Need For Sayagaki?

[Guido]

Jean, thanks for the additional pics you PM'd me. Quite the departure from his usual style.

[Jean]

Later Gordon, later. Would not want to spoil the fun

[Darcy]

2. In the West we (me) tend to think of papering as being a linear scale and if it ticks the right boxes it will pass. The idea that success is effected by competition on the day seems alien to our way of thinking. But it has been mentioned on several occassions and Guido's experience confirms it.

 

 

I do get this a lot, people's first thinking is that they can submit for Juyo at any point. 

 

The competitive nature is that they're trying to balance out a few things:

 

1. keep the overall count down

2. show some variety

3. make sure only the best pass

 

Even so on one Tokuju session I think they passed four Kanemitsu. But it's something that you have to sit tight and wait and hope that other people are not sending in stuff better than yours. 

 

They don't mind making you wait a session or two, because possibly the guys getting their stuff through now were waiting a session or two before you showed up with your submission. 

 

---

 

For this I always use the metaphor of hot girls standing in line to get into a popular nightclub.

 

1. A girl of sufficient hotness can walk to the front of the line where others are waiting and be admitted directly into the club and into the VIP no matter when she shows up.

 

2. At a slightly lower hotness the girl will be admitted into the club, though others ahead of her in the line may be admitted first.

 

3. At a lower level of hotness the girl will not be admitted at all. 

 

It is our sword situation in a nutshell. Now, if the line is sufficiently long, a girl who is falling into category 2 will in theory be admitted but due to the finite size of the club, the club may close before she gets to the front of the line. In which case if she parks herself right there, tomorrow night when they open she'll be close to the front and can probably get admitted (i.e. resubmit).

 

If she goes home and returns to the club in many years time, she will possibly start at the end of the line again. So, it's better for her to expend the attempts in succession... if she still has not made it into the club with many times of showing up with best clothes and makeups and the bouncers keep looking her over and pulling other girls into the club, at some point she'll realize she is being discriminated against and will never be allowed entry. Then she can go home. Her Mom still thinks she's pretty after all.

 

---

 

In this we also need to grasp that Juyo and Tokuju are both relative to the whole body of work that exists and to the work of the smith that exists with the average case being in the top 7.5% of the top 7.5% for Tokuju. 

 

A lower ranked smith or school, a Tokuju blade becomes more and more closely achieving the pinnacle masterpiece of the smith. Because the smith does not stand so strongly vs. the whole body of work that exists for all smiths, then it is only his very best work that can move up so high. Very best means condition + quality. With a higher ranked smiths, the blades all tend to stand very strongly against all works that exist. Consider Masamune, if they are brave enough to attribute a blade to Masamune then it is guaranteed to go Juyo, there is no question. Tokuju has even more weight against the rest of the works of Masamune. So, now this one Masamune is going to compete against the best Masamune and may not achieve it.

 

Now consider the Jo-saku Shinto smith with one Tokuju and not likely to ever get another. That one blade represents the top 0.0001% of all of his works. It is possibly the best existing and he exceeded his normal skill due to some luck and effort. So in this case Tokuju is particular significant for him. The weighting of this blade against the body of his work is extremely high but it may be countered by the weighting of the blade vs. the entire world of blades not being that great. It's his main masterpiece but is it truly one of the main masterpieces of the world? Probably not. 

 

There are many Tokuju that are head scratchers but if you will dig deeper there is sometimes some info that is not known easily:

 

For instance, having old Honami papers from a top generation is a really big deal at Tokuju. If you don't hand in the papers with the blade you're shooting yourself in the foot. Found this out too late for myself. But anyway it's not something we're thinking about so we say what in the hell does an old piece of paper have to do with it when we have this blade here and we're comparing it to the other blades. 

 

What it is is one further strengthening of the attribution and to state that the blade was held in a high degree of respect for a long time. It's your teacher's teacher's teacher's teacher's ... teacher's opinion and so if we know that guy to be a hardass and we hold him in high respect we have to look at the blade with this light shining over our shoulders. 

