What do you think of this one?

[Lindus]

So, we have a brand new blade but looks spectacular,not an art object but many would be happy with....what is its monetary worth?....also in a decade what would it be seen as a financial investment???

Then as with many other smiths being re-evaluated,how would this be seen in a decade I wonder. I had a sword by the 1st generation Shigetaka,when viewed many years ago by a "Major" polisher in the UK at that time, he said that at this time it was not of any real interest but this and others were being re-evaluated..........

 

I go back time and time again to the old rule of thumb...

Can you afford it?

Do you really like i??

Buy it

[Danocon]

"Yoshifusa" is the 2 character mei on the tachi-omote (in the hammered looking area), and the cutting test is the long inscription on the other side...

 

Sometimes new mekugi-ana are done purely for a new set of mounts, even when the nakago remains unshortened.

 

Really!!!!

Shows you what I know about kanji.

 

Pardon the newbie questions but I find this blade very interesting. Both for the beauty of what it is and whatever has been done to it to pass it off as something else.

So only the area of the signature on the nakago has been hammer peened. The signature that is there now had to have been done after it was hammered.

Tell me why this would not immediately set off all kinds of red flags

[Tcat]

So, we have a brand new blade but looks spectacular,not an art object

 

Not Koto...but not an art object?

 

This looks like one of those Kiyomaro copies you occasionally see on e-bay. I quite like the sword but it certainly isn't what it says on the tin.

[Kam]

Mmmmm, lets see nice sugata, neat tight hada, well done hamon from what I can see (a little masked by the hadori). Still an art object. . . regardless. . . . and lets face it some forgeries are art in themselves, a lot of skill goes in to making a good forgery.

So yes it really is a nice peice of art. . . just not as described.

 

Kam

[drjoe]

I doubt the smith who made the blade did it....

 

It was done for profit, plain and simple.

 

Sometimes a smith will make a copy, down to the patination, etc., but I believe they must sign their name to the blade by law. It is easy for someone else to have the name removed and a spurious mei added. It has been part and parcel of Japanese swords for 1000 years. One might even say it it tradition...

 

If nothing else, the 7 body test is a tip off....That is sheer nonsense...

 

yes, for money of course... but it does seem unlikely that a modern smith making something of this quality would forge a signature. i've never seen even a shinsakuto utsushi with a nakago made to intentionally look old -- do you have examples of this?

 

and where is the profit coming from? assuming this is a kimura blade, we're talking about ballpark $10K for a new comission of a blade like this, right? so then it falls into someone's hands, and they go to the trouble of erasing the mei, patinating the nakago and carving a new fake mei, and selling it for about the same price? i realize lots of people who have that kind of money might be fooled by this, but it's not like its being sold for what a fukuoka ichimonji would cost. so i still don't really see the point.

 

i just came back from sf token kai, and i do now remember speaking with a gentleman there with a new flashy soft-cover catalog-type book (in Japanese) called something like "encyclopedia of Japanese swords." there was a very similar oshigata it in of an enormous o-kissaki blade with a mei that included test cutting results (the blade was featured in an article about test cutting on bodies). anyone know the book?

[Jean]

Alex,

 

It is Bizen Utsushi and has nothing to do with Kiyomaro Utsushi, lack of sunagashi and above all lack of nie for which Kiyomaro is famous.

 

Joe,

 

That is the reason why I asked the usual measurement of such blades. I see perhaps one explanation, far fetched. This sword has suffered from a big accident thus has been shortened and faked into a Nambokucho blade by adding cutting test and gimei.

 

BTW, how many blades has one seen with a seven body test cut (even in books)?

[Jacques D.]

Hi,

 

This sword has suffered from a big accident thus has been shortened and faked into a Nambokucho blade by adding cutting test and gimei.

 

As there are no Yoshifusa in Nanbokucho era, i think it's more an error from the seller than something else.

 

All the rest is speculation

[Jean]

As there are no Yoshifusa in Nanbokucho era, i think it's more an error from the seller than something else.

 

That's what I call speculation

[Tcat]

Alex,

It is Bizen Utsushi and has nothing to do with Kiyomaro Utsushi, lack of sunagashi and above all lack of nie for which Kiyomaro is famous.

 

Sorry Jean, perhaps that was stretching it a bit. What I meant to say was that this reminds me of some of the the moderately priced rather flash utsushi occasionally seen offered on ebay. They looked a lot like this blade and the Kimura blades that Chris posted examples of earlier. I dont remember nie or sunagashi visible in these copies...although having said that, I do not think that all fake kiyomaro's have all the features which knowledgeable collectors would be looking for...rather just an approximation of sugata, a flash hamon and okissaki.

[Jean]

By a Komiya smith from Moderntosho website, a picture of a Kiyomaro utsushi:

[Jacques D.]

Hi,

 

About utsushi (term a little bit bandied about ), a true one

 

[Jean]

Sorry Jacques, but an utsushi is an utsushi, being made by Munetsugu or any other smith. It is more or less good depending of the smith.

