Another Yoshimichi gimei?

[pcfarrar]

A friend recently picked up a Yoshimichi wakizashi. The hamon is typical yoshimichi sudare-ba. Is it common for Yoshimichi to have the mon on the opposite side from the mei?

I suspect this sword might be gimei but I would like some other opinions.

 

Thanks,

 

Peter

 

 

[Brian]

Peter,

 

Although all the references I have seen have the mei on the same side as the mon, I would have thought that if someone was trying to fake this signature, then they wouldn't have made such an obvious mistake that is so glaring? Seems more like a deliberate act to me.

Also, sudareba is very typical for the Yoshimichis, and not all that common elsewhere, so that ties in nicely.

Not saying it isn't gimei yet, but those aspects definitely encourage lots of further study and info before writing it off as a gimei maybe.

The nakago jiri also matches closely the ones I was researching recently.

Good luck.

 

Brian

[nagamaki - Franco]

quick glance suggests valid mei, late generation.

[Ted Tenold]

Cursory glance into the books; there is an example in the Osaki Shinto Zufu of a katana of with the Kiku on the ura, but it's in conjunction with the ichi kanji and other inscriptions. Didn't see any other examples though, I didn't dig really deep.

 

There's quite a bit of variation in signatures for the Yoshimichi's even within each generation. This one looks closer to a sandai example, in stroke placement and strength, and the nakago ana placement is pretty good too.

 

The work matching is a good thing too. I wouldn't write it off without a shinsa. A good gimei effort would kinda preclude putting the kiku opposite generally seen extant examples. *shrug*

[pcfarrar]

Thanks everyone.

 

I was just reading Ted's other post about polishing and noticed the bit about Yoshimichi blades often having kizu. This blade had a masa-ware but not so bad. :lol:

 

The hamon definitely looked like a Yoshimichi, loads of sunagashi and nie. Typical sudare-ba.

 

One thing that worried me, you can just about make it out on the oshigata is a change in patina where the kiku-mon is located. Maybe it was from cleaning but it looked a little suspicious to me. You can see it just above the mekugi-ana with a straight horizontal line where the patina suddenly becomes different.

[Jacques]

After some researchs i found that:

Mishina school founder moved from Seki to Kyoto with his 4 sons (Kanemichi-Kinmichi, Rai Kinminchi, Yoshimichi and Masatoshi).

The family developped associations with the imperial family and was permitted to use the circular kiku mon, this one was usually cut on the ura

 

source: Mino-tô - Malcolm E Cox

[Guest reinhard]

Hi Peter,

 

Looking at the nakago-side with the kiku-mon, you will notice, that the yasurime changes from top to bottom. They start as katte-sagari (or moderate sujigai) and end as saka taka-no-ha (i.e. inverted taka-no-ha) towards the tip. No smith did ever change his yasurime in the middle of the nakago. This indicates, that the nakago, and whatever signature has been on it, have been drastically changed later. Change of yasurime is only acceptable on shortened blades, but this seems not to be the case here.

[Jacques]

Hi,

 

No smith did ever change his yasurime in the middle of the nakago

 

You forget Yasusada :lol:

 

however the yasurime saka takanoha on the ura are not in accordance witth the mishina school.