 

I've had it told to me on several occasions: if this had an old Honami paper it would pass Tokubetsu Juyo for sure. Without, then, 50/50. 

 

There is favouritism for blades held in certain collections that were considered very important. A Yukimitsu from the Kishu Tokugawa is held higher than a Yukimitsu found by you on Ebay though they may be very close or equivalent. The one is known to have been treasured by the Shogunate and it adds ooph. 

 

When we look at Daimyo blades they comprise maybe 4% of Juyo items. They are however 30% of the Tokuju items.

 

The reason for this is not bias toward daimyo blades because they were daimyo blades which is the knee jerk reaction. But we have to consider that the daimyo basically cherry picked the best blades. So if a blade was great it ended up in a daimyo collection... and probably the other 70% of Tokuju were also in these collections but the info is lost. 

 

But probably if you are a modern day daimyo you may get a bit more respect with your submission whether that is conscious or unconscious. A blade owned by one of the top men in Japan is not going to sit with a blade owned by me side by side I think and all of this is going to be double-blind information. Top blades are top blades and they get gossiped about and as much as you try to hide it, people know who has what. So even if they drafted me for a day to be a clerk and the blades were passing through after ownership info is hidden, I'd know who has what... oh, there goes my friend Nick's ____. Oh, there goes that signed and dated Motoshige owned by Mr. _______ and so on... If I would know a handful of these then they will probably know a lot more and you can't insulate them from this. 

[Gordon Sanders]

For this I always use the metaphor of hot girls standing in line to get into a popular nightclub.

 

1. A girl of sufficient hotness can walk to the front of the line where others are waiting and be admitted directly into the club and into the VIP no matter when she shows up.

 

2. At a slightly lower hotness the girl will be admitted into the club, though others ahead of her in the line may be admitted first.

 

3. At a lower level of hotness the girl will not be admitted at all. 

 

It is our sword situation in a nutshell. Now, if the line is sufficiently long, a girl who is falling into category 2 will in theory be admitted but due to the finite size of the club, the club may close before she gets to the front of the line. In which case if she parks herself right there, tomorrow night when they open she'll be close to the front and can probably get admitted (i.e. resubmit).

 

If she goes home and returns to the club in many years time, she will possibly start at the end of the line again. So, it's better for her to expend the attempts in succession... if she still has not made it into the club with many times of showing up with best clothes and makeups and the bouncers keep looking her over and pulling other girls into the club, at some point she'll realize she is being discriminated against and will never be allowed entry. Then she can go home. Her Mom still thinks she's pretty after all.

 

As a former Night Club Disc Jockey, this makes perfect sense.   ANDDDDD>... Happened on a regular basis!!

[Darcy]

Hello:

 This has been a long and educational thread with lots of interesting input, however I think that too much weight ought not to be given to the length of written sayagaki or even to the elaboration of its content. Tanobe sensei (Tanzan) is an outstanding and highly respected scholar and his comments and opinions are always of interest and value, however the lengthy examples, somewhat positively correlated with the time of their writing in his career, are perhaps a particular personal trait of his as much as anything. Other respected scholars who have written sayagaki have often been much more terse in all examples. Homma Junji (Kunzan), for example wrote a number of sayagaki and the examples I have seen have tended to be short and to the descriptive point and they are certainly value adding. The weight was in his willingness to certify a blade in that way, and that alone was sufficient. Drs. Homma and Sato (Kanzan), the latter also writing many sayagaki on the shorter side, were the two co-founders, I think it would be fair to say, of the NBTHK.

 Arnold F.

 

 

I've had short ones come back at this current time in his career and I have examples of long ones going back to the beginning. The longest sayagaki I had on a sword goes back to 2002 and this was the longest until very recently on a Juyo Bijutsuhin blade.

 

I grabbed some accessible ones to show here so you can't take my list of 4 and think I am deriving a conclusion from that, that's an illustrative example.

 

Don't mistake any of what was said in that this method should be applied to everyone who has made a sayagaki, it's not said like that at all and that would be a fundamental misunderstanding of what I'm trying to say. 

