Yamato Masterpiece

[Jean]

Try to grab it you can:

 

http://www.aoijapan.com/katana-mumei-tegai-kanetoshi

 

As mentioned in another topic, it is not the first time that NBTHK challenges a sayagaki attributing a sword to Hosho, preferring Tegai.

[paulb]

Hi Jean,

I saw this this morning and my first thought before reading anything was Hosho. Increasingly as we look at blades from within the 5 Yamato traditions it becomes apparent that differences are extremely subtle, especially in later work. However Hosho should be the least confused as its predominent masame is unique to that school.

I think this is where we could really benefit from more information from the NBTHK. saying something is x or y is not really enough it is equally mportant to understand why it has been given an attribution to one school over another. I am guessing that the volume of swords they see prohibit them from doing this but perhapes the person submitting the sword should try asking questions rather than just accepting the conclusion.

Regarding the sword on Aoi's site, which I think is stunning, looking at the image the masame in the lower half appears to become ko-itame as you move towards the kissaki. I wonder if the Tegai attribution is because of this combination. With Hosho wouldnt you expect a more pure masame?

I also think Tegai, as the most prolific Yamato group becomes the safety net for swords that dont quite fit in to the other 4 schools.

Thanks for posting. regardless of who made it it is a good looking thing and one I would enjoy holding in my collection for a while (like about half a dozen others I am lusting after but cant afford:-))

regards

Paul

[Jean]

Hi Paul,

 

The question was asked at NBTHK when getting back my blade from Shinsa with Tegai Hozon despite two sayagaki (Junji, Tanobe) to Hosho. Here is NBTHK detailed answered: Not enough masame lol:

[Marius]

Of course none of us here has held the sword in hand, but I can't help but wonder if another shinsa wouldn't attribute this one to Shikkake, because of the masame being prominent closer to the ha.

 

In the pictures it seems that closer to the shinogi ji we have a different hada, not masame. 

 

But this is all purely theoretical a we try to judge this sword looking at photographs. Still, it seems a very good sword, by all means..

[Jean]

Afterthought. NBTHK should give detailed explanation. In my case, attribution was Tegai Kanekiyo, in this case Tegai Kanetoshi. Why these attributions to these smiths? Were they famed for their masame hada? Could they show examples?...

[Marius]

Darcy has written about the Hosho masame controversy. Ineteresting and worth reading:

 

http://www.nihonto.ca/hosho-sadakiyo/

[Marius]

BTW, I have done some photoshopping to show the boshi and kissaki.

 

Unfortunatelly I cannot discern if the hada is a masame, which bends following the line of the ha. This would indicate a Hosho work. Maybe you can see the hada?

[Loco Al]

_Jean,

 

_{This does look like a very nice sword (whether it is deemed to have masame hada or not). What makes it so special that we should "try to grab it"?}

 

_{I'm not trying to be difficult, but I have questions and observations:}

 

_{1. It's a bit short at 66.9 cm}

_{2. Would it stand a chance of going Juto?}

_{3. Why is Aoi Art offering it as an auction item? Remember that thread regarding Kazushige Tsuruta's letter? One member said, "You can't run the nice shop with lots of staff and white glove service and maintain a huge inventory catering to everyone's tastes and at the same time compete on price with Tsuruta san's scratch n dent specials which are available to you every morning while you are in your pajamas at home". I thought it was a bit unfair of him to refer to Mr. Tsuruta's wares as "scratch 'n dent" specials, but there you have it.}

_{So which is this item:  A scratch 'n dent special, or an item that they are hoping to push out the door on behalf of a desperate consignor?} 

_{4. No bids so far. It might be a good deal.}

 

_Alan

[Jean]

Alan,

 

I am going to explain you why, but these questions show that you have still a long way to understand what Nihonto essence is:

 

1 - length, as in other matters (lol), as nothing to do with quality, 67 cm is often the average length of suriage Koto blades. Who cares about length, apart people who assimilate length to power. Nothing Japanese in this appreciation.

 

2 - once again, that is a typical Westerner attitude. Who cares, unless you are buying the paper or want to make a great profit. I have seen swords which won't pass Juyo and sold at Juyo prices or above. Will it pass Juyo? There is a ware at the level of the shinogi but it is considered normal with masame, so as Juyo shinsa is a competition between submitted blades, you just have to take your chance.

