Hira-zukuri

[peter]

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jmqtw4g24qa2 ... wfLrYmwdfa

Hello to all,

I feel fortunate to have aquired this tanto , after looking at some books yesterday this is what I have so far but hope for corrections and additional information and comments as you see them. I appreciate your input.

Length- 32.6cm

nagasa- 23.2cm

Moto-haba- 1"

Mune- lori-mune

yasurine- katte- sagari leading into kiri

hada- mokume

Boshi- ko maru sagari

I am also thinking Yamashiro tradition for school ?

Many thanks

Peter

[paulb]

Peter

I am curious as to why you think this might be Yamashiro tradition?

Also there appears to be an error/ typo in the dimensions you have listed.

Always difficult from images but my initial reaction would point towards gassan or nio rather than Yamashiro

Do you have an image of the whole blade?

thanks and regard

Paul

[peter]

Hi Paul

Thanks for your reply.

As I said I had a look through a few books and seemed more likely than anything else I could see.

So I'm totally off. It was hot yesterday and I maybe sat out to long.

Peter

[Baka Gaijin]

Good morning Paul,

 

There is an image of the whole blade, you need to click on the dropbox image 11 of 29 and it will expand from the square format screen capture into a full format image.

 

Cheers

[Marius]

Peter,

 

So what are the dimensions? 32 nagasa? Even in oshirae, this sword is never 59 cm long. Please correct these data.

 

This is not a Yamashiro blade (which means that you have go back to the books). And no, this is not a mokume hada.

 

What I can say is that this is likely a shortened, late Muromachi wakizashi from the North of Japan. Going by provinces, the suspects would be Etchu, Mutsu, Dewa, Echigo.

You can read this highly interesting article on Danny Massey's site:

http://www.nihontocraft.com/Ura_Nihon_no_Toko.html

 

And no, don't jump to the conclusion that you have a Norishige

 

It would help a lot if you could post better pictures of the habuchi. What we see now is the hadori polish (not the best, from what I can see in the pics). I know this is very had to photograph.

[DirkO]

  mariuszk said:

What I can say is that this is likely a shortened, late Muromachi wakizashi from the North of Japan. Going by provinces, the suspects would be Etchu, Mutsu, Dewa, Echigo.

 

+1 My guess would be Uda school

[Marius]

Dirk,

 

Uda is a popular grab bag for what in fact are Oshu and Hokkoku mono, so your guess is a good one.

 

If the nakago mune is maru, that would be also a kantei point for Uda. Pity we can't see the nioiguchi.

[paulb]

thank you Malcolm I thought I had run through all the images but obviously not!

One day Iwll master technology

[peter]

I edited the nagasa measurements and a few more images up.

Peter

[Marius]

Thanks Peter.

 

Some running masame in the ha... I'd say Uda (please check that nakago mune), but it could be Shikkake, too (although it is hard to say by pics only and the hada seems a bit too prominent).

 

I still see only the hada in the ha, but no nioiguchi, but I suppose it follows the masame structure to form nijuba/sanjuba?

 

Whatever, a good tanto. Well done

 

Oh, I forgot. It looks earlier than late Muromachi. Sorry, I got the sugata wrong, thought there was saki-zori.

[pcfarrar]

It looks Shin-Shinto to me, it's only slightly suriage, note how the hamon terminates just below the machi.

[cabowen]

Ikkansai Yoshihiro maybe....

[peter]

Thanks Chris, Musashi school an other avenue to check out

Peter

[Marius]

Peter,

 

A good candidate for shinsa (if you decide to submit, please do not forget to re-open this thread with the results).

 

Thanks for posting - very interesting

[peter]

Thank you all, on quickly looking up Chris' suggestion Ikkansai Yoshihiro i found this

 

http://www.nihontomessageboard.com/nmb/ ... d=29d2be4b

 

by Nakayama Yoshikazu a student of Yoshihiro, very nice and similar hada also in the kissaki

Peter

[Darcy]

My feeling looking at it was UDAAAAAAAAAA but I think it looks too new and too garish. Uda, you're going to see a lot of aiming at Norishige but not making it. This I am not sure is aimed at Norishige but it is just a bit over the top, so I think it is probably something shinshinto or later even.

[peter]

Thank you Darcy, I think your the 3rd to suggest shin shinto, including Peter Farrar and Ian Bottomley who seen it briefly in hand just after I bought it. So does this bring us any closer to a school or smith?

Peter

[cabowen]

I would almost bet that at shinsa it would go to Ikkansai Yoshihiro. I have seen a lot of his work- he did many of these Norishige-esque works. He was a very good smith with blades receiving Tokubetsu Hozon.

[peter]

Thank you all very much for your input on this, and your opinions on smith and school, i guess next step is shinsa when the time is right.

Peter

[peter]

Evening gents,

as requested an update on this Tanto. I put it in for NTHK-NPO shinsa and it passed as Mito Noritoshi 1st gen. (1681-1684) a descendant of Norishige so some good guesses from members,

Then just because i was curious it went in for Shinsa with the NBTHK and they attributed it to Nakayama Yoshimichi (1844-1848) adopted son of Ikkansai Yoshihiro 2 attributions 200 years apart.

so good guesses all round gents

Peter

[Jamie]

Thanks for updating the results.

It's interesting it was attributed to different smiths especially that far apart.