 

Dr. Honma almost never added anything and most sayagaki of other experts follow this example. Some little tidbit of information: "Early work of Go - Nabeshima Daimyo property" for instance. Older sayagaki, Honami Kojo "Gift of the Shogunate". What I have to say here doesn't apply to any of them, the subject was Tanobe sensei's sayagaki. 

 

As for weight, they would do it if it got papers and you asked them, because they were amongst the judges giving the blade papers in the first place. Some were made without any papers and those were blades that would paper. 

 

It is nice to have them now, when they are long dead, because it does help us know that they were one of the people involved in this attribution. 

 

Kanzan is not as good as Dr. Honma as more of his seem to get overturned. I haven't seen any of Dr. Honma's get overturned but I have seen one Hisakuni get backed off to Awataguchi. Not clear which came first in this one, sayagaki or Tokuju assessment. I think this blade came up through Juyo as Awataguchi Kunimitsu and he felt it was Hisakuni so he made the sayagaki to Hisakuni. Some years after it went Tokuju just as Awataguchi indicating the conflict of the experts. When I examined this blade and was told Awataguchi, I told the owner I'm very surprised they didn't put it to Hisakuni because it was very evidently old old and good. And then he showed me the sayagaki. 5 years later I found out that it had its past as a Kunimitsu which was just wrong. But that is as close to inaccuracy as I've seen with his. 

 

Anyway I stand by what I've said and have gotten enough made that it's very clear to me. If he likes he he has a lot to write about. If he doesn't, he doesn't have a lot to write about. So there is a general correlation between the length of the sayagaki and his opinion about the blade. 

 

And this is focused on his work and doesn't apply to anyone else. 

 

Primarily this is aimed at "chin-chin cho-cho" as a code for a superior blade and focusing only on the presence or absence of this phrase, something that westerners made up on their own and is not valid. It is praise but it is not as important as reading the whole thing and understanding what he did there and why. 

 

Surely it's not exact, it's what we call a guideline. To know his thoughts, bring him the blade and ask him directly what he thinks. Otherwise, if we want to cast the tea leaves on the sayagaki this is how we do it. 

 

I saw recently one of his very very earliest sayagaki, precisely done and not long, and substituted in Chin-cho chin-cho (instead of chin-chin, cho-cho) as he was experimenting with the idea. And used a different art name. But even then the ideas were there with him that he did wish to reflect his feelings about the blade in the sayagaki, unlike the more stoic men who came before him who did nothing but document. 

[Jean]

Darcy,

 

I know of one blade (you saw it in Japan at Bob's house) with two sayagaki (0ne of Honma Junji, the ura by Tanobe san) attributing a blade to Hosho, which was overturned by Shinsa and attributed to Tegai Kanekiyo.

 

Concerning the sayagaki I just posted, Tanobe san does not state that the blade is chin-chin cho-cho, but his comment is eloquent and far better if you read between lines (good joke )

[Darcy]

Send it back in in 5 years and it will end up Hosho again.

 

There is this tug of war on attributions, I mentioned somewhere that Honami Kotoku made a tanto Yukimitsu and then Kochu made it Masamune. Now, if those two guys are going to argue who are you going to side with? Number one and number two all time don't agree. That thing goes Juyo and they accept it as Masamune. Kanzan writes in the NBTHK journal about this tanto and says that the oldest attribution is Yukimitsu and he thinks it is indeed Yukimitsu: he has a point in that the best work of Yukimitsu has likely been skimmed from the top and made Masamune. Same way Nagashige has been skimmed into Kanemitsu and Chogi. So that blade goes to Tokuju and Kanzan sees that it returns as Soshu Yukimitsu without any den. 100% certitude. 

 

Owner has heart attack.

 

Years go by and Kanzan sensei dies, and the blade returns to the NBTHK and it is restored to Masamune. 

 

The take home lesson is that everything is an opinion and if you increase your knowledge enough you can find the little seams and the problems, some of which you can take advantage of and in the case of something like this you can just shake your head and smile. It's like a movie with an ambiguous ending... what happened to Rick and Captain Renault? You can read into it what you want. But if you do the work then you can be satisfied with your own answer. 

