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Hello: Excellent looking piece Richard! Arnold

Hello: Right on Henry! Arnold F.

Hello: I would suggest a look at Danny Massey's site, Nihontocraft.com Arnold F.

Hi: I hope you are right in your expectations Bob, however I would be cautious about inferring too much from the hamon, which is after all a secondary kantei consideration after jihada. The illustrated jihada you refer to seems quite different, with a less flowing nagare pattern and with the mokune or itame smaller. Arnold F.

Hello: Shitahara? Arnold F.

Hello: Bob's is a friendly easy to reach show and well worth attending. Every effort is made to make it interesting and educational. Arnold F.

Hello Andras: Lots of good advice in the foregoing posts. Books can be expensive, for the more important references at least a $1,000 a running foot, however reading the suggestions provided without the lingua franca common to the Japanese sword, namely the Japanese terms used in describing and discussing them, will leave you more or less lost. John Yumoto's book as mentioned would meet that need, however it is rather dated. I would suggest you pay what is necessary to get a copy of Nobuo Nakahara. Facts and Fundamentals of Japanese Swords: A Collector's Guide. (Kodansha International, 2010), as it has the vocabulary and deals with many pitfalls you will want to avoid. Arnold F.

Hello: Nice educational post. I think that everyone who collects swords and tosogu can enhance their appreciation of those things by studying, if not actually collecting, the things that the samurai found aesthetically meaningful such as the ceramics involved in the tea ceremony, paintings, particularly those associated with Zen themes, as all such are two way streets. Some are a much lesser hit on the wallet than a sword, but just as absorbing. Arnold F.

Hello: Fair question and eventually a serious reply. Gabriel's reference was really useful. Besides lines you will also sometimes find rather cursive kanji superimposed by the togi-shi. Arnold F.

Hello: Oda of Satsuma? Arnold F.

Hello: Going back a few years it was common practice to apply oil, wipe off the obvious film amount with a Kleenex tissue (entirely avoiding those awful paper sheets in "Japanese sword care kits) and then use a well laundered piece of flannel one more time. If done properly and with the use of real choji oil, any subsequent beading sound be minimal or not seen at all. Arnold F.

Hello: It appears to be signed Kashu ju Fujiwara Nagatsugu and there were two working there in there in the third quarter of the 17th Cent. I had only a very quick look and was unable to turn up an example but that mei has a pretty convincing look to me. A nice looking blade and a style that fits those times. There will be a shinsa in Chicago in April and they would tell you what you need to know, though of course you would get a "right" or "wrong" but not a dollar value. Someone here might venture an opinion, but sight unseen makes for a lot of uncertainty as to what the images don't reveal and there is as yet no paper. Arnold F.

Hello: Do not despair as judging age is hardly easy and images from books can be helpful, but only barely. Age involves all the descriptive features of a sword starting first with shape, and then all the rest. Weight is rarely mentioned, however aside from the effects of some blades having been resharpened, perhaps many times, thus suffering from weight loss, it is a helpful guide. The foregoing are hard to integrate into the judgement mind set without hands on study. Some years ago, decades actually, a friend in Seattle had a blade that he submitted three (!) times for shinsa: first result, shinshinto; next shinto; finally Yamato and Juyo Token. I don't recall the groups other than the NBTHK, but it was not the only shinsa group one went to even then. My friend was convinced that the early calls were wrong, and that paid off! Arnold F.

Hello Ken: No I am not a customer for the tanto. It is only an illustration of the rise and fall of sword study/authentication bodies and that phenomenon is part of the history of the Japanese sword. Arnold F.

Hello: This morning Aoi posted for auction a tanto with an origami issued by the Kantei Kurabu organization some years ago. Mr. Tsuruta assures that the tanto, a Kanetoki, would get a Hozon (at least?), if submitted to the NBTHK. The discussion of kantei submissions here on the NMB is primarily focused on the NBTHK, but there have been quite a few groups from the immediate pre-War era into now that existed, fell in relative status, fractured into parts, or just disappeared. Does anyone know anything about Kantei Kurabu ? I understand it was headed by the late Shibata san, a respected dealer and had a number of judges. The recent posting of Bob Haynes' "The NBTHK - A Short History" and some of the implications that flow from it casts some evolutionary light on the comings and goings of the various groups, and I am sure each has something of an interesting history. Arnold F.

