Jussi Ekholm

Thanks for correction Nathaniel. I am bit ashamed that as a long time member I was clueless that they are accepting shinsa for Hozon & Tokubetsu Hozon at the same time again. I think things changed a bit during the Covid times. Pre-Covid I remember you could send for both items at the same time. https://web.archive....ish/shinsa_fees.html Then after Covid I think it might have been changed, as this is the shinsa page from 2023 and no mention of simultaneous send in. https://web.archive....english/aboutus.html As I have never sent items to NBTHK I haven't checked that closely as I don't intend to send items. I personally dislike the multiple level certification system but I understand their reasons for it.

I think in the past one factor was that you could submit the blade for Hozon & Tokubetsu Hozon at the same shinsa session. So of course it was logical for good quality items to send for both. Now in the current system you will need to send Hozon and Tokubetsu Hozon in different shinsa sessions. That might at least temporarily make some good items "just" Hozon before dealer or owner sends it for higher certification. As NBTHK currently has a monopoly in the certificate business and people like to seek higher papers it is logical that most good blades will go up in their certification system. Here are some old references. These two are to me extremely interesting items. Yoshimoto tachi - dealer made this Tokubetsu Hozon afterwards but 0 effect on price. Asking price was 5,200,000 yen and this is my favorite of these items https://www.samurai-...net/SHOP/V-1913.html Hatakeda Sanemori tachi - this was for sale at 5,000,000 yen asking price, very cool item https://web.archive....0/info/item/a428.htm Now these 2 are not something I am too much into, to me it seems crazy how attribution to top smith can create a huge price. Mumei katana attributed to Osafune Mitsutada, asking price was 6,900,000 yen https://web.archive.....net/SHOP/O-630.html Mumei katana attributed to Kiyomaro with 7,000,000 yen asking price (I was remembering 10M but it might have been another mumei Kiyomaro or my memory fails me as I don't track these more modern items) https://www.aoijapan...ei-yamaura-kiyomaro/ There have been some other amazing items too but they have not have had a public price listed online so I have no idea about their asking price. Of course one thing to consider is that asking prices can vary a lot. There was a flawed Ōdachi with Hozon paper that I was looking out for but it went out of my budget and ended up going bit over 2,000,000 yen. However very quickly it landed to Japanese dealer who had it for 5,800,000 yen asking price, and it was gone super fast.

Robert the one thing that might create mix up is that the text passages in the answer post are not for this particular work but what is considered as common work of the smith (and his lineage) in general. I do personally think the curvature of the quiz blade would be "normal / average", I see it as very common curvature, not easy to guess period judging that. I do fully agree with Oliver that Markus Seskos Kantei books are extremely good resource, I use them very often. I believe the items in Kantei books are items that have been presented for kantei at NBTHK HQ as I have them also in the magazines. The great thing when reading about kantei items in NBTHK Tōken Bijutsu magazines is the fact that an expert includes an explanation of some common incorrect guesses. As I participate in NBTHK monthly magazine kantei it has been extremely helpful to read the explanation on the times I have been wrong and sometimes I can understand why I chose wrong smith after reading it. Unfortunately I don't have the knowledge of writing such piece and include guesses and compare them to the quiz smith.

Thank you for posting the NBTHK paper Chandler. To me these are among the most irritating attributions that NBTHK give... I understand they just state that there is shumei XX present. I wish they would added something like (Ko-Bizen etc.) in brackets to specify what they think. However I do believe even NBTHK would at least somewhat agree with the attribution of shumei as they have papered it without making it mumei attributed as X with shumei XX.

I think it is fairly nice sword. Ko-Naminohira is actually quite common attribution for old tachi. One difficulty in the attribution is that Ko-Naminohira includes everything from Late Heian period to Late Nanbokuchō. And to make it very tricky NBTHK does not specify dating for this attribution at Hozon/Tokubetsu Hozon level, as far as I have seen with all of the 54 examples I have for Mumei/Fumei Ko-Naminohira attribution. For this particular sword I personally would feel much more comfortable as Kamakura (perhaps late Kamakura) as possible dating. I do think the Hon'ami attribution to Late Heian and "The" Yukiyasu is extremely generous. The Fujishiro page is actually for the Naminohira smith Yasuyuki (安行). He is much lesser known than Yukiyasu (行安) lineage. The tantō in the picture is signed and dated (1327) 薩摩国住人波平安行 / 嘉暦二季正月十五日 - It passed NBTHK Jūyō session 15. I haven't been able to locate the tachi in Fujishiro picture. So far I have found 36 tachi that are mumei or fumei and have been attributed as Ko-Naminohira. While I personally like Ko-Naminohira stuff a lot I do think it is not that desirable attribution for high level collectors. In general they do often have quite narrow hamon. I do believe that is among the reasons why they have been attributed towards that particular school. Personally I would skip this Ko-Naminohira tachi as there are and have been others with the same attribution for sale that I like much more. As it is quite common attribution they are bound to pop up for sale. Of course it is always up to liking a particular piece and prices will be different for different swords.