 

I have no doubt your blade is a Hosho. This has happened to others as well.

 

The above tanto if Masamune is without a doubt in my mind the best work of Masamune. If it is Yukimitsu or Masamune, it does not matter much because it is the finest Soshu tanto in existence I think. Some others may have fancier papers but if I could have any one Soshu blade it would be this one. I could play the guessing game all the way to my grave about who made it.

[Kronos]

What was the value in terms of pure cash when it was a Juyo Masamune compared to Tokoju Yukimitsu?

[Jean]

Here is the sayagaki with its translation thanks to Morita sama:

[Darcy]

What was the value in terms of pure cash when it was a Juyo Masamune compared to Tokoju Yukimitsu?

 

 

Most of the collecting community will react to such a thing by withdrawing from it and then shaking their heads in fear at how the NBTHK could not be 100% certain on these things. 

 

I have dealt with this exact issue on my Aoe Sadatsugu where a buyer was all ready to buy it but *only* if the attribution meant Ko-Hoki Sadatsugu, which it *did*, but does not *now* because Tanobe sensei gave his opinion that when the Honami stated this it was a way of saying it is top level Aoe. The buyer could not wrap his head around it. 

 

This tanto, you buy something like this if someone wants to sell it as a Yukimitsu because it is the highest grade Soshu. It's going to roll back around to Masamune again because that is the essential definition of Masamune. 

 

And other people will think the same thing and look at the old papers, so I don't think this one devalued at all. 

 

There are cases though where the Juyo papers on the back say "the attribution to Masamune needs further study but it is certainly a work of a top class Soshu smith."

 

This is a way of saying that this Masamune is a Shizu or a Yukimitsu or possibly even further. 30% of the Masamune say this on the back. Since westerners are always looking for code and ways to dumb it down, they just look at the first column of the paper and take the smith's name that's said there and run with it. Some people sell them like this. 

 

There's a reason I translate all that crap on my website and get all the sayagaki which is to reveal all of the necessary info. 

 

Because when they cast doubt on the back they're deferring a little bit to the Honami, giving him a bit of credence and not wiping out his attribution but then giving their skepticism. This is much different from giving a strong agreement to Masamune, even the confusing DEN Masamune. 

 

Some of these will say in fact Kinzogan mei Masamune (there is an inscription) right on the front of the oshigata. This is death. This means they don't believe. If it's a flat out signature it means something different. It means should be researched further. A signed blade is one thing and getting so far to say it's got the right period and no major offputting things, this is most of what you need to do. But an attribution is an attribution and if they cut it on the front, it's dead on the back. 

 

There is at least one Masamune in the USA like this. I saw it in a snapshot and was able to go from there and find the nakago in the Juyo and sure enough... Soshu Joko. 

 

So that is a much different thing than two guys arguing over Yukimitsu and Masamune, with Honami Kochu in the Masamune camp. He never exaggerated anything. So it's just something that over time will sort itself out and the older, slower, wiser guys would know and support it or try to get their hands on the blade if a fool had it. Then they will fix it.

 

And I suspect that I know who has it and he is certainly the kind of person who would stand there and let a fool drop it into his hands and then go about undoing the damage. 

 

Having a long time horizon helps and a lot of us in the west, we don't.

 

So the answer is really case specific here because not many would believe the new paper coming back. Some old Edo Masamune though are the stuff elevated or made as gifts and that stuff gets its legs cut out from under it, just the absolute strongest of those where it was pretty close, they let that go and add comments and red flags to it. 

 

When a westerner finds a Masamune and it's Juyo and it's 33% of the market price, you can imagine they do not tend to pick up the phone and call me or Benson or anything. They whisper to a friend or two then they go for it. They are too worried about someone jumping their claim and their greed gets them into a Yukimitsu or Shizu at multiples of what it costs if it were attributed directly. 

 

There is no real clear guide on any of this. You just have to pick up the books and read them and look at everything and mentally keep track of what everything is.

