Jussi Ekholm

Asking price was 2,7M Yen.

I took pictures of Tōsōgu section of 63th Jūyō shinsa results. Sorry if it is bit dark & blurry but it is about midnight in here and my lighting in the apartment is not too good and neither is my phone.

I've really enjoyed reading the discussions and seeing the views that people have on things. I think the "problem" arises with mumei swords as has been mentioned earlier. It is quite rare to argue about validated signature. However I must note that even NBTHK is sometimes uncertain in their attributions on signed swords. Kuni fumei, province unknown with approximate period in brackets is sometimes used. I own one such sword and 2 others that caught my eye recently have had this type of attribution. Or you can sometimes see the rare to mei ga aru in brackets, which I believe confirms the signature being unorthodox but legitimate for the smith in question. To me that shows that shinsa team is validating the signature as genuine and dealing with the uncertainity at the same time. While NBTHK is not too often specifying the period on papers it can sometimes be seen. My collection is 3 tachi with just Hozon papers and 2 of them have period pointed out on Hozon papers. I remember when some years ago I used to really like how NTHK always has the period attribution for a sword while NBTHK had often "just" school attribution. But now after more reading and studying I've realized that pretty much "just" school attribution points towards the period as well. Knowing history of the different schools will make you put certain things into certain time periods. Some posts by Darcy few years ago made me rethink my thinking for mumei swords and their attributions. My view now is that the attribution by shinsa team is for the school that ticks most boxes on a particular mumei sword in their opinion. So the attribution gives out a potential school and period for the sword, and it might not be by that specific school but it gives base for it. I think Darcy worded it out something like the attribution also shows the quality of the particular sword. I am not sure how many are members of NBTHK and get to read the kantei explanation translations provided by Markus (or have his Kantei-zenshu books) but if/when you read those you can see how some minor things make enough ticks for specific attribution instead of other perfectly viable possibilities. Of course the better the condition is the better the attribution can be due to characteristics of the workmanship seen. And like Franco and Arnold said earlier improved state of polish might lead to different conclusion. I think we too often think that attribution is set in stone, and that is I believe which causes some puzzlement when differing attributions come from different organizations. Of course it is problematic when/if the differing organizations have a totally different view on a sword (for example dating it 400-500 years apart). Even though I am on the defense of NBTHK and NTHK I must admit I have never sent anything to shinsa. Maybe if I some day send something and it comes back with attribution totally different than I would think it will be funny to guess how I will feel. Now here is a question, which I think shows the quality part that Darcy has explained many times. As I am building my old sword database, has anyone came across attribution just to Rai? No specific smiths or branches but just Rai in general.

Will be interesting to see the result. Both polished sword and the attribution it gets by the shinsa team. You have great comparison view from Kenji Mishina as he polished it and worked long time on it.

Well I've been planning to let some steam out regarding this for a while now. I have seen a notion on recent years where collectors are starting to "go against" shinsa results (regardless of the organisation) and it often happens when the attribution is not favorable or what one thought it would be. I've actually thought of making a small ranting topic on defending the shinsa for a while but never got around to it until now. You often hear the common phrase shinsa panels are just human and people make mistakes but they are still experts whose opinion at least I hold at high value. Those experts have the ability to see minor details in the blade (or fittings) that regular collectors miss. I was reading Kantei explanation by Hinohara Dai of May issue of Token Bijutsu where he went bit off from kantei sword to ramble a bit how some experienced collector noticed the very minor detail in curvature of near identical swords from Kamakura and early Muromachi on display and that raised many questions from other collectors there at present. This comes down to what he explains that professional appraisers and sword dealers handle many blades on a daily basis. I could personally add to this group even active collectors in Japan as there are so many opportunities for that in Japan. I think all that he wrote applies to tsuba and other stuff as well. The experts see and handle so great number of items that average collector do not come even close to that. Yes we have some great opportunities even in Europe and US but we cannot compete with Japan. That above is a direct quote from that write up by Hinohara Dai. Even though he writes about kantei of swords I think we can apply it to tsuba and other stuff too. When someone has handled and studied like 100,000+ items I wouldn't easily challenge his/hers opinion about this stuff. The shinsa teams are professional experts for a reason and they have so much experience to back it up. I've just heard lately people from many medias stating that NBTHK made wrong call or NTHK do not know what they see etc. Perhaps it is the collector who might not see everything? I remember a bit funny thing from some years back when I took my tachi to NBTHK Scandinavian meeting, after seeing the sword Jan-Erik Svanberg told me few details of a sword I had had for multiple years that I had missed before. That was the first time I personally experienced how quickly experienced collectors can notice minor details and I was bit mindblown. Another great experience was at Utrecht 1 minute kantei session this summer. While I was at the right tracks I was amazed how much details experienced people picked up in just one minute. So to sum it up if you think experts have got it wrong be sure to have lots and lots of research to back your own opinion and try to understand the expert opinion too. And if you think you can outsmart Japanese dealers it's a good idea to think twice as their knowledge level is very high and they handle and study very large amount of swords.

Hikae-megukiana / shinobi-ana, you can see this thread: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/17559-shinobi-ana/ I think it most commonly occurs in some late Muromachi swords & Shinshintō. Of course you can probably find some examples starting from Kamakura period.

How large is the curvature of the sword? If the sword is ubu I'd think it as late Muromachi sword from early 1500's. If it has been greatly shortened then I think it has had massive curvature and perhaps early Muromachi might be better guess.

