Help with katana!

[trygve]

Hello !

I am trying to id this mei. I Think the mei reads Yoshimitsu. The fellow I got it from said it read Yoshimoto. But The last kaji looks to me more like "mitsu" than "moto".

I have gone through my books. And cant find any that it could be. It is in bad polish with a few places were the hamon and hada shows.

Hawlay list a bunch of yoshimitsu from koto.

I wonder if someone with Nihon To Koza , koto could check this mei against one of the later generations of the Tosa Yoshimitsu smiths. I have heard that the Bizen Book have many exampels of the Tosa School.

 

Because of the nakago, nijimei. Sori =3 cm, nagasa = 74 cm and narrow suguha/notare hamon, irragular boshi, patina and rusty nakago and at least the many polishes it has seen I think it is a koto pice. I think it may be a early Muromachi period. Any thoughts???

 

More better photos of the sword and mei click at this link:

 

http://home.online.no/~kjoklepp/yoshimitsu.cfm

 

Thanks

trygve

 

[Mark]

Looks like a clear Yoshimitsu to me. Not sure which one as there are many. It is signed katana mei so i would think Muramachi at earliest

 

Mark

[b.hennick]

Hi

I recently sold a blade by Tosa Yoshimitsu. You can see photos of the blade, koshirae and a good image of the mei at

http://www.hennick.ca/SFI/YoshimitsuW/index.htm

[trygve]

Hi Barry

I found this tanto when I googled after Tosa Yoshimitsu some weeks ago. I know that the Tosa yoshimitsu school was famous for their tantos and that some of the good blades have been represented as Awantguchi Yoshimitsu.

But the mei do not compare. The characteristics on the blade could match. Difficult to to say because of the bad polish.

Do you know which generation the tanto was?

 

trygve