 

A remark:

 

These pictures are as old as the blades themselves and useless:D

 

This picture provided does not bring anything. Nothing can be seen from it, a lot of these pictures are available on the web but are useless due to the fact they are not High rez (often pictures from pictures) and do not show the work of the smith which is the only thing interesting. If someone can see something of the hada or hamon he is welcome.

 

How can one say that this blade is a real utsushi (apart from what is chiselled on it) and the name of the smith?

 

It is as in the Nihonto Koza, the Oshigata are very good, but the pictures lousy, instead of the hada you can see the texture of the paper (as if it was grid paper) on which it has been printed before being photographed to be reproduced inthe book ...

 

For kantei, oshigata are often better than lousy pictures. It is a reason why in Juyo zufu, NBTHK provides oshigata of the blades rather than pictures.

[Jacques D.]

Hi,

 

Jean,

 

Sorry but you are wrong on that. Utsushi 写し means duplicate, copy, it does not mean work in the style of. When a painter makes an ustushi of "les Tournesols" by Vangogh or of "la Joconde", he makes exactly the same painting.

[Jean]

Yes, I agree totally with you. When I say utsushi, I mean copy or also an imitation otherwise, it could be working " in the style of", for example, Sendai school did not make utsushi of Hosho blades but worked in the style of Hosho, you probably saw 2 years ago in a shop an utsushi of a Hosho blade by Suishinsi Masahide, as it was a daito, I shall call this blade an "imitation"

 

The best utsushi I have seen is at the DTI 2 years ago. There was a Sadamune tanto which has been burnt and was retempered by Yasutsugu shodai (Tokubetsu juyo) 180 000$ and beside its utsushi by Yasutsugu shodai (tokuju) 240 000$ - difference of price coming from the fact that the Sadamune was saiha. BTW, they were quite different

 

But nowadays, studying a particular smith and his style and trying to imitate/duplicate his workmanship in forging a blade is called utsushi. In this way, utsushi does not mean copying but imitating, which is different from "working in the style of" which leaves to the smith some freedom in the manufacture.

 

 

When utsushi=copying, it can very well be a style

[Jacques D.]

Hi,

 

But nowadays, studying a particular smith and his style and trying to imitate/duplicate his workmanship in forging a blade is called utsushi. In this way, utsushi does not mean copying but imitating, which is different from "working in the style of" which leaves to the smith some freedom in the manufacture

 

Never seen some thing like this in my books or heard from knowledgeable persons.

[Jacques D.]

Hi,

 

Two days ago, i posted an utsushi of a Bizen Kagemitsu tachi, below is the model

 

 

[runagmc]

"ko-Ryu Kagemitsu" http://www.emuseum.jp/detail/100178/000 ... os=1&num=8

[Lance]

I was under a couple different impressions of what an "utushi" referred to:

 

In modern times it's a recreation of a specific noted or famous sword, not one merely in the style of the smith or school? The small number I've seen always had the real smith's art name with some even mentioning the sword they were attempting to recreate as part of the signature.

In the book "The New Generation of Japanese Sword smiths" there are interviews with the smiths, and when they mentioned making swords in the style of a school or smith they didn't mention doing an utushi, they said they were ready to challenge Soshu or Bizen den, etc. I don't know if it was just the way it was translated for western readers but it does sound different (I've read similar online or in other books but that's one that sticks out)

 

During Samurai/Edo era utushi had a different meaning, copies of swords by famous Koto smiths were were made to be given as gifts as there's only so many Masamune to give?

 

The sword that was posted does look to be modern, my only guess as to why it was altered is that maybe the secondary market on Shinsakuto isn't as great as antiques? and they aren't looked at in the same way when it comes to the history or as an investment, kind of like depreciation of new cars, a new Camaro/Mustang won't be worth as much in 5 years as the old muscle cars of the 1960's?

 

Regards,

Lance

[drjoe]

The sword that was posted does look to be modern, my only guess as to why it was altered is that maybe the secondary market on Shinsakuto isn't as great as antiques? and they aren't looked at in the same way when it comes to the history or as an investment, kind of like depreciation of new cars, a new Camaro/Mustang won't be worth as much in 5 years as the old muscle cars of the 1960's?

 

Regards,

Lance

 

right, but this sword isn't being sold -- at least at this time -- at the price that the antique from this maker would cost.

 

fwiw, the new yoshindo yoshihara book says that an utsushimono is "a new sword made in the same style as an extant older sword," but then all the examples by yoshindo are in fact "exact" copies of specific blades (including extra mekugi ana, etc.), and attributed as such.

 

still you can probably chalk this up to semantics. maybe we should agree to call the blade in this post a franken-utsushimono.

[Lance]

right, but this sword isn't being sold -- at least at this time -- at the price that the antique from this maker would cost.

 

It's not the price of the real thing, but the only logical conclusion is at some point someone thought it would either be an easier sale or worth more as an "old sword" with a big name and cutting test than a new sword/used one by a modern smith. Otherwise it would be unsigned or have the real smith's signature.

Regards,

Lance