Kiyokatsu, the sword

[Daniel]

Ok, I gave it a new try this morning. I have a real hard time capturing those deep ashi. Please bear in mind these are all photos taken by my iPhone since I don't have a good camera yet. Anyway I hope they are at least somewhat less worse.

 

Best Regards

Daniel

[Daniel]

More

[Daniel]

Some more

[Daniel]

Last

[Brian]

If you are going to collect swords, you need to buy a camera folks. You cannot rely on cellphones, and with the price of decent little point and shoot cameras, there is no excuse.

Can see the hada in some pics, but most of the details are hidden by the photos I suspect (not by the polish)

 

Brian

[Stephen]

ya can see enough, well done, don't fret the expert photos, great work done on the polish

[Jean]

seems ko itame

[Adam M]

Beautiful polish on the sword, congrats

[cabowen]

Thanks for the photos...

 

As I recall, Kunitaro san was offering different levels of polish; which level of polish did you select?

 

Thanks again.

[Daniel]

Hi

 

I didn't select the level of polish, so it would be the standard level I think.

 

Regards

Daniel

[cabowen]

Thanks Daniel....Nice sword!

[kunitaro]

Thank you for posting photos, Daniel san,

Good sword with cheap camera is better than a cheap sword with good camera !

 

Chris san, Yes, It is Standard polish,

The most of swords are good enough with our standard polish,

I offer master polish only the master think that it is worth to take time by himself with his old Jizuya,Hazuya stones, some old sword needs to be re-shape properly,,, some old high quality sword with a bit weak hamon,or needs sensible work,

[cabowen]

Thank you Kunitaro san for the explanation- much appreciated....

[drbvac]

Kunitaro san the "regular" polish is always Hadori or may it sometimes be Shashikomi or does that take too much time and reserved for high quality blades - I must congratulate and thank you for your service by the way.

[Daniel]

Thank you all for taking the time to comment.

Yes Jean I would say Ko Itame and Choji Hamon with deep Ashi.

 

Regards

Daniel

[Daniel]

Hi all,

 

At last my four year old son is sleeping upstairs and I finally had the time to really study the blade and the polish. I feel my lousy pics made Kunitaro san's great service an even greater disservice. I want to point out even though the Hada is a very tight Ko Itame it is brought out and easily seen in reality and the Kesho follows the original Hamon in a nice and natural way. I wouldn't hesitate using his sevice's again. Also this has been another step for me in the learning curve. It is very satisfactory to have restored a blade to it's glory, all financial aspects aside

But isn't that what art appreciation is all about?

 

Have a great weekend folks

Best Regards

Daniel

[kunitaro]

Brian san,

Yes, regular polish is Kesho polish,

It is the best way to show finest activities of the blade (Ji and Ha) today.

We can do traditional Shashikomi polish, It takes much more time, so, it cost 50-100% more than standard polish.

Ji is not dark, and Ha is not btirght as Modern Shashikomi or Kesho polish.

 

Daniel san,

Thank you for your comment.

I am very glad that you know how to examine the activities.

When you take more than 5 min to stare at one place of the blade.

You start to see very fine activities in the blade, that is how the polisher see it.

and you understand how the polisher want to show what is in the blade.

The polisher communicates with the maker(smith) by polishing, and you are communicating with the polisher.

That is big part of the art appreciation.

[Daniel]

Hi

 

If somebody's still interested I had the blade out for cleaning during the weekend and took a few shots. Still a lousy photographer with the same iPhone

 

Well anyway I think you can see the Hada is a very tight ko-itame.

 

The blade look a lot better in hand and under the right light it really sparkles.

 

Regards

Daniel

[Stephen]

SOME reduced photos would show us your lovely sword in better understanding

[Daniel]

Thank you Stephen for your advice and comments.

 

I was hoping the new pics along with the previously posted would give an idea of the sword. I normally read this forum and post pics from my phone but viewing the pics at work from a computer I have to admit they are huge. Also as I'm sure many of you are aware of, some swords are a joy to photograph and some are impossible to capture. This blade I'm afraid is the latter. However as said before it's beautiful in hand.

 

Regards

Daniel

[Kiipu]

@Daniel If this 越後住清勝 [Kiyokatsu] sword, serial number 86, is still at hand, can you check the nakago and nakago mune for any army inspection marks.  Also, do you have a picture of the date side?

[Bruce Pennington]

Ditto!

Thomas, I'm thinking that's an "85".

 

[Stephen]

Thomas

I think you have the record for digging up the dead. 😆

[Daniel]

21 hours ago, Kiipu said:

@Daniel If this 越後住清勝 [Kiyokatsu] sword, serial number 86, is still at hand, can you check the nakago and nakago mune for any army inspection marks.  Also, do you have a picture of the date side?

No other marks just the Mei, date, assembly number and the star stamp.

[Bruce Pennington]

Ah, much better pics ... definitely "86" Thanks Daniel!

[Kiipu]

On 8/9/2021 at 9:50 PM, Bruce Pennington said:

definitely "86"

 

Actually, it is a three digit serial number.  The third digit can be partially seen above the shinobi to the left.  The shinobi was probably drilled by the fitting shop and it took out the third digit.  Some Niigata Prefecture RJT blades did not use the encircled 松 stamp and this is one of them.

 

Niigata Prefecture Timeline

615 Akitaka January 1943.

松819 Akihisa March 1943.

86? Kiyokatsu March 1943.

松1080 Munetoshi May 1943.

[Bruce Pennington]

14 hours ago, Kiipu said:

Niigata Prefecture Timeline

615 Akitaka January 1943.

松819 Akihisa March 1943.

86? Kiyokatsu March 1943.

1098 Akitaka April 1943

松1080 Munetoshi May 1943.

Added the Akitaka 1098, which is one of those mystery ones out of sequence.

 

I see what you mean on the third number.  Hard to picture what number it would be with such a curve in the upper left hand corner of the number.  Maybe a "9".  But I've filed it a "86?", too.

[Kiipu]

5 hours ago, Bruce Pennington said:

Added the Akitaka 1098, which is one of those mystery ones out of sequence.

 

The blades were inspected at the swordsmith's forge and then sent to Tōkyō 1st Arsenal.  Upon arrival, I believe they were then serialized without regard to the production date.  For this reason, the dates can and will be out of sequence to the serial numbers.  Some swordsmiths worked a great distance away from the arsenal and thus the inspector would arrive at a much later date than say a swordsmith who worked closer to the arsenal.  Bottom line, go by the serial number first and then make sure the date is reasonably close to the other surrounding RJT blades.