 

3 - this sword is fantastic quality which can be seen in the pictures, such tight masame Yamato koto swords in this quality are not frequently seen. In fact look around you and come back to us with the number of Yamato koto masame blades on sale right now...

The Hon'ami sayagaki is a plus, indicating that this sword is outstanding, attributing it to Hosho Sadamune. Have a look at Hosho Sadamune and you will perhaps understand the blade.

 

 

All Aoi Art items are going to Auction, this is one of their outstanding item. Long time collectors as Paul B. Noticed the blade immediately (when you know Paul's collection, it is an indication).

[Jean]

Congrats to the winner

[Curran]

Congrats. For a Yamato den sword at this level of quality and age, a bargain.

Considered it.

 

The koshirae has no appeal for me. I would have been torn about whether to sell it and reduce cost basis to own the sword at around $8000-$8500.

Statement of personal opinion:   Difference between this blade and a 'low level' Juyo would *mostly* have been the papers.

 

Was studying a similar one at the DTI with Juyo papers. 4 mune ware and a coarser polish: $24000. Perhaps bargain down to $21000

I passed, but it sold soon thereafter.

[Jean]

Fully agreed Curran, it will take sometime before seeing such quality sword at such price. When you have the $, you are not a true Nihontophile if you let such a sword pass. This sword was Juyo class.

[Curran]

You know me. I mostly stick to fittings now and have a profession where paycheck can swing drastically from month to month.

 

An exceptional Yamato piece is on the Top 10 wishlist.

Had to really think on this one.

[Shugyosha]

Further to Jean's comments above, I was interested to see this Juyo Yamato Shikkake blade on the Aoi website which, to me, doesn't look nearly as good as the Tegai blade that just sold:

 

http://www.aoijapan.com/katana-mumei-shikkake-school37th-nbthk-juyo-paper

 

It may be my inexperienced eye or the photography, but the comparison seems to be an interesting one in terms of "kantei for quality" and I would welcome anyone else's views on the merits of one blade versus the other.

 

Best regards,

[Jean]

Right John, the Kanetoshi was healthier than this one, you can see for yourself that Juyo blades sometimes are considered less than some H or TH blades.

[w.y.chan]

Jean, your heads up was well intentional but if I was bidding on that one I would have hoped it would avoid the publicity radar as much as possible and commit seppuku seeing this thread

No I did'nt bid on that but did admire how the masame floats on the jigane. Were you after that yourself?

 

 

Wah

[paulb]

I am a great lover of Shikkake and have seen a number of Shikkake blades recently. some (including the one Marius had on sale at such a low price) I thought were beautiful swords others not particularly exciting. The Juyo recently posted on Aoi site I feel is less attractive than others I have seen. This may be the result of the photography (but usually it is good on Aoi's site) or it just isnt as good a blade as others I have seen. It demonstrates I think the range of quality one can witness in any school and confirms that each sword needs to be judged for what it is not for which period or school it belongs to.

[Jean]

Wah,

 

All NMB members look on a daily basis at Aoi Japan website, so there was no harm posting it LoL. I was not after it as I have already a splendid Yamato blade, search the Forum, I posted some pictures :-)

[Loco Al]

Further to Jean's comments above, I was interested to see this Juyo Yamato Shikkake blade on the Aoi website which, to me, doesn't look nearly as good as the Tegai blade that just sold:

 

http://www.aoijapan.com/katana-mumei-shikkake-school37th-nbthk-juyo-paper

 

It may be my inexperienced eye or the photography, but the comparison seems to be an interesting one in terms of "kantei for quality" and I would welcome anyone else's views on the merits of one blade versus the other.

 

Best regards,

That Shikkake blade does look pretty nice to me also. It may not be fair to compare these blades based upon the photos provided on Aoi Art's website alone. There does seem to be some variation in the quality of the photos on their website for various pieces. One would probably have to see both swords in hand to make the ultimate comparison.

 

Jean, your heads up was well intentional but if I was bidding on that one I would have hoped it would avoid the publicity radar as much as possible and commit seppuku seeing this thread

No I did'nt bid on that but did admire how the masame floats on the jigane. Were you after that yourself?

