Old Blade in Shin Gunto Mounts for study

[nihonto1001]

Shingunto with Koto Blade.

 

I decided to put this up for study before I sell it. It is a Koto Period blade cut down from a tachi, into wakizashi form. What is interesting about it is the Nakago. It has 6 closely placed ana. Also, check out the end of the nakago, you can clearly see the kitae, the strata of different grades of tamahagane. It is one of may favorite finds so far.

 

http://onihonto.com/Shin_Gunto_Koto_Blade.html

 

Please feel free to comment on this piece.

 

I try to represent all of my items as accurately as possible, so feel free to critique any of my listings. If you find a material factual error, let me know what it is and its good for 5% off on any item.

[Stephen]

I had a koto blade with the same cut nakago, I had always wished I had the end polished to see all the layers. question is would that devalue it more?

[Alex A]

Interesting Jon, i was wondering if it could have been an early katana, rather than a tachi. Early muromachi katana where a similar shape to tachi, but looking at the sori, i think your right, maybe an earlier sword.

[nihonto1001]

It hand, it looks more like it was a former tachi. It is still 21.25", but is osuriage. None of the original nakago remains. So, chances are it was a longer than 28". It also looks a little slender to be a Katana. The tapering is more consistent with a longer sword.

 

Also interesting, it looks like the shingane is split in the middle; two pieces welded together.

[Alex A]

Is it possible to get an o-suriage blade such as this papered?, a blade with so much taken off, im unfamiliar with what they will accept, a bit curious.

[paulb]

Hi Alex

Provided there is sufficient detail visible to indicate what it is and it is in good enough condition it can receive a paper. If it were shinto the highest level of paper would be tokubetsu hozon, as a koto blade it could go higher depending on condition.

Regards

Paul

[Alex A]

Cheers Paul.

[Stephen]

this passed at 74, but later recided because of hagire, so yes they do paper overly cut short nakagos

[nihonto1001]

Hi Stephen:

 

Strange they missed the hagire. I once bought a NTHK papered osuriage Kanabo Masatsugu Wakizashi that had a hagire, from a Japanese Dealer. I returned the sword to the dealer and it later turned up in Australia. The new owner was trying to sell it, unaware of the hagire. IE., until I notified him.

[Jean]

I had a Kanetsune NTHK papered with 2 hagire....

[nihonto1001]

Hi Jean:

 

Was it an Ebay find? Trying to draw some similarities.

[Jean]

No, it was coming from Japan, but had big patches of rust.

[Stephen]

It would have gone unseen if I had not pointed it out to Chris, not me to try that, but they did pass it at first as very good study blade but when politics come down too it guess they did not want to start a trend on passing blades with hagire and i fully understood that, btw it did have a battle scar on the mune just above it, its what caused it in my mind....water under the bridge.