Tomonari

[Darcy]

This is how I spent my week. I worked to 5am every night, and got up at 9am and went back to work, assembling the listings for the Saburo Kunimune and the Ko-Bizen Tomonari on my site.

 

It is a huge amount of work. These things will end up probably as pages in my books so I am trying to use these as opportunities to do something good with the writeups.

 

Ko-Bizen blades we don't see very often. But Tomonari, the last time one was in the open market was at Christie's (at least that I know of). It was mumei, Tokuju, with Muromachi fittings and a nanbokucho period habaki. That is what you call a "nice package." Anyway it got a nice package price of $406,000 too.

 

But if you're reading this and you never heard of or had a chance to look at Tomonari work, then you should read my week of blood sweat and tears:

 

http://www.nihonto.ca/ko-bizen-tomonari

 

I think because the name is so far back and the work is just not seen it will pass over new collectors heads. So this note is really for you.

 

Soshu den as we know it is a merger between Ko-Bizen, Ko-Hoki, Bizen and Yamashiro. All of the traits can be found before but they are taken to some new levels of sophistication and presentation as they come together. So it helps, in understanding Soshu and in that, it's very hard to see Ko-Bizen and Ko-Hoki works in good shape that you can really start making the connection with.

 

This one is in pretty good health. Only 8 went through the NBTHK as Juyo or higher. 3 of the 8 are now Tokuju and that one that sold was the one of the set that is mumei. The other two Tokuju are signed. So... can't even speculate on what they would sell for. So they are rare, and expensive, and that I got my hands on this one is a minor miracle.

 

Tomonari is the titular head of the Bizen Tradition.

 

He's the man.

 

He is listed at 3,500 man yen in the Toko Taikan. This is the highest rating. I think Masamune is at 2,500. Niji Kunitoshi at 2,000. Saburo Kunimune is 1,800. I think only Awataguchi Hisakuni and possibly Sanjo Munechika also have the 3,500 score, but maybe one of the two of them is 3,000. This is going from memory so I may have made some errors there.

 

This could sit on my site for a year or two or it can go in a few days, I have no way of knowing, so when you have an hour to read about swords and look at a hundred pictures of a roughly thousand year old blade from the smith that was said to be the inspiration for Masamune, then take the opportunity to read.

[b.hennick]

Great write up on a super sword. Whoever becomes the next owner/caretaker is a lucky person. I note that your tanslation says "Den Bizen Tomonari". As discussed before Den means that it has someting extra or is missing something. I do not see anything missing so the question is what is the "something extra"?

[Surfson]

Wonderful blade and beautiful and informative description Darcy!

[Darcy]

I would have to look at the other Tomonari and I don't think they will let me into where I need to be to check .

 

When a smith has very little signed work to examine, and in the case of Tomonari they have those two dated blades that did not go through the NBTHK, they tend to back off a little bit on what the entire work style means. So that means Den is going to likely raise its head more often.

 

You will see this with some swords that get Den in Juyo and then lose it in Tokuju, or get no Den in Juyo then get it in Tokuju. Bob Benson submitted his Norishige for Juyo and it passed and I think it went straight into Tokuju and it passed too. So one would think this is pretty much the same team. But even so in Juyo it was not Den but in Tokuju it became Den.

 

But when there is Honami Kinzogan on there, there seems to be no Den (or maybe I have not seen it yet, I need to check them all). However, I have seen them put Den on signed pieces. All it takes is one character of the mei to be cut off and then they may put Den on it though all the rest matches perfectly. That was a surprise to see.

 

I mean, how do you validate a smiths' signature as being him, while also adding Den to his signed work? Because of this kind of thing I tend to just downgrade that whole bit. They are talking about +/- some small fraction that is impossible to get a handle on and the shinsa team can't even get straight if the same blade 8 months apart needs Den or not. So if they don't know what is going on with it on a sword, it's probably facetious to stand far back and be too scholarly about it and assess the reasons too strongly. Because I would hope that they would treat the same sword the same way consistently, but if they're not then the goalposts are shifting and that means we can never really reliably assess Den, just that they say it's minor plus or minus stuff and does not change the attribution.