Hello: Swords and pricing is often a Devil's brew as so many "secret ingredients" find their way in. The Yamato pair of Hosho and Senguin is particularly interesting as they are the most atypical of the Yamato with the exception of the masame trait found so strongly in Hosho. Could the high regard for Hosho simply be because it is the example of "the major Yamato characteristic" and not found commonly elsewhere in the group, or might it relate to the cutting ability of masame in general? Why should high regard for Unkai be surprising as they were directly and initially influenced by Yamashiro before Bizen? It is interesting that Rai and Enju are both highly regarded, they are connected in development of course and I wonder if Enju might not rate higher if that connection were not less blatant? Mihara suffers somewhat for being thought of as sort of an Enju clone, however their masame presence is controlling. In terms of paper attributions and awards there has to be some important role attached to the social status and ranking of the groups that patronized the various working groups of smiths. Smiths may have sought out important customers, that certainly was so when the early Shinto smiths moved to the castle towns, but event in Koto times the patronage of politically and royally connected must have had an impact on Yamashiro prices and, by extension, their relative rankings which have been somewhat persevered through time. Similar factors would have had an impact on the high ranking of top Soshu makers. The foregoing are just ramblings, but of more interest to me would be any information on the relative value differences between the "good", "better" and "best" deceased smiths within a given historical period, and how those relative price differentials compressed or expanded as various criteria of assessment displaced one another through time. To take the broadest slice one might expect that during times of warfare top cutting groups would fetch high relative prices, whereas in Genroku "flashy" smiths might be preferred, and all of that priced accordingly. Such determinants would effect older groups moving along as well as groups of the historical moment. I wonder if you Jussi, or if anyone else has every noted any such data? Rankings, but not relative price data, at a moment or over time, gets a lot of attention in our literature. Relative prices must loop back on ranking assessments, though we treat price as derived from rankings and not the other way around. Both factors must play a role. Arnold F.

Hello: Well Jeff you've been given lots of good and well meaning advice, most of it on the side of aesthetics and learning and appreciation. Beware of the lure of "investment" however as "art investment" is right up there with the TV hucksters touting the "certainty" of gold and silver prices going through the roof, with never a probability affixed to it, or when the when is. The whole world of tangibles that could be collected is undergoing real transformations in all collecting areas, and the future, as always, is uncertain. So learn about swords, enjoy them for their beauty and historical context, and let the financial side take its uncertain course. Arnold F.

Hello: Thanks to Peter for the reference and of course to Markus for his conjectures about weighing and distilling the known inputs of the blade's history. A DVD titled Death of a Tea Master, with Toshiro Mifune as Sen no Rikyu, Venice Film Festival award winner, is an excellent watch. It can be acquire from Merlin David, often seen at US sword shows with piles of DVDs, or by going to www.samuraidvd.com Arnold F.

Hello: Thank you Simon for the very educational and interesting reference! Arnold F.

Hello: There might be some misunderstanding in the German text as last issue was #58/59 combined. Arnold F.

Hello: Not quite sure what you are asking, but " Kane (then indication of a missing or unreadable kanji)", then "Late Seki". Arnold F.

Hello: The doubtless well intentioned posted referenced by Stephen seems to group the Minatogawa Jinga Kiku-sui mon, along with the star stamp, as a stamped device. That error has been replicated many times and seems bullet proof to correction. The mon, of long historical use, as seen on Minatogawa swords are engraved and while very closely following each other, each is unique. Some years ago when Herman Wallinga was writing his justly original monograph on Minatogawa's blades the issue came up in discussion with him, and Herman, not willing to take my comments without confirmation, took a number of such blades then in his possession during his writing, to a high tech machining shop in Rochester, NY, and sure enough after study they were all declared as engraved. Arnold F.

Hello: It is interesting that the "Brown" Hawley lists 21 Masamune who are koto, some well rated, and even when signed it is ironic that most of them probably suffered distorted shinsa pass rates imposed on blades with their genuine mei. In the current case with the notation "den" and no narrowing gratis note, not so common in those days (1959), one would really have to be lucky to have hope transcend reality, but of course it could happen. Arnold F.

Hello: Well if it is 5,000 man, its a huge pile of dough! Arnold F.

Hello: I agree with Ray. After searching the Sano Museum monograph on Kiyomaro celebrating the 200th Anniversary of his birth one finds a number of examples and rather close mei. I don't understand the trotting out the imagined power of Occams (sic) razor on this Board from time to time, intended perhaps to lead to a round of collective genuflection, as it only says that entities, which could be assumptions, are not to be added beyond necessity. That is by the way the favorite approach of reductionist methodologies to which everyone would not subscribe. Looking objectively at the blade, its quality seems high, and the other necessary condition is to have the mei pronounced on in a shinsa context if one wants to be entirely sure that it is wrong. Arnold F.