It is wonderful tachi regardless of the attribution.

河内守藤原国助 / 寛永十九年二月吉日- Kawachi no Kami Kunisuke (first generation) dated 1642, this katana was designated as Jūyō Bijutsuhin [重要美術品]. Now this is outside my preferred old swords, so I thought it would be fun to mix things up. Congratulations to everyone getting the correct result, and some members PM’d me the answer too. The pictures and original text were far from perfect but I am happy so many people participated in the quiz and hopefully everybody had fun doing it. I will try to write somekind of a writeup where I include some references to the answers that were guessed. Unfortunately I do not have enough knowledge to truly discuss the finer details about the differences in guesses. So I will take few quotes by experts. Kawachi no Kami Kunisuke is considered to be one of the founders of Ōsaka-Shintō school. I believe in current theory he comes from Horikawa school with him possibly having roots in Ishidō school. Quote from Nihon Shintō Shi “Unfortunately, the quality of Kunisuke´s works varies. His best blades are on the same level as the great masterworks of the Horikawa school, others are just average Ōsaka-shintō blades. With the 1st generation Kunisuke we can see a reminiscence of a Keichō-shintō-sugata but he mostly made shinogi-zukuri katana and wakizashi in Kanbun-shintō-sugata, i.e. with a shallow sori, a narrow sakihaba and a relatively small kissaki. The jigane is an itame with a tendency to nagare. Ji-nie and chikei appear in Horikawa-style. Naturally he also forged an Ōsaka-jigane with a dense ko-itame and fine ji-nie. The hamon is a notare-gunome mixed with chōji and ashi and the nioiguchi is wide and shows plenty of ko-nie. Some hamon interpretations remind us of Oya-Kunisada. He also applied a suguha or ō-midare but in any case a conspicuous amount of chōji is seen. The bōshi is mostly ko-maru but can run out as yakitsume or show hakikake. He also tempered a midare-komi-bōshi. Kunisuke signed the part „Kawachi no Kami“ smaller than the part „Fujiwara Kunisuke“, but the difference in size decreases over the years. However, this peculiarity is also seen with other shintō smiths. For the sake of differentiation with the 2nd generation, he is also called „Oya-Kunisuke“ (親国助) or „Oya-Kawachi“ (親河内)” Quote from Tōken Bijutsu 654 where a katana by second generation Kunisuke was one of the kantei items at NBTHK HQ. ” But some got the time wrong and went for the shinshintō schools of Yokoyama (横山) and Hosokawa (細川) which are also well known for working in the Bizen tradition. But the Kanbun-shintō-sugata does not match with shinshintō and also the jihada would tend to muji in the latter case. Regarding the hamon, the yakidashi of the Yokoya school does match with Kunisuke but the rhythm of the hamon would be more monotonous and the nioiuchi more compact. On the other hand, a yakidashi is quite rare for the Hosokawa school and also a kobushigata-chōji is totally uncommon for smiths of this lineage.” The above quotes do not relate to this particular sword but I posted them to give reference how works of this smith lineage can be seen. One thing about size is that it is quite common throughout the ages. You can find similar sized tachi and katana.

As I promised in last kantei thread I was looking to make another one. I was happy with the participation in the first one, so I thought it would be fun to make a second one. Unfortunately again I have to use pictures from various books for this sword as I cannot provide real life kantei example. This should to my understanding be somewhat typical work of the smith, as that is important when trying to identify the smith. As this is just fun guessing to get people involved it would be wrong to choose atypical example by the smith. Just for the fun of debates that we had recently I typed in sugata, kitae and hamon descriptions in Japanese from book where this item is featured. I tried to translate them to English but there are the Japanese original texts as I might have made errors. I hope everyone will have fun in this one too. This time the pictures should be bit better than last time as I could choose best ones from multiple books. I will post the answer on 31.1. so everyone should have time to look and participate if they want. Nagasa: 73,9 cm Sori: 2,1 cm Motohaba: 3,2 cm Sakihaba: 2,2 cm Motogasane: 6,2 mm Sakigasane: 4,0 mm Kissaki: 3,3 cm Nakago: 20,4 cm Shinogi-zukuri, iori-mune Width is normal and sugata is good with slight koshi-zori. 身幅切先とも尋常やや腰反りのついた踏張りのあるよい姿である Well forged ko-itame hada, with thick ji-nie. 鍛え小板目よく約み, 地沸厚くつく Hamon is ko-nie chōji-midare mixed with gunome, there are tobiyaki 刃文小沸深い丁子乱に互の目交じり, 処々飛焼きごころある Nakago is ubu, 1 ana with ha-agari kurijiri. On omote side there is a 7-character signature and there is a date on ura side.

