Onigoroshi

Does Bushū Kanda-jū mean "residing in Tokyo in Edo period"?

I rubbed some chalk into the kanji to try and help the camera pick it up more clearly. The first picture is without the chalk.

Can anyone help me with a transition of my shikomizue? Thank you in advance.

Haha! I know how that goes. I've accumulated a lot of books on antique guns over the years. There's always information in books that you won't find online. And even more information has been lost by people passing away and not recording it for future generations. This has been a long road. I've owned this piece for a little over 30 years, researching it on and off the entire time. Out of the dozen or so people I've shown it to before showing it on this forum, only one person gave me an idea of what it may be. He was an elderly Japanese man I met at the Ohio Gun Collectors Association show in Cleveland, Ohio in the early 1990s who collected and appraised Japanese swords and armor. He told me this was possibly a wedding present between families and gave me a ballpark appraisal. He did tell me that it was special and to take very good care of it. I wish I would have taken more time to ask him questions about it, but I was young then and had no intention of ever getting rid of it. I've contacted OGCA to see if they had a record of his name, hoping maybe he had children who followed in his footsteps and could help with information. I appreciate the help I've received on here. I hope I can gain some more information and get a definitive answer to what this is.

Unless there's something I can find searching online, I have no lists of smiths. Does there appear to be a date in the engraving to narrow down which Muneaki it may be? The only date I have to go by is the age of the maker of the kogatana blade, Masayuki, which I calculate was made around 1814, but I'm not sure the kozuka is original to it.

Thank you! Is there something I can do to bring the kanji out more? I've done color fill in the past with paint on guns and have mineral spirits on hand to clean the paint off once I'm done. Should I try it?

I don't have a scale here with me, but the blade itself is quite heavy, heavier than aluminum would be. When I compared the weight to a steel blade a few years ago by having one blade in each hand, this blade was noticably heavier. I'm still searching for someone locally to do an XRF scan to determine the composition. I may have a lead on one at a university, but I'm not sure if they will do testing for the public. I'll try and have a jeweler perform a rub test this week and post the results.

Thank you so much for the information. The kozuka is iron. I tried to make a rubbing but the writing isn't deep enough. I did manage to take some better pictures (hopefully).

You seem to be the one who is being vulgar. I was simply explaining my reasoning for not doing an acid test. The surface tarnish produced by the bleach can be easily removed with a silver cleaning cloth. Nitric acid, sometimes, can not as it can etch the piece depending on its composition. I have tried to locate someone to do an XRF test on it, but I've yet to find anyone locally. Not every jeweler possesses an XRF machine that normally costs tens of thousands of dollars. Even portable ones aren't that common. I was not "boasting" about the value of my collection, just illustrating that I'm not a novice to dealing with expensive\ high end items. I'm fully aware that one wrong move, whether cleaning a gun improperly and removing patina or touching a nihonto with your bare skin, can cause damage. As you so "eloquently" pointed out, the "worthless blade" has been damaged by a previous owner who didn't know what they were doing. I can't help what they did, but I can do my best not to cause more damage. I don't see why you take offense to that. You can do whatever you like to your possessions, but I choose to not make any hasty decisions until I know exactly what I'm dealing with and the repercussions if something goes wrong. Some mistakes can't be fixed. I understand the kamon on the saya will most likely not help identity the original owners of the blade as many families used the Myoga as a crest, but the way the colors aren't visible unless under certain light, to me, is fascinating as I've never seen anything like that in the hundreds of nihonto I've seen. I apologize if it's not interesting enough for you to appreciate. For some reason, which I don't understand, you feel the need to go off on a tangent and denigrate and disparage everything about the blade and everything I've said, including describing this piece as being interesting, my methods of non invasive testing that's been used widely for testing silver, or my use of the term "hamon" to describe the edge pattern (which is the literal translation from Japanese to English of the word hamon) in the blade. I'm on here looking for helpful information, not to argue with someone. If you have nothing positive to say or information of value, please don't bother responding.

Thank you very much. I'm glad you appreciate it. When researching non invasive ways to test silver, the magnet test, bleach test and ice test are what is recommended. Notice I said non invasive, since I have no idea exactly what I have and no one has ever seen anything like it. I didn't feel comfortable having nitric acid put on the blade if it is something special. I collect guns and have an original silver plated and engraved Henry rifle made in 1865 and a Winchester One of One Thousand. If you don't know much about guns, both rifles are worth upwards of $150,000 a piece and could bring as much as $225,000 a piece to the right buyer. I'm not new to caring for high end pieces, and doing something damaging to a piece that's special, like a Henry or One of One Thousand, even a small defect like a spot of rust or bluing missing could devalue the piece by thousands or ruin it. Hopefully with that explanation you understand why acid testing was never done. There's no tarnish because I have used a silver polishing cloth to clean it once a year, just as you would use a uchiko ball and choji oil to clean a steel blade. The only place that is tarnished is where I dipped the nakagojiri in bleach to test it. Also keeping the blade in the saya with a tight fitting koiguchi won't allow it to tarnish easily. Air and humidity are enemies of silver. A neat little tidbit, the higher the silver content and the less copper content, the less it will tarnish. That's why .925 sterling silver tarnishes so easily, it has a higher copper content.