 

I have read (poorly) the zufu on all 14,000 Juyo and 1,000 Tokuju. I have gone through and looked at every oshigata. Some multiple times. It's very useful if this is the domain that one wants to study (the best swords). He who's name we shall not speak calls it "data mining" which is a snide way of trying to put research down. But it's study and research on the blades that the NBTHK said are the best. I want to know everything about them.

 

They say about women: look at what they do, and not what they say. It applies to men too. If you look at a certain guy coming on and professing his skill about gimei blades and then he posts on ebay a blade with signature and no papers and tries to paint it in the light that it might be OK... that tells you everything you need to know about that blade, and that seller. As a sidenote.

 

But studying the Juyo and Tokuju is what lets you get insight into the tug of war over attribution. DEN falls into this as it is a bargaining chip that you can throw in to mediate a disagreement. But DEN, again you do need to read the context to see if the are qualifying that any further. 

 

Nobody should buy a Juyo blade without a full and clear translation of the zufu to understand everything that's going on. There is no one size fits all and no easy way to do it. The more you read the more you build up your mental model of how this all works and what the pitfalls and concerns are vs. the benefits and how things can work for you. 

 

The biggest and simplest is that two smiths are immediately confuseable with Masamune. And this is Norishige and Shizu. 

 

And if a blade is under a lot of pressure to go between Masamune and Norishige, it's going to end up as Den Norishige. Because they take the conservative judgment and then they slap the DEN on front to indicate a degree of uncertainty. 

 

American view: This means Norishige School. Well the Japanese use the School word too but they may mean MON. A DEN attribution to Norishige means it is Norishige, but plus or minus flex. On context it could envelop his best student, his best co-worker. You need to look at the blade and what they're trying to do with it. 

 

A Norishige that sure looks like a Masamune , that is why. Entirely. NOT because they thought Tametsugu made it. If it looks way over Norishige's head, it's NOT because his lesser students made it. And that's why you need to understand DEN and keep it to a little bit off from the book. If you know what is a little bit off of the book of the maker then it will guide you into their thinking. 

 

A mumei Den Muramasa though, this thing you can look at and say it probably means the work can embrace the whole line and so that's all they're going to say about it. You probably won't see a Den Muramasa Nidai.

 

I have seen a Den Kunitsuna that was signed. At Tokuju, now Awataguchi Kunitsuna. No doubts. So they resolved what was bugging them and went on. And sometimes DEN is just a bit of cover that gives them a chance to tweak later on. 

 

So in this case no, the value would have stayed the same because everyone would have laughed at the paper to Yukimitsu. It's clearly a Masamune. Honestly Yukimitsu is not far. Tanobe sensei thinks he's far but Honma and Kanzan didn't. HIs rep gets messed up because people pirate his best blades and put them to Norishige, Sadamune, Masamune. Then they stick to Yukimitsu the oddball stuff that's hard to kantei. 

 

But if you can get a real and true Yukimitsu it will beat Sadamune in a heartbeat. It will beat a slightly tired Masamune. Throw Go in there too.. They are a really competitive crew and they worked on each other's blades. Hard to sort them out in a clear line of skill. 

[Darcy]

Here is the sayagaki with its translation thanks to Morita sama:

 

The other side is Dr. Honma? Can I have a look? I only saw the front side, I think Bob was bringing this in at the same time I was bringing in a bunch of other stuff.

 

Edit: oops, I never saw this one before, got it confused with something else. 

[Jean]

The other side is also by Tanobe, I'll e-mail it to you, but for the fun I will post it as a Kantei in the Nihonto section after taking a few pictures.

[Alan F]

How much does Tanobe sensei charge for his sayagaki? That has to be considered also.

 

The sword which I submitted in 2014 already had a sayagaki by a Honami. I declined to have a new shirasaya made, and a sayagaki by Tanobe sensei. I do not regret it, but I would have been curious to know what Tanobe sensei would have written. Would it have added value to my sword? I'm not sure, but I don't really think so.

 

Had the sword come in a naked shirasaya, then I would surely have asked for a sayagaki.

