Bryce

G'day Gary, Thanks for sharing this. Looking at the amount of work that must be involved in carving a nice horimono, I have often wondered how the addition of a horimono affects the value of a blade. Recently I came across an article by Markus Sesko where he addresses this question. He presents an invoice from the renowned shinshinto smith Chounsai Tsunatoshi where he charges more for the addition of horimono than he does for the forging of the blade. In this case the addition of horimono basically doubles the price of the blade. Cheers, Bryce Breakdown of price for sword blade | Markus Sesko

G'day Dan, The blade itself looks to be much better quality than the nakago suggests. Is it possible that the very crappy nakago has been welded on at a latter date? From the photos I can almost convince myself that this is the case. Cheers, Bryce

G'day Guys, The small details on this just don't look right to me. I know that some of these details do vary, especially between different koshirae makers, but in this case, all the small details are different. I think it must be a repro as well. Cheers, Bryce

G'day John, So what are your conclusions on this? Is the sakura chuso button a feature of early 94's? Is it a favourite of a particular koshirae manufacturer? I just noticed that a lot of these examples also have a mon on the menuki, rather than the kabutogane. Cheers, Bryce

G'day Guys, A little bit more about the evolution of the "Gassan" habaki. It looks like in the 1920's Gassan Sadakatsu was also keen on the "bamboo fence" style of habaki. So far I have come across 6 examples of his blades with this style of habaki. Below are solid silver gilt and gold foil examples. Cheers, Bryce

G'day Guys, I called the above blade "Classic" Gassan School, but it is certainly not "average". Only around 1 in 20 of Sadakatsu's blades had a dragon horimono. Cheers, Bryce

G'day Guys, If I was asked to close my eyes and picture a "classic" Gassan school katana, this is what I would imagine. It is a Gassan Sadakatsu done in ayasugi hada with bohi and dragon horimono, dated 1920. Cheers, Bryce

I have since discovered another three tanto and a katana dated 1865 - 1870 where Sadakazu used this technique. Cheers, Bryce

G'day Guys, Here are some shots of a Gassan Sadakazu tanto dated 1867, which is very similar to the 1863 dated Sadayoshi tanto I posted earlier. It has very similar masame hada with the grain completely folded around on itself in the boshi, just like in the Sadayoshi signed example. Does anyone know the term for this? Cheers, Bryce

Here are another couple of examples of Sadakatsu boshi. The top one is a Bizen den blade dated Taisho 10 and the bottom is a Soshu den blade dated Showa 13. Cheers, Bryce

G'day Volker, That is a beautiful sword and is an example of a blade signed by Sadakatsu for his father. Cheers, Bryce

Thanks very much Moriyama san. Unfortunately the shot isn't really clear enough to draw any conclusions. Anybody else want to chip in? Cheers, Bryce

G'day David, The painted kanji are the numbers 9 2 4. Normally you would expect to see them repeated on all of the fittings. It looks like it may be a showato blade in type 98 gunto koshirae, with the saya missing a few bits and pieces. Cheers, Bryce

G'day David, It is possible that plays a part. It is very difficult to find good boshi shots, so I am dealing with a small sample size. What would be great is if members could post boshi photos of examples in their collections. You have got a couple David how about it? Cheers, Bryce

G'day Guys, Another interesting piece of Gassan trivia for you. I have noticed that Sadakazu and Sadakatsu seemed to have preferred different styles of Boshi. This is in no way meant to be a definitive difference between the works of father and son, but in general, Sadakatsu used a Hosho style boshi where the grain doesn't turn back from the tip and Sadakazu preferred a boshi with the grain wrapped around. I have seen examples of Sadakazu's work with the Hosho style boshi, but have not yet come across an example of Sadakatsu's with the wrap around boshi. Here is an example of what I mean. Sadakatsu on left and Sadakazu on right. Cheers, Bryce

G'day Dan, You missed an "S". It is called utsushimono. Cheers, Bryce

G'day Guys, Does anyone have a copy of the Han Bing Siong article? Cheers, Bryce

G'day Guys, Here is a comparison of the mei of this sword, with one signed Sadakatsu and dated 1921 from my collection. The outside images are the gensuito, with my blade in the middle. No doubt that the gensuito blade was signed by Sadakatsu for his father Sadakazu. Cheers, Bryce

G'day Rivkin, You are right that the pictures I am mostly looking at come from dealers' pages. If a blade is Hizen the hada is called konuka, but to my eyes, Hizen blades have a very large range of hada types. I guess my problem is that not all Hizen blades actually have konuka hada, yet the dealers will all call it Konuka. The same looking hada on another blade may be called Osaka or just koitame or komokume if the blade comes from another school. Cheers, Bryce

Bizen on left. Hizen Tadahiro on right. Cheers, Bryce

G'day Guys, I have never handled a hizen blade, only studied photographs, so I am coming from a position of ignorance, but there seems to be a huge range of what people call konuka. Some looks like very tight koitame to others that look closer to itame. How is it different from the very tight koitame you often find in Shinshinto Bizen works? Here is a shot of a Bizen Yokoyama Sukenaga blade to illustrate what I mean. Cheers, Bryce

G'day Ed, It looks like the mei is actually chiseled rather than just painted? Maybe it is ubu? Cheers, Bryce

I have read that the earliest blade signed by Sadakazu was dated around 1850? Does anyone have an oshigata of this blade or another early one? Cheers, Bryce

G'day Guys, AOIJapan have another beautiful tanto signed Gassan Sadayoshi, but almost certainly signed by Sadakazu for his father. It is very similar to the last one, but a little earlier and in more of a yoroi doshi style. Cheers, Bryce

G'day Guys, The Lanes Armoury in the UK have recently listed a katana signed "Gassan Sadakazu". For the bargain hunters out there, here is a comparison of this sword with a papered Gassan Sadakazu. I know which one I like. Cheers, Bryce