[Ken-Hawaii]

Wow, Darcy! That's one hell of a write-up, & sets the bar for anyone doing research on a blade. Great job!

 

Ken

[Marius]

Thank you Darcy

 

The importance of this sword seems too staggering to comprehend. The write-up is excellent, with such a wealth of information

 

You really should publish all your write-ups as a book. I would definitely buy it, and encourage my fellow collectors here in Poland to do the same, but of course I know that this is a huge work. I have your (and Bob Benson's) book on Bizen swords and I have been waiting for a sequel

[BIG]

Fantastic

 

Both, the writing and the sword

 

Highest Level

 

Best Regards

[slashxu]

Beautiful sword! Nice literature on the Tomonari. I also enjoyed reading about the Kunimune.

[Darcy]

I generally don't post here when I put up a new sword, just that those last two items were considerable amounts of work and have a high information content, as well as very important smiths.

 

I appreciate the positive feedback, it won't be a common thing to link them over though.

 

And they are going to go into my books... just slow as the books are a huge time expenditure and almost nobody guys them, so has to go into hobby time.

[Curran]

"If wishes were horses, I'd be eating steak right now"

~ Jane, from Firefly [Joss Whedon]

 

Probably that joke will confuse all but veteran sci-fi fans.

Still, it is spot on how I feel when looking at the Tomonari. What I think is 'steak' is on par with what Jane thinks is steak. Hard to conceptualize higher.

 

Shape just kills me every time I look at it.

I have not held many blades this old- may 6 Juyo or above ones. As I once discussed with Darcy a very long time ago (SF 2003 or 2004), something this old with atomic halflife of iron is just going to feel very different. This level of preservation takes on a tactile sort of challenge. Many of us are comfortable holding Nambokuchu blades aplenty, but holding something like always give me a flashback feeling to the first time or two I stood in a sword shop and had something high caliber handed to me as a newbie.

These are very rare, and I regret that most here just get to see it in images. They definitely should be held once or twice in a collector's life. I'd love to own one, most likely a ko-bizen, but am resigned to Jane-doms at the moment.

[Darcy]

Great write up on a super sword. Whoever becomes the next owner/caretaker is a lucky person. I note that your tanslation says "Den Bizen Tomonari". As discussed before Den means that it has someting extra or is missing something. I do not see anything missing so the question is what is the "something extra"?

 

I went back and had a look in the index.

 

3 Tokuju blades: two are signed, one of those is Juyo Bunkazai. The third one is mumei with no den.

 

5 Juyo blades: 2 of these are signed, one of these has the Tomo eroded away and has the Nari after it. This one is one of these that I mention above, they put DEN Tomonari on it, even with half the signature. The other two are mumei, this one is Den and went through in 1961. The other one went in session 31, is 62cm, suriage and no Den but just says Tomonari tachi. It actually has the same amount of original nakago on it as the one I have, just about half.

 

The bigger question to me than Den is why they called mine a katana and this one a tachi. Two suriage swords originally tachi, having been shortened to losing the mei and retaining about half of the original nakago. Since they said in session 6 that mine was a katana I listed it like that.

 

I think though that it has something to do with the time period in which they passed the blade through. Tanobe sensei wrote on the sayagaki that it retains its original sugata from its time as a tachi.

 

Without the mounts it can be a bit arbitrary in how you describe a suriage mumei former-tachi.

 

Another curiosity is that I've had naginata naoshi come through listed as katana.

 

1982 Kinju Naginata Naoshi listed just as a Katana.

 

 

I've seen them come through as Naginata Naoshi by itself.

 

Then on my Kunimune Juyo paper it says in full "Naginata Naoshi Katana" ... done in 1998.

 

 

So I think there are a couple of things going on, based on how the judge feels and maybe some looser standards about how these things were applied vs. what they are doing now. I like it being called a Naginata Naoshi Katana because that is very descriptive. I don't like the older practice of just calling anything suriage a katana because that is what it was modified to be, the Naginata Naoshi Katana term is good because it is full descriptive: this *was* a naginata, it *was* altered, and *now* it is a katana.

 

Probably the equivalents would be to say it is a tachi, and a suriage-tachi katana.

 

And the difference between these two mumei Tomonari is 23 years, so that may be the difference in how they declared the two.