nulldevice

There isn't an accompanying oshigata on that page in the books.

https://club.menomeonline.com/products/book-yamatoden-en They have an order form for overseas customers. I paid 11,000¥ shipped to the US for my copy (5,500¥ for the book and 5,500¥ for shipping). I've seen 2 of these books sell for something like 25,000¥ on Aoi recently when you can just order it right from the publisher in Japan for less than half that. Only the Yamato den book has been translated to English so far. I believe Markus is working on the Bizen den book as we speak and I've heard it might be available sometime later this year.

That unpapered Bizen tachi in Koshirae is interesting. It stand out as being an old tachi but much lower in price without papers whole the rest are all juyo+ The Kunitoshi tanto is probably my favorite. If I was closer to NY, this would be an amazing exhibit to go and see.

A few more references:

Agreed, I would’ve loved to see more photos of the hamon. Was the price ever listed or was this a “contact us for price” listing?

I highlighted a section of your comment above and while that may be true in other fields, in Japanese swords the opposite is actually 100% true. A properly restored blade (done by a professional traditionally trained polisher) and the rusty, out of polish blade are both worth much more than the amateur restoration. There is no level of amateur restoration in Japanese swords that can add any value. Old blades are better off cleaned lightly with rubbing alcohol and covered with a thin layer of oil to prevent further corrosion until its time for a proper restoration. Any other attempts at restoration will only hurt the condition, collectability, and value of the sword no matter how careful the amateur is or how good their intentions are.

The tang is signed Seki ju Kunimichi saku "Made by Kunimichi of Seki province" As you stated, removing the rust from the tang was an unfortunate mistake as it is a very important part of the history and also value of the sword. But it is a WW2 era sword and from what I've read here, having the leather saya cover is an added bonus (some of the military guys can chime in there).

在 Arikawa?

That'd be my guess. Looks like a gaku-mei that fell out. Those sticker appraisals on the shirasaya are interesting. I haven't seen those before. Another thought, has this blade been retempered? The hamon looks to run off at the nakago, but the tang also has signs of suriage and a gakumei. Edit: This picture makes me wonder if there has been saiha

Alternative torture method: Buy an 8 volume set of nihonto books that don't have an English translation and index them manually. I learned a lot of kanji for names that way, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to someone who doesn't want 80lbs of sword books they can't read taking up their bookshelf space.

Wouldn't this be Munetsugu? I also don't know if this is the same smith but Fujishiro mentions a Munemichi that signed Munetsugu initially from Echizen Shimosaka:

This is a great tool that I also use for kanji I don't recognize right away or for kanji that aren't common on mei.

Would a good sayagaki by Tanobe have any impact at Juyo shinsa?

Good call. Tanobe had a lot to elaborate on with my sword and gave a firmer attribution than the NBTHK did. His opinion is always a good addition, especially on any early swords coming out of Japan.

羽後住國慶作 https://nihontoclub.com/smiths/KUN1880 Ugo Kuniyoshi?

A kitchen scale with a microfiber cloth to protect the blade would work great

Enjoy the sword!

2,702,000JPY final price. $17,616 or 17,006 euro

2.65M and climbing. We might see this go to 3M JPY

2.5M JPY final price Edit: Nevermind the auction is still going, might go even higher

This one wouldn’t bother me. i posted one a while back where the bohi extended into the kissaki quite a bit that I thought looked a bit off.

Are there examples of many re-tempered blades at Juyo+? I'd imagine the much more detailed Juyo papers would have lots of commentary available on the retempering.

Great video @GeorgeLuucas! I don't know much at all about tsuba but this was very informational!

@Franco D I will apologize in advance for my poor photography skills. Getting good boshi shots is hard due to the ko-kissaki, the tightness of the boshi to the edge, and my general lack of good photography skills. Hopefully these can show enough to try and get a glimpse of the boshi you can see when actually holding the sword. To my eyes, it does appear to run close to the edge but not off the edge and makes a small turnback towards the tip. Since the sword has undoubtedly been polished numerous times over its 800 year life, we can speculate how much the boshi and kissaki shape has changed over the years. I'd be inclined to call it ko maru agari but on 2nd and 3rd photos, you almost see a bit of midare in there. There are very small midare elements like in the hamon which I do not believe I captured well enough in my photos.