I have never heard that term before but I believe the Doei-ba that Nakahara is referring would relate to Yoshii (吉井) offshoot Dōei (道永). Yoshii is not that desirable school by high end collectors so I have looked at many interesting Yoshii items as I feel they have potential for lower budget. Quite regular gunome is commonly seen in Yoshii work.

The thing is Jacques I agree with you, and have been agreeing for a long time. It is just a matter of tiny terminological differences what I see as classification you see as characteristic and I wont argue about it. I would feel stupid if a good thread would be just filled with pointless arguing. Your example of Rai Kunitoshi and the hamon description shows very nicely how high level sword appreciation is. Many Japanese authorities like these extremely detailed descriptions. Having participated NBTHK monthly kantei for some years now, I have learned how to play small details text game. However in reality I wouldn't focus on those small details as I don't understand them properly. As you've said before there is difference in real life knowledge and text knowledge. The fine details of high level kantei are not things that personally interest me but I am amazed at the eye some people have and how they can identify extreme details and judge quality of smiths.

To me signature looks like 長義 - Nagayoshi.

Congratulations, it looks to be a nice looking koshirae. I might have the opposite view and say it would be quite easy to fit an old blade to this koshirae. I do not recommend doing this but it is very common practice that antique swords are matched with antique koshirae. I think I have 100+ examples documented where an old koshirae magically appears for a sword that was listed in shirasaya previously. By first glance the shape would look like very standard shape and size for an average Japanese sword, so finding one fitting should be possible. Of course it gets more difficult the more criteria you will put towards the sword. There are lots of fine "tricks" that can be used in pairing a sword with koshirae. And still I bet I don't even have a clue about majority of them. I have never matched sword with koshirae and do not intend to do so but I know there are craftsmen in Japan that can make spectacular things. I think the really good pairings are pretty much impossible to tell. Here is Jūyō sword paired with high quality koshirae but I think it is very easy to tell it is a made up pairing. Even if I didn't have documented the sword without koshirae. Before: https://web.archive....th-nbthk-juyo-token/ After: https://nihonto.com/9-6-22/

I do think Jacques is correct. I believe he was contemporary of Hizen Tadayoshi working around the same time but slightly earlier. However he worked in Hizen and I do personally classify smiths by province. I know my preference of province vs. the supposed tradition might create confusion some times. I do personally judge smiths from Hizen province as Hizen smiths.

While I agree in general what Jacques is stating, I think there might be bit of language barrier. I believe pretty much all Japanese sources, including Nagayama agree on the 2 type general classification of suguha and midareba. Notare, chōji, gunome and other variations are listed under midareba. Here is a page from Sano Museum book Here are pictures from 図説 日本刀用語辞典. There are probably 50+ midareba classified hamon listed in the book, including all basic variations of notare, gunome, chōji and their combinations, and rare unique ones. Here is an end of NBTHK kantei explanation in issue 595 for kantei item in 593 which was tantō by Rai Kunitoshi. I believe in latter part of this it is said, as there were bids on Rai Kunimitsu it is explained that around 6 out of 10 works by Rai Kunimitsu are midareba vs. suguha. Made as a comparison to Rai Kunitoshi whose work is suguha based. As you know Rai school well you will know better than me what NBTHK means by this. It is bit pointless to argue such minor differences in view. In general it is very educating to read threads like these. I am bit ashamed to confess that I don't care too much about the extremely fine details in workmanship that is required for very high level sword appreciation.

While it is true for probably 99% of Hizen swords, there are some exceptions. I have way too many references and I don't know much about Hizen and they don't interest me that much. Still I remember seeing some katana mei Hizen katana. The famous smith Hizen Munetsugu used katana mei. I have 10 Jūyō katana by him in books and they all have katana mei Hizen Muneyasu also used katana mei. 2 Jūyō katana of him have katana mei and 1 has tachi mei Then there are few katana by Mutsu Tadayoshi that are katana mei. I think these are c.65 cm so possibly thought as short swords. I do believe there might be few lesser known Hizen smiths that used katana mei too, unfortunately I have too many references and as I don't focus on Hizen I haven't put any notes regarding them.

I think it would be only Suguha Midare Of course classifying like this there are lots and lots of variations in midare. As in this classification any non-suguha type is under midare classification.

The Jūyō Bunkazai in Sano Art Museum Bizen book should be this one, as there is only 1 Jūyō Bunkazai by Chikafusa. That sword is now in the collection of Kyoto National Museum, so possibly the private owner donated it to the museum. Many of the very top items get donated to museums or other institutions. This is the other Chikafusa tachi, unfortunately this is the only picture I have of it. It is amazing to think that the best and almost the only reference to your sword is a Jūyō Bunkazai blade.

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.