Identifying This Old Sword...

[David Rindt]

Hi, 

 

 I'm doing some work to try and look into the history of my father in laws sword. He inherited it from his father, who was stationed in Hiroshima following the end of WWII. I've got bits and pieces of the story, but I don't speak or read Japanese. I know this sword is probably old, and I will be including everything I can in these photos. If anybody in this community can help me come to a reasonable conclusion on age, value, or definition of the sword, I would be deeply grateful. Take a look at the pictures of the sword, and the attribution of quality, name, date, region etc of this beautiful artifact. If you feel like you may need more photos to help attribute this - please let me know and I'll do what I can to help! 

 

 Thanks! 

[b.hennick]

Hi David:

Please rotate your photos so that they are easy to read. The first one rotate 180, second 90 clockwise, third 90 clockwise. 

You should modify your profile to include a signature with at least your first name and last initial. You will see mine below the text of this post.

[Greg F]

Hi David some pics of blade and mounts would be good. All the best.

 

Greg

[SteveM]

Hello David,

The mei inscribed on this sword is 雲次　- Unji. You should be able to find this name in the swordsmith data base located in one of the links at the top of this page.

[Alex A]

Unji, rare smith is that, I can only find 4 in the index of Japanese swords, 1st to 4th generation, Bizen, pre 1428.

[Stephen]

huh? nice to learn, would have sworn second was tsugu

[Darcy]

Unji: 雲次

Unsho: 雲生

Unju: 雲重

 

All Bizen smiths in the Ukai school. I was just talking with Markus about this school today as I encountered one of the lesser known guys Toshinaga and the school (their area) was written as Ukai 宇甘 instead of as Ukai 鵜飼 ... Markus explained that the first is the way the smiths did it themselves, the second was imposed by outsiders writing about them (more at length). This has lead to the use of Unrui  雲類 to describe the group now. 

 

Ukai works are a hybrid of Bizen and Yamashiro similar to Aoe, but not quite reaching the same levels of quality. Very good though, good enough for Tokuju in some cases. 

 

Work is from the late Kamakura through the Nanbokucho. 

 

From what I see it's not possible to say for sure if it's gimei but these guys usually used long signatures. There are some nijimei though. 

 

A more clear photo should be posted. 180 degrees from how it's shown.

 

Signed Unji will be pretty close to a guarantee of Juyo if it is an old one. But this is signed katanamei so it's not one of the old group. If it's a descendant it's still a nice find. But more likely gimei.