 

Pietro, a.k.a. Loco Al

[paulb]

Like most things relating to attribution it depends how you "value" what is there. I have sayagaki by Honami Kozon and others by Tanobe san. I think both add to the total package. Not only do they confirm attribution  they are beautifully executed and just look good. In pure financial terms I dont know but personally I value a sayagaki written by Tanobe-san as highly as I would papers from any of the authentication authorities, and as I think Darcy mentioned years on a paper can be mislaid but the sayagai by a leading authority will still be there.

[Guido]

The sword which I submitted in 2014 already had a sayagaki by a Honami. I declined to have a new shirasaya made, and a sayagaki by Tanobe sensei.

 

Actually, you could have had it both ways :​ the new shirasaya with Tanobe sayagaki, and the old one with a tsunagi.

 

I'm not up to date on the prices anymore, but about 10 years ago Mr. Tanobe charged less than the NBTHK papers would set you back, and Honami Kōshū about double that much.

[Jean]

I think it is around 60 000 ¥ but first he has to accept to do it.

[Alan F]

Truth is, I do kind of regret not getting a Tanobe sayagaki.

 

The whole process of sending the sword back to Japan for shinsa was very stressful. Not just because I was worried that it might not pass, but because I feared that it might disappear in shipping.

 

I also saw the fees mounting up: shinsa fees, Bob Benson's fees, shipping fees, new shirasaya cost, and Tanobe sayagaki cost. I also didn't want it languishing since it was not insured. There was an interminable wait for it to be returned, and an even longer wait for the new papers. The NBTHK papers are the real testament to it's value, I feel.

 

A couple of photos of the Honami Koson sayagaki, which I may have posted before.

 

 

 

 

Pietro

[Gordon Sanders]

Thanks for everyone's help

 

Just received back from Tanobe-Sensei.

 

The interesting thing is that Tanobe sensei writes that the katana is made by 3rd generation Rai Kinmichi.  I had been told that the katana is made by 2nd generation Rai Kinmichi.  Based on the research into the name Daihoushi Houkyou.  

 

Aren't  there  two “Kinmichi" named sons?.   Brothers -  Iga no Kami Kinmichi and Echigo no Kami Kinmichi.  

 

If you go to this page:

http://www.nihontocraft.com/Mishina.html

 

I believe that the swords  were made by Katana (RK2) and Wakizashi (K3).  Cousins, or nephew/ Uncle?

 

Now... on to the translations and pictures. !!

 

Katana:

 

Daihoushi Houkyou Rai Kinmichi

 

Nakago Jiri wa Ubu de Machi Okuri 8 Ji Mei Ari Kore Rai Kinmichi 3 Dai Nao Enpo Hajime Koro no Tedai Naran Kanbun Shinto no Shitai wo Teishi 

(*TRA Original ubu tang, 8 letters signature by Rai Kinmichi 3rd generation, from Enpo era, Shinto Kanbun era style)

Sugu ni Yakidashi Koshi Daka no Kozue Kado Baru Gunome Wo Shucho To Suru Kattasu na Midare wo Yaki Nioi Guchi Akaruku Deki Yoroshii 

(*TRA starting with straight yaki, high Koshi, square irregularly undulating temper line, wild temper line, bright Nioiguchi, and great work)

 

Nagasa: 2 shaku 5 sun 1 bu amari arikore

 

Jizai Heishin Seiwazuki (*TRA 2016 April)

Tanzan Kaou

 

 

Wakizashi:

Iga no Kami Fujiwara Kinmichi

 

Kikumon Kou 7 Ji Mei Oyobi Nihon Kaji Sousho wo Sou 3 Dai Kinmichi Nao Notare Cho no Hadori to 

(*TRA Kikumon, 7 letter signature with Nihon Kaji Sosho, 3rd generation Kinmichi, wavy)

Kozue Kado Baru Gunome wo Majie Nie Nioi Fukaku Atsuku Nao Nioiguchi Akaruku Kare no Tenkei Teki Yuhin Nari

