example from this lesser known smith as I don't have mei example of his in any books either.

My copy came today and it is excellent like Vol.1.

I am not a tsuba guy and the following periods are presented by Fukushi Shigeo and taken from Tosogu Classroom vol.1 Ko-Tōshō - until end of Muromachi Ko-Katchūshi - until end of Muromachi Ko-Kinkō - from late Nanbokuchō / early Muromachi to until early Edo? Ko-Shōami - until end of Momoyama? Ko-Hagi - from end of Muromachi until early Edo Ko-Akasaka - Refers to first three generations, and sometimes early Akasaka tsuba in general - According to dates from Akasaka Tsuba Yuisho from Kan'ei until Hōei c. 1624 - 1711 Shigeo did not use ko prefix for old tsuba like Heianjō-sukashi or Kanayama For example about Kanayama he states that earliest ones are most likely from Ōei and youngest ones around Tenshō. For Heianjō-sukashi he gives time frame of around 170 years about Eikyō to Bunroku I also have the Iron tsuba book by Japanese Sword Museum, it has these descriptions Ko-Tōshō - made before Keicho period Ko-Katchūshi - made before Keicho period Ko-Shōami - until early Edo? (I didn't totally understand the English description)