 

 

Wah

If Jean hadn't brought our attention to it, it would have probably gone totally unnoticed. In spite of his recommendation, there were only two bidders (which surprised me somewhat). Still, 1,100,000 Yen is a fair chunk of change for most people. 

 

Wah,

 

All NMB members look on a daily basis at Aoi Japan website, so there was no harm posting it LoL. I was not after it as I have already a splendid Yamato blade, search the Forum, I posted some pictures :-)

Am I the only one who doesn't check Aoi's website every day? Even if I did, I probably would still have overlooked this sword. Just because I don't know any better. 

 

This auction business on Aoi's site still has me a bit suspicious. It's not like they are giving them away, and is the whole exercise just a gambit to move swords that might otherwise not sell in short order? For example: Now they have a Fukuoka Ichimonji up for auction at starting price of 6,500,000 Yen! Hardly a bargain, even if you get it for that price (just my opinion). If it gets bid up much higher, then it gets ridiculous. I'd be surprised if they even get one bidder for it, but we'll see. In that price range, I think that most serious buyers would rather prefer to negotiate directly with the seller. Rather than be goaded into a bidding contest.

 

Alan

[Brian]

I don't think these are really an auction. More like a sale advert with a time limit to see if anyone is willing to pay more than the asking price.

Nothing wrong with that. But take the first bid as pretty much the asking price.

 

Brian

[Darcy]

Alan, if you're quoting one of my public posts it's fine to attribute it to me and probably clarifies it for everyone.

 

I said Tsuruta's scratch-n-dent specials because of the history of what has been discussed here. Very often there is some fast and loose describing that is going on, when accompanied by a holy cow that price looks nice becomes motivational. But if you look twice you can sometimes catch some issues.

 

The Ichimonji you mention is excellent and upper level Juyo. However it is not attributed to Fukuoka Ichimonji. They describe it as:

 

Katana : Mumei (Fukuoka Ichomonji)(56th NBTHK Juyo Paper)

 

Well they spelled Ichimonji wrong too. But anyway the problem is that this is not what the papers say. The papers say Mumei Ichimonji. Not Fukuoka Ichimonji. Have a look.

 

H75EPbl.png

 

So the english speaking buyer who is buying this probably does not read Japanese and is now under the impression (maybe as you do since you call it Fukuoka Ichimonji) that he has an attribution direct to Fukuoka Ichimonji, which is higher than just simply to Ichimonji. In the setsumei there is some text that compares the jiba to Fukuoka Ichimonji work and they may narrow it down a bit, but if the NBTHK were making a declaration that this is Fukuoka Ichimonji it would go into the attribution. They chose not to do that. And they really should be explaining in detail what is going on with the papers. Sometimes it's hard to even understand the layers of gray that are in place and often times the best thing is to just translate it and let the buyer read it and decide what it means. 

 

With this listing they can ultimately fall back and say well we did post the picture of the papers and if you're going to spend the equivalent of a nice car on this sword then why didn't you get the papers translated? And therein lies some of the difference in the business model. Japan Sword or Ginza Choshuya you are going to take your time and it's not a race against bargain hunters on the internet to lock something down. They can walk you through the paper and translate it for you. People like me, I get the papers translated and get sayagakis and try to put up as much info as possible. But it is slow and it is time consuming and if your business model is flip-it-fast it gets in the way. 

 

When they are selling these they are also selling gimei blades (the ones they say "no signature guarantee", which means "this is gimei") and a bit too rough blades and a bit too short and so on, and the stock is priced correctly but the stock is the stock. Some of it is nice, some of it is not so nice but they are not trying to sell to the CEO of Sumitomo Mitsui corp. They're selling to bargain hunters on the internet.

 

I think too that my comments above have been taken out of context and probably quoting me and then referring to me as "a user" or something like this is not fair to me either. Quoting me in another thread makes it hard for me to go back and look at what I said as well. I think at the time and usually when this comes up I've said that there are bargains and good purchases to be had on Aoi Art and that myself I have had nothing but good dealings with Aoi. So, it's a little bit of the same fast and loose because I'm being portrayed as saying something that is not the message I've tried to present. 

