Mark S.

All excellent choices.

Have you considered bringing them to the Chicago Sword Show for some in-person evaluations? Show is end of April in Schaumburg. I am local to the show and you if you have more questions or need help. Both really need to be seen in hand as the pics don’t tell much. The kissaki on the katana gives me pause and the tsuka wrap is very ‘off’.

The Yamato edition in English is currently up for auction at Aoi Art…

My initial reaction from only pictures is that quite a bit of steel would need to be removed and you would probably start getting down to core steel. Hamon might be interesting but that blade would require a lot of work. You really need advice from a trained polisher. Not trying to be negative, but my initial reaction is “no”. However, there may be some wiggle room if you are willing to live with a less than perfect blade (some deeper pitting stays) after polish and polisher is willing to work on a blade they know will still not look great when done.

I highly recommend reaching out to the members at the Indiana Token Kai. Great group of people who (relatively) recently started their own group.

A psychiatrist who doesn’t listen to people… Never thought they were very useful anyway.

It also helps to learn how to ‘count’ the stokes of kanji. It is then easier to look them up (at least names) in references such as Markus Sesko’s Nihonto Compendium (downloadable free on this site - mentioned above). With practice you can usually narrow the kanji down to within a couple strokes and then just match to the printed version. Works well when the mei is written in the more ‘formal’ style. When written in ‘semi-formal’ or ‘informal’ styles (think cursive vs. block print) it can be a bit more difficult. It does take A LOT of practice. As previously stated, over time you will begin to recognize certain kanji or patterns of kanji. Practice, practice, practice.

Woody does beautiful work.

I think the new politicslly correct version is “calorically enhanced lady sings”.

The Tadahiro I bought without papers. The mei was sketchy, but it did come with a Kanzan Sato sayagaki. I was given some advice by some well known people in the field who felt it was gimei and when I submitted for papers it was also deemed gimei so it did not come as a surprise. A couple of the people who advised me did say something along the lines of “you can see why whoever added the gimei signature chose this blade… it was a clear Hizen blade and it would be easier to pass as a Tadahiro”. Now, the sayagaki? Three choices… 1) sayagaki is gimei, 2) someone matched this blade to a different signed saya, or 3) Kanzan Sato got this one wrong. The Tadatsuna blade I bought with the pink paper. Seller did not try to hide the fact blade was gimei. I still liked the blade and it was an example of a Awataguchi blade I could study in hand. It wasn’t perfect or the best example, but it was nice and I liked it.

Back to the main topic… I have 2 gimei blades. First is a Hizen Tadahiro signed katana but deemed gimei by NTHK-NPO, but still judged as a Hizen blade of same approximate time period as Tadahiro with exact same workmanship. Second blade is an Awataguchi Tadatsuna wakizashi deemed gimei by NTHK, but still judged as a lower level student of Tadatsuna and blade exhibits typical Awataguchi traits. So if you want to study schools and activity, and aren’t worried about who you show it to or the naysayers, I have no problem with gimei… especially at a fraction of the price.

Darn…

If you decide you are not yet comfortable separating and re-glueing the shirasaya yet, you can use the paper bands as Grey described. If you go this route, I do recommend you search out some acid free ‘archive’ paper. While maybe a little over cautious, it will help with keeping any additional marks on the shirasaya to a minimum. The paper bands should suffice for quite some time.

Shiga-seki? Possibly Kanenobu? Just something to look into.