Gimei or not?

[Jean]

Here is a scan of a Tadahiro mei which was sent to me by a friend - it is a wak which has to be polished so the hada is not visible, the hamon is not suguha but rather notare.

 

I told him to send me a scan of the nakago and that I'll post it on NMB to have a feed back. Unfortunately, the file is ".tif" and I do not know if you'll be able to open it

[Brian]

Tifs should display fine, but not sure why all that open space?

I cropped and enlarged, but this is the best I could get it. Send me any better pic you have of it, and I'll replace the top image.

 

Brian

[Jean]

Hi,

 

Two other JPG files my friend just sends me :

 

A scan of the Nakago in .jpg

A picture of the hamon

[Jean]

And the hamon, I shoot faster than my shadow :lol:

[Darcy]

I was talking with Jean on email about this one... there is a good item to compare this to here:

 

http://www.nihonto.ca/omi-daijo-tadahiro

 

This is the same style of hamon, and there is an oshigata that is similar to the nakago in the sample. There are some differences, but Omi Daijo worked over a 60 year timespan and had a large number of smiths working under him. In particular there are numerous daimei by the 3rd gen Mutsu no Kami, and Roger Robertshaw pointed out to me once that when the 3rd gen died the 2nd gen was still alive and in his elderly years. This placed the young 4th generation as the central smith in the "factory" who then had responsibility for signing the master's mei.

 

So these items have to be carefully considered, one blade in question I sent the signature to the NTHK which was quickly/unofficially dismissed as gimei while Roger thought it was perfectly fine and a work of the 4th generation signing for the 2nd. The work was high quality so I tended to agree with Roger.

 

I would say that the hamon and nakago and mei are consistent with the late period work of Omi Daijo, I don't know for sure whether to rule it in or not but there are differences with the examples I have on my site. It takes someone who studies this school more to know for sure, and/or the blade needs to be examined to look for the signature quality of the mainline Tadayoshi school.

 

I think I would be leaning towards another 4th gen daimei off the top of my head.

 

The sword looks like it is in sufficient condition to be submitted for Hozon or NTHK papers.

[Darcy]

Well this is interesting and timely! Aoi put up a 4th gen "Omi Daijo Tadayoshi" katana.

 

http://www.aoi-art.com/sword/sale/image/07303-2.jpg

 

No time to pull the mei off and compare side by side right now...

[Jean]

Interesting, unfortunately, I would have liked to have the Hiro kanji instead of the Yoshi because on the oshigata provided by my friend there are suspicious atari. My main problem is that I have requested him to provide me with pictures of the mei but I am sure that the info provided as so far is enough for him ans that he will not bother taking pictures

 

Nevertheless the vertical stroke at the left of the kanji "Fuji" (in the oshigata provided) seems very short

[Jean]

Here is another one on Aoi Art by the 2nd Tadahiro with same kind of hamon

 

http://www.aoi-art.com/sword/wakizashi/ ... 7304-2.jpg