 

I'm pointing out that their business model is different from others. While you can benefit from going through the bargain bin by ending up with something of great value, you can also get into a bit of trouble if you don't pay attention. Someone who can't read Japanese is going to be thinking they got a Fukuoka Ichimonji attribution and they didn't. They got a wide attribution with some narrowing in the commentary and there is a difference.

 

About this blade, it really is an excellent blade. If a sayagaki goes on it maybe Tanobe sensei would say it is Fukuoka Ichimonji. I think it is an upper level Juyo Token and it is beautiful. You are shocked at the price but I am not at all. Whomever knocked it down fast was not shocked either. Your perception of what it should be and what the market thinks in this instance is different.

 

This is a good price for this kind of Ichimonji. If you go shopping in Tokyo and try to find a great Ichimonji well you're going to get a great Ichimonji price. Ichimonji is not junk it is one of the top schools and any sword carrying this attribution has been put to one of the core schools and traditions of nihonto. So my comments above have to go into the right context. It is a great sword and I don't see anything wrong with the price. The owner can probably think about submitting this one to Tokuju. And for that kind of sword, a price comes with it. If this blade has a 15% or 20% chance of passing Tokuju then this person is buying a lottery ticket in which they can double the value of the sword with that much chance. And if it does not go then they still have an upper level Juyo. 20% chance of doubling your money with a failure case of you own a really great upper level Juyo is a pretty nice situation to be in. Am I right? I don't know, this kind of thing is better seen in the hand but this one is a pretty good Ichimonji. Hats off to the buyer because I think they made a good decision. Now they may still get a bit of a shocker when the attribution is clarified but ultimately it's still a great blade. 

 

As a buyer you just have to know what territory you're working in and Ginza Choshuya, this is not. Different business models, different stock, different clients, different experience. Both valid, just depends on what end of the swimming pool you want to swim in (and how good of a swimmer you are).

 

Answering the other question, about why does Aoi make an auction or whatever, there are a lot of reasons to do that. It's a way of forcing the consigner to accept a minimal price within a certain timeframe and making the blade go out in public so this process is out in the open. While maybe you want to negotiate directly with that owner maybe he doesn't want to deal with you at all. Sometimes it's really hard and can take a long time and he just doesn't want to deal with any of that. One day Mr. Tsuruta will just say here's your money and that's all that he has to stress about it.

 

If you are consigning for someone then the best thing you can do for yourself is to get the owner to accept a really bad price. His loss means nothing to you because the faster you can flip consigned swords the more money you can make for yourself. If that is your goal (making money). So then with his guarantee of a minimum price you give it a chance to float higher if the market will take it higher. Then you win and the owner wins. The buyer feels like he paid the minimum price necessary to separate the item from demand, to him it is efficiency so he feels good too. I don't think that the auctions have anything to do with the quality of the item, but I think they have to do with flipping stuff and probably some consigned pieces. Also with buyers it gets them emotionally invested, if they scent out a good deal they can be the one to take it but they have to wait and then maybe compete. A lot of auction psychology is like this, if two men start punching each other in the face over an item, the auction can become about winning the fight. Similarly if you are the only bidder it can be confidence rattling since nobody wants to fight you over this piece. But sometimes those can be really good deals because it may be that you understood something that nobody else has. 

[Pete Klein]

There is another point to the AOI auctions in that the item is non-returnable. Regular sales have a return guarantee but not the auctions. This is one reason there can be a dearth of bidding as it can be better to wait for the guarantee.

[Darcy]

Ahhh didn't realize that part about the no-returns. 

 

It does simplify things in case it is a consignment as then the owner can get paid and not worry about the problems of it going out and coming back. If it doesn't sell then maybe Aoi can make the owner an offer based on that, saying not immediately marketable, here is a short term offer, we'll buy it from you for less and wait for a buyer at this price. Would make sense if someone wants to sell fast. 

[Brian]

This confirms for me the fact that auctions are probably consignment items. The seller is told what the minimum price he should get is, and the rest is left to bidding. That way the owner cannot say the item was undervalued..it sells for whatever that captured market bids it to.

And the no return policy would then conclude the consignment agreement. Makes sense.

 

Brian

[Shugyosha]

Thanks to all those who contributed above. As usual, some insightful comments and well worth a careful read.

 

Best regards,