As it is not iron I'll jump into the kinkō-train as well. I can't comment on age though. As Saotome made often large iron tsuba of this design what is the size of this tsuba?

Interesting piece. I think full length hi on a shōbu-zukuri blade is not the most common thing.

I'd think the design is original as ana is included in the design. I'd guess making major changes to design like that after the item is already made would be futile as you can always make a new tsuba with similar but slightly altered design. The shape is kiku-gata/kikka-gata. I'm not too well versed on who made these but I believe they often get attributed to Saotome. So my guess is Saotome.

I read through your blog Yurie and I enjoyed it a lot. Very well written and you explain things in an easy way. I hope your blog will get many readers and I will surely bookmark it for future and keep checking it.

I would second Geraints suggestion of getting into Tōken Society meeting in London. There are great collectors in the group and they can tell you a lot when seeing the sword in hand. I accidentally stumbled across this unknown Tomonari while trying to search NMB; http://ryujinswords.com/tomonari.htm, http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/7635-nakajima-rai/ I think the most likely scenario is that your sword just has false signature of one of the most famous Japanese smiths added on. My guess would be that it is genuine Japanese sword (fairly new) with crudely made horimono and roughly 75 cm blade, I think it is original length and not shortened. Possibly a suguha hamon but I am not sure as I can't see much in the pictures. Not sure if the characters on the other side of the blade are carved or etched? I'd dare to think that the horimono is Japanese made too, I am sure most of us have seen lower quality work on some lower quality Japanese swords. The horimono is tamaōi-ryu, a dragon hunting a gem, it it quite common design of horimono and usually takes a lot of space on the blade. I have seen large horimono of this (and other large dragon) design many times on lower quality swords, possibly added in later to hide some flaws for example. Or maybe someone just wanted a huge dragon on their sword.. I am not sure if there are mei examples of Settsu Tomonari. Sometimes in Japanese sword tradition the family trees etc. get passed down by tradition and there are errors and impossibilities in them. As you see with Settsu Tomonari and date given to him, where as his supposed father Yoshiuji worked c. 50 years later than him.

Paul I cannot provide you a mei example as it seems that the Tomonari from Settsu was very unknown smith. In Seskos Index he is listed being from Nakajima-Rai school and working c. 1360's. None of the mei references I have do not feature this smith. Granted I do not have any books focusing on Nakajima-Rai. There are 7 Tomonari signing with these kanji in Seskos, 6 Bizen smiths and 1 from Settsu. My personal guess is that this isn't signed by any of the 7. I would try to go by opposite approach and leave the signature out of the picture, do you think your sword has mid-Nanbokuchō shape and Nakajima-Rai characteristics?

I'll give another vote to Namikawa. Haven't dealt with them in some years but the few purchases I had from them were good.

This has been educational thread. I was browsing lots of dealer sites and scrolling their tsuba selection by pics and try to identify them on my own. I was set on Higo few times while the attribution was to Tosa Myōchin.

I happened to check out this tsuba and I remembered that there had been a recent post about these. Exactly the same design as in last post by John. https://www.aoijapan.com/tsuba-mumeiunsigned-takarabune-treasure-ship/

I might have worded that bit foolishly. I was meaning that for me the fact that the tsuba came from collections of Sasano & Kremers and if Eckhard authenticated it at Ashmolean event these combined with NBTHK papers would give it a very strong provenance in my opinion. Of course the exact year it was made will probably always be up for debate. I was surprised at n.5 too. However I think it is not always black & white and someone is right and other one is wrong. I think Darcy has written a very good piece regarding how NBTHK attributions are not set in stone and should not be taken as absolute facts. NBTHK shinsa panel just offers one of the best opinions in the world. Sure some things are very stereotypical and attributions are easy to accept (it does help a lot if you are agreeing/hoping for certain attribution). However there are plenty of things that can be either or, and without a working time machine we will never know for sure. Attributions by experts are the best possible method of authentication, and of course it is completely possible that different experts see things differently.

Thanks for this Grev, it was really fun. Personally I'd give great value to comments from Sasano & Kremers.

Would make more sense. Nagahide is listed in Sesko index for Bun'an and his entry to Bungo Taikan I believe says that there is and example that is signed 豊後州永秀作 / 文安三年二月吉日. I think he is very unknown smith.

I wouldn't immidiately think it is a fake. I think it reads 豊後州秀行 / 文?五?? Bungo shū Hideyuki / Bun ? 5 ?? I believe this Bungo shū is the most uncommon start of Bungo signature, but I looked at Bungo Taikan and found one tachi, where 豊後州 is signed above the ana like in your sword and signature continues after the hole. The Hideyuki listed in Bungo Taikan seems to be Kanbun period smith, same that Markus has listed in his smith index.

1.? 2.? 3. Ko-Tōshō 4. Akasaka 5. Tōshō / Katchūshi

Amazing report team Italy!

I am not a tsuba guy but I'd think you are seeing the remnants of amida yasurime, you can see example at Grey's site here: http://www.japaneseswordbooksandtsuba.com/store/tsuba-%26-kodogu/t250-tosho-tsuba-amida-yasuri

I think this is just fun & games more than hardcore serious kantei. I can tell that my initial guess was Sekishū Sadatsuna, which is incorrect. However here is a fun thing that was steering us to our guesses I think, based on gut feeling and some statistical data. It is really easy one and might be too obvious.

Sounds like pretty solid deals could have been had there. This is just so minor hobby and you need to have the right buyers at the right time. I'm glad to hear some Token GB members scored nice deals at the auction, and hopefully NMB members too.