cju777

As promised the second addition, this one for the Bizen crowd. This sword is o-suriage mumei with gonome choji-ba hamon, ko-nie, and utsuri. The better photos are again courtesy of @Ray Singer (that may be a trend with these) with some of my own thrown in... I know I need a darker background. Happy to provide any photos of specific areas if my skills allow. nagasa 69.9cm moto-haba 3.2cm kasane 6mm There is varying opinion on attribution: The NTHK attributed the blade to Hidekage, Eikyō era; there is a remnant of an old kinpunmei (see photo) that might be mitsu 光; and a previous owner was told it could be Nanbokucho Omiya. Attributions all in the same general style but vary from Nanbokucho to early Muromachi. In hand it has a lot of heft to it. I do plan to send to NBTHK shinsa once global shipping is more reliable and will update the thread then. The blade has a lot of heft and a lot of activity to see in hand that I am not good at describing quite yet. This was a forum purchase so some of you may have seen glimpses of it before. (The black line in the boshi is a relfection, not a ware)

Shot in the dark at my level... but late Kamakura Yamashiro, maybe Ko-Enju? Or even into Nanbokochu Chu-Enju. Thanks for posting, cheers!

I ran into a similar issues with FedEx, missed calls and no message, but was able to call their customs office that was 24hr service and got back to me very quickly in email and got it moving in less than a day sending the proper form. Maybe UPS has the same if you create an account or go to their homepage.

Thanks John, I'll take some once it gets here.

Hello all, acquired a few pieces over the past year's mix of COVID lock-downs and while eagerly waiting for the latest to arrive thought I would start a few threads to share the blades with fellow members and provide some more searchable examples of these smiths for the NMB. Also maybe start some discussion if anyone sees anything interesting. The first is a papered NBTHK TH to Ko-Mihara with a sayagaki from Tanobe Sensei. Photos are courtesy of @Ray Singer and will get an in-hand update/photos once it arrives hopefully this week… delayed due to an issue at the DPO transit point . Without a full translation yet but looks like Tanobe-sensei commented that it a representative example of the sword, dates to Nanbokucho jidai, is osuriage mumei, and yuhin (exceptional work). I had been on the lookout for a blade in this style with some helpful advice and comments on other pieces from @paulb . nagasa: 66.3cm moto-haba: 28mm saki-haba: 18mm kasane: 6.5mm The next two pieces to be posted await post-COVID shinsa but have other attributions that might spur some debate.

Hey Charlie- I shipped the blade out mid-May and it was ready by the end of March, so about 10 months. I think the normal time for a shirasaya is a little shorter but a big project bogged him down and I wasn’t in a rush, worth the wait.

Sharing a very nice new shirasaya from John Tirardo, he's had a pretty steady workload, good for the nihonto community, but worth the wait. He also found a well fitting replacement habaki as an added bonus. Nagasa is 70.3 cm for size context. Cheers

Great story, thanks for sharing in such detail!

I had some free time today and was able to get them documented in a PDF for posterity. All the hard work was done by @k morita and others on the board here already. Any errors or omissions are my own. Modern Japanese Swordsmiths_Kanji corrections.pdf

There is some good information here with diagrams on the methods in which a sword was shortened: http://www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/suriage.html It is less common, but there were reasons to shorten from the kissaki end, not a never proposition and probably more common in naginata/Nagamaki-naoshi. Defer to those with more expertise on that though. https://blog.yuhindo.com/naginata-naginata-naoshi/

Hi Peter, I’ve only started checking the teppo section since some of the threads on your recent piece caught my attention. So please keep documenting your adventure with the new ‘problem’ piece if you can. Very interesting way to jump into to learning about these. Making it hard to resist the urge the expand my collecting laterally from swords to an example or two of these! Cheers

One I have out now for shirasaya was $625, about 70cm nagasa.

I’d say the same as the more experienced members above me. Nice to have another enthusiast in the Kingdom.

