kantei answer

[Darcy]

The hamon on this sword is slightly irregular sanbonsugi with rounded tops. Sanbonsugi almost always points straight to the Kanemoto line in Mino. This should be the first consideration when you see sanbonsugi.

 

The regularity of the hamon then guides you to a generation. Very regular and pointed, 3rd generation and on... irregular, or not fully formed, first or second generation.

 

Looking at the overall quality of the kitae, it is excellently forged in ko-itame showing small chikei, and there is masame in the shinogi. Masame in the ha shows up with sunagashi making this nie deki. This all confirms Mino inheriting down through the Shizu line. It is fairly robust with the width staying fairly constant throughout. The center of the curvature is slightly above the middle.

 

The clue in the nakago of a mei down low and on the tachi side, means that we have to consider a slightly shortened kodachi or else a katana with orikaeshi mei. If we were to move the machi down to the point where the mei would be well positioned, given the nagasa of 58cm, we're looking at a sword in the 65-70 cm range. So more likely a good sized uchigatana than a small tachi given the clear signs of Mino work.

 

Deciding between say Kanemoto and Muramasa, this isn't a standard style of hamon for Muramasa, which is more short runs of suguba punctured by 3 or 4 clustered gunome in midareba. Muramasa does not tend to forge such fine kitae either, his fame is above his level of skill.

 

So with the hamon unusual for Muramasa and the kitae too "nice", it's not the right road to go down.

 

Given the sanbonsugi an answer of Kanemoto second generation would be quite excellent and would be given an atari. The first generation would not be expected to form this level of regularity in the hamon.

 

However, it is not a Kanemoto and the key to getting away from Kanemoto is probably in the kitae which again shows a level of skill which isn't usually found on Kanemoto works.

 

So an outside guess at who might be able to emulate a work of Kanemoto but make very fine kitae, would be the second generation Kanesada. This Kanesada worked closely with Magoroku Kanemoto and they adopted each other as brothers. This work bears a nijimei of "Kanesada" in "No-sada" style folded over due to shortening, and I think if mumei it probably would have been attributed to Magoroku Kanemoto... this is an extremely rare style for Nosada, it is the only one I have heard of or seen, and it supports the legend of them being adopted brothers. Perhaps it was even jointly made.

 

The hamon is Soshu influenced, and I believe it is shown as an example of one of the styles of Nosada in the Nagayama book, and denoted as such (i.e. Soshu style) if I recall correctly.

 

The beautiful polish is by Kenji Mishina.

 

[Jacques]

Hi,

 

Thank you Darcy,

 

Just a little remark, :D i personnally don't find that the mei itself is so near the bottom of the nakago. :?

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Hi Darcy.

 

Even if you give less written information about the blade then Mishina in

his Kantei pages, you give a lot more visual info thru your excellent

pictures then Mishina's Oshigata, so I can't blame anybody else then

myself for my failures.

[Brian]

Darcy,

 

Thanks again for a very educational exercise.

Although I was way off, it is a great way to learn, even if I have to fight off my fear of looking foolish when posting :D

Hopefully more will have a go when you have the time for another one.

We also have to get the idea out of our minds that we will always be looking at one of the top 10 or so makers when you post a kantei. We are so used to seeing the very best from you, that it is hard to look elsewhere.

I do need to calibrate my monitor though...pics are very dark on mine, and I have been meaning to do this for a while to make out finer details.

 

All in all a great exercise. I look forward to the next one.

 

Regards,

Brian

[Darcy]

Jacques, the ratio of space below the mei to above the mei is 3:5. This is usually inverted at the very least for a nijimei.

 

Since the mei is not at or near the top, or at or near the middle, and not at the bottom, it makes it near the bottom. Or as I said, "down low."

 

Brian, I think I shot this one a little dark as well. I haven't taken a serious print quality picture in a year, so I may be off my normal parameters.

 

Your answer of "Soshu in Mino Tradition" was actually correct. The answer of Muramasa is wrong of course, but Kanesada is a more skillful smith than Muramasa. Kanesada (Nosada) is the top smith of the pure Mino tradition basically.

 

Where this kantei is not very good is in not showing his typical work, it's a poor choice for kantei to pull that kind of blade, but part of why Kanemoto is an acceptable answer as that would be the logically derived one. I thought it an interesting blade to show though as it presents a learning point for Kanesada.

 

Carlo, I mean to not provide any information so that your eyes have to do the work. When you are given a lot of textual information, the problem becomes one of looking up the smith in a series of tables and narrowing it down like that. I should provide the length and probably some other measurements would be good, and always forget, but the rest of it then is the same as if you find the blade yourself and have to come up with an answer.

[mike yeon]

Goes to show how the brain reacts during these exercises. Mino was no question but to me the sugata felt soshu. So I thought mino traditions with soshu progenitors (so the brain went kaneuji or kinju.)

 

Naoe Shizu was my guess based on the ji and hamon. But as I said the gunome was too regular for muramasa, I should have applied that same detail to naoe shizu. The biggest detail left out was sanbonsgi = kanemoto. My brain was on a runaway train by then.

 

So Darcy, thank you very much for posting and offering us a highly educational exercise. Because there are so many "facts" in nihonto, we seldom consider how these facts came to be. Thinking from the outside in makes for good learning.

 

Much appreciated.

 

mike

[Roland]

Hello Darcy,

 

with one word: great! And: whenever possible more of this, though I know it is a lot of work. But especially this form of kantei with just the optical information (plus perhaps some essential facts like length, width etc.) makes a newbie like myself do the homeworks

 

Thanx a lot for this lesson!

[Darcy]

Oh just a note about Naoe Shizu, their hamon would never be so regular as this. It's a mix of gunome and midare with maybe some togariba mixed in, but they were too early for the regularized Mino hamon that came after. Naoe Shizu is still mostly in the style of the line founder, which is a mix of Soshu and Yamato. After this is when you see Mino evolving to the point that it is really its own thing.