Ray Singer

Ansei ni nen hachi gatsu hi (a day in the eighth month of 1855)

Kōzuke (no) Kuni Hasebe Yoshishige” (上野国長谷部義重)

Omi (no) kami ___ (suriage) I believe the next kanji after Kami is Fuji: https://nihontoclub.com/view/smiths/meisearch?type=All&mei_op=contains&mei=近江守藤

Ishihara Kanenao. https://www.google.c...rome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Perhaps 長州住二王清作 Choshu ju Nio Kiyonari

I recently had the surprise of seeing that the NBTHK is now awarding Tokubetsu Hozon to osuriage mumei Muromachi blades with only a school attribution, not even to a specific smith, so some of the advice that I've given in the past about how high a mumei Muromachi period blade can achieve needs to evolve.

The blade looks like a nice Sue-Bizen tanto with attractive shape. I don't typically recommend investing in restoring mumei Sue-Koto, but I would not completely discount it and it certainly looks too nice to classify only as a tsunagi. Perhaps a madoake is in order, to evaluate the workmanship and health, and decide from there.

This is one of the most important reasons not to clean or disturb the appearance of the nakago. It is an extremely valuable indicator of age, school, smith, etc. Appearance of the nakago in your sword clearly indicates a blade earlier than the 20th century.

You do sometimes see shinsakuto being sold in Japan which have had an inscription column defaced, and it appears evident in these cases that it was a special order column that was removed. I've never heard a western collector object to the presence of a special order inscription on a Japanese sword, especially considering that such an inscription indicates that a sword may exhibit better than average workmanship ( the blade having been made specifically to fulfill a special order request.

Btw, the tall habaki is an interesting feature and not often seen. This is a way to extend the apparent length a blade when a longer blade is needed.

What you have appears to be a shinto blade (from the early Edo period) in shingunto koshirae (army mountings). What I would say immediately is that there's nothing that you should do to remove rust, and whether or not any of the patina on the nakago (tang) has obscured the signature no rust should be disturbed in any way from that area. The nakago, it's patina (color and texture), is a vital characteristic that should be left completely unaltered.

Bizen no kuni ju Osafune Sukesada Munemitsu saku

Signed Tsuda Echizen no kami Sukehiro. Unfortunately the inscription does not appear to be authentic, I would not consider it to be a good target for investing in restoration. Best regards, Ray

My impression was earlier.

Kaneshige saku * feel better Brian