(*TRA square irreguarly undulating temper line, deep nioi/nie, bright nioiguchi, and his typical good work)

 

Nagasa: 1 shaku 6 sun 8 bu Han arikore 

 

Jizai Heishin Churyo (*TRA 2016 April)

Tanzan Kaou

 

 

[Gordon Sanders]

This is the Rai Kinmichi that I thought it is. http://nihontoclub.com/smiths/KIN45

[Markus]

There is an alternative way of counting the generations which I think might go back to Fujishiro. Not sure if or how far this counting is gaining more ground and if it is considered to be more close to the "real thing" than the traditional counting, i.e. the one that sees Daishoshi as the 2nd generation, maybe eventually replacing the traditional counting. Well, Tanobe uses it, so the alternative counting must have certain "convincing arguments."

 

Anyway, this alternative way counts two generations Echigo no Kami, the latter of which being followed by Daishoshi as the third of the lineage and the first to actually use the honorary title Izumi no Kami.

 

I can see that the tradition that Daishoshi receiving, as 3rd generation, his honorary title in 1616 being no longer sustainable as there exist several joint works with his successor which are dated much later, e.g. one from Jokyo 1 (1684). So maybe we will see the traditional counting change.

[Gordon Sanders]

Thanks much Markus.

 

I understand what you are saying with the alternative numbering. but isince he used 3rd generation on the wakizashi the normal way, I am a bit confused

 

What do you think?

[Markus]

That basicaly means he made them at different stages in his career.

[Gordon Sanders]

There is an alternative way of counting the generations which I think might go back to Fujishiro. Not sure if or how far this counting is gaining more ground and if it is considered to be more close to the "real thing" than the traditional counting, i.e. the one that sees Daishoshi as the 2nd generation, maybe eventually replacing the traditional counting. Well, Tanobe uses it, so the alternative counting must have certain "convincing arguments."

 

Anyway, this alternative way counts two generations Echigo no Kami, the latter of which being followed by Daishoshi as the third of the lineage and the first to actually use the honorary title Izumi no Kami.

 

I can see that the tradition that Daishoshi receiving, as 3rd generation, his honorary title in 1616 being no longer sustainable as there exist several joint works with his successor which are dated much later, e.g. one from Jokyo 1 (1684). So maybe we will see the traditional counting change.

Thanks very much Markus

I found the fujishiro origami, but this doesn't mention generation

 

[Gordon Sanders]

That basicaly means he made them at different stages in his career.

My fault, I may have been a bit vague

 

They are made by two different Kinmichi's.

[Gordon Sanders]

Hi guys

 

Just now received the papers for each of the swords

[Gordon Sanders]

Is it normal for the origami to not list the generation attribution?

 

Hi guys

 

Just now received the papers for each of the swords

image.png image.png

[Jean]

Yes with NBTHK

[Darcy]

BTW, sayagaki is very Japanesey... it's optional and a gift. But people generally give 30,000 yen. Fees on top are for someone to run it out and run it back and that can cost another 15 or 20,000 yen. Have to make two runs and that is about a day on trains. 

 

I was told by someone recently that he believed that sayagaki were just for western consumption and I don't think that is the case at all. Sayagaki predate western collectors even being on the scene. A lot of blades that have never left Japan have sayagaki on them already. The NBTHK judgment is a consensus and in that there are some variations of opinion. Some of that variation in opinion means that the final call is a negotiated settlement of sorts. 

 

When I sent a tanto to Tanobe sensei when he was still actively working for the NBTHK he told me that the blade was 50/50 Soshu Sadamune or Shodai Nobukuni. He pushed very hard for the gimei to be removed and he said he guaranteed it would pass Juyo but not sure as which smith. Now, he had his opinion and reading between the lines and how much he stressed to get it in indicated Soshu Sadamune. But he couldn't speak for the other judges and what would be agreed. 

 

Now he'll make a sayagaki which is his attribution in advance of the papers. If we want to think that his opinion is worth less than the other judges on the NBTHK panel you could say that the sayagaki is meaningless in light of the papers. I personally hold his opinion higher than the other judges so for me the sayagaki means a lot more than the papers. 