Thanks for your feedback. Forgot that things can be added to tsuba over time, makes for an interesting history. Forgive me if its a common question here, how do tosogu shinsa account for such changes over the life of a piece? I was considering putting it in when I send a few blades to the NBTHK post-COVID postal concerns since I'll have something out anyways. Just to see what they have to say since I don't have a background in tsuba work but if it isn't worth the trouble then I will enjoy as is. Tried to use some sunlight for better detail shots... not sure if it helped. I'll need to search the forum so some threads on care.

Hey Tosogu group- First tsuba I got on its ow n merits , I do have one other that came with koshirae this group helped me to identify awhile back. I normally stick to blades to avoid another area of appreciation (or money drain , heh). I always wanted a tiger piece and picked up this tsuba off Mr. Quirt while sword browsing. I have only a couple tosogu references, is this the kind of piece a school can be narrowed down to? Details from the listing were: early Momoyama or Muromachi, 7.65 cm x 7.436 cm x 5.24 at the mimi the plate itself is approximately 2.5 cm. It's a nice piece in hand to take a look at, especially in good sunlight. Cheers!

Despite a circuitous route from Japan to the US east coast then back to Japan and ultimately Thailand my "Christmas stocking stuffer" Tamahage finally arrived. I opted for the smaller box. Put it with on a bookshelf for some size context. Pretty neat addition to the collection! Displays really nice and one of the pieces has some interesting purple and green hues to it.

My own set from Grey just arrived, they are excellent. Thank you!

John- Sure, I shared it in the mil forum when I got it. Exactly what I was looking for to have an example of the period.

Geraint- Sadly the boshi is much out of polish and not much can be seen-

Not much more to go off of, but I do have updated measurements and some *slightly* better photos of the hamon line. Polish till makes it hard to made out any activity in the steel, and lots of small ware. Assessment still falls as a mumei probably kazu-uchi mono, not sure Bizen or Mino though. Appreciate the history of these swords, but really highlights how nice the true art pieces stand out. Nagasa: 61.5 Sori: 1.7cm Kissaki: 3.1cm, ko-kissaki Kasane: 0.6 Width at the hamachi : 2.8cm Width at the kissaki : 1.8cm Given the discussion on kazu-uchi mono in another post, sharing the newer details to have another example on the board.

Those are awesome! Giving me flashbacks of being a Chinese major way back in college... and the boxes of cards somewhere that haunt my neglected studies. The emphasis on sword terms is great, no better way to pick up characters IMHO than flipping through cards, and the font is fantastic!

Really cool thanks for sharing, especially fits the Christmas season!

Sorry I'm a bit late to the thread... sharing some books I've read and found useful and some on my list of books to read... Karl Friday is a professor on Japanese history at the university of Georgia and has written a few books on the topic. I like his writing, but I'm also an avid reader of history books so I don't mind the level or detail or tangents they can go down. The downside is his books can be pricey or harder to find in bookstores. His most well known are "Hired Swords: The Rise of Private Warrior Power in Early Japan" and "The First Samurai: The Life and Legend of the Warrior Rebel, Taira Masakado." The later is more narrative quick read following the life of Masakdao. I recently received his more recent "Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan" which seems like it has a lot of detail, but may be a bit more dry read. For a very top level, quick history of the Samurai and some of the modern mythology that accompanies them--"Samurai: A Concise History" by Michael Wert, a professor at Marquette University, is also a short easy read. My next book up focuses on the Edo period, it is by Eiko Ikegami called "The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan," will probably get to that around the new year. Like all good history fields there is debate in the community so also recommend searching some of the reviews and seeing where other scholars have differences. There are two autobiographies from late Edo period Samurai that have been translated as well: "Musui’s Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai" and "Lust, Commerce, and Corruption" -- I have not read them yet, so cannot comment on how well it was translated or how interesting a read. Enjoy!

Christmas stocking stuffer idea found. Thanks for sharing this!

Thanks Ray!