 

The NBTHK as time goes by and different factions push and pull it, over 60 years there have been trends and changes in attribution. People get upset sometimes when they see a lack of consistency but they forget that the NBTHK is not a machine, it's a set of people that come and go, learn and die and the composition changes. I had an Awataguchi Kuniyoshi with Juyo papers to Awataguchi. I asked Tanobe sensei (he had done a sayagaki to Kuniyoshi well before and "not for western consumption") that if we  were to accept the NBTHK judgment as being Awataguchi, if it were not Kuniyoshi, who were the alternatives? I didn't think Yoshimitsu and I didn't think Norikuni and the blade had the hallmarks of Kuniyoshi's work. He thought so obviously. He laughed and he said in this case there is no alternative whatsoever, this is Kuniyoshi. I asked why did they do it like this then? He said, "They're just nervous." 

 

He's pointed at some other older judgments on swords he was analyzing, in one case the sword had a sayagaki to Soshu Yukimitsu by Kanzan. I know how Kanzan feels about Yukimitsu which is that he is a peer of Masamune and he probably believed some of his better work got taken from him. The same way I feel about Osafune Nagashige's blades becoming Kanemitsu and Chogi. So this old blade that had no papers, I looked at it and I saw no reason that this shouldn't be Masamune. I say this having owned 6 or 7 Yukimitsu now 2 of which were Tokuju. He asked me what i thought and I said I thought Masamune and I knew Kanzan liked to push for Yukimitsu so that made me feel even more that it was Masamune. 

 

He laughed and pointed at it and he said, "Safe." 

 

It is much easier to call something a Yukimitsu and in later years after decades of study elevate it to Masamune, and it is a lot harder to take a Masamune and after decades of study make it into a Yukimitsu. Especially if it comes to consensus being necessary you get a statement that people can feel safe about. It's not necessarily the opinion of the guy who knows the most on the panel. 

 

And that for me is really where sayagaki come in. It's a chance for the guy who knows the most to be able to speak his mind without being fettered. A blade coming out as "Ichimonji" you will get his opinion if it's Fukuoka or Yoshioka and that is good to know. His opinion is better than mine or most people's. If I feel it's Fukuoka and he does too then I'm happy to call it Fukuoka. Similarly if Honami Nisshu takes a blade attributed to Yamato Shizu and says this is Kaneuji then this is a great disambiguator. And the reverse applies, because they may write into the commentary this is work by the followers of Kaneuji. It's good to know what they think and I like to hear it straight from them without the filters.

 

There is a blade out there with an Awataguchi attribution that Dr. Honma wrote up as Awataguchi Hisakuni on the sayagaki. Obviously someone thought that was too aggressive or he thought they were too tentative. The blade is very clearly end of Heian period Yamashiro Awataguchi. I can't sit here and tell you that I can separate Hisakuni easily from the other handful of the earliest smiths. But when he's saying Hisakuni he's also saying that this is the very best of the early Awataguchi smiths and it conforms to all that we know about Hisakuni and for this you can see it in that blade (it is Tokubetsu Juyo). 

 

On the one hand committee judgments are nice because they can fill in the blind spots or perform checks and balances, but in general what they are doing is going to be making judgments more conservative. More conservative does not necessarily mean more correct. It means less likely to be wrong. If we wanted to be really conservative we could just write papers and say (pre-1400 Yamashiro tradition). Every step of making an attribution goes one step further out on the limb. And the problem, if you are the best judge it is quite comfortable on the end of the limb because of what you know and the others who don't know as much as you do will be clinging to the trunk saying you're crazy out there. In the end both serve their purposes, committee judgment and single expert judgment and it is nice to be able to have both.

 

The idea that you take home at the end of the day is informed by these other opinions and always you have to bear in mind that they are advice, based on what these guys have learned and applied, about what this thing is. You ultimately decide how much authority is carried by their opinions and if there are any grounds to challenge them. 

[Gordon Sanders]

thanks darcy!