Ko Bizen

[seattle1]

Hello:

 A nice Ko Bizen, signed Yoshikane, Mid Heian, Juyo Token with Tanobe sensei sayagaki and koshirae popped up on Aoi's site this morning. These very early and unaffected swords are quite wonderful and the write-up is educational. The very natural hamon is beautiful and a thing not seen so much later on when school criteria were laid down more narrowly. Spending 7,000,000 JPY on a mail order site could have its moments, but the whole thing is quite rare and well worth taking a look at IMHO.

 Arnold F.

[Fuuten]

Spotted it. Makes me dream of winning the lottery.

[Jean]

Yes I noticed it this morning. I like this one also very much:

 

http://www.aoijapan.com/katana-mumei-shizu59th-nbthk-juyo-paper

[Stephen]

and if your pockets are not quite Juyo

 

http://www.aoijapan.com/katana-oshu-sendai-jyu-fujiwara-kunikane-shinshinto

[SwordGuyJoe]

Wow to both. Really special stuff! Makes me wonder why Masame is "dying" (you don't see many newer smiths using Masame hada much anymore). This is interesting to me. Everyone knows newer swords (gendaito and dabbling in shinshinto) are kind of my thing. I can look at the shizu sword and the Kunikane sword and acknowledge that the Shizu is better and I can appreciate the beauty in it. But as dumb as it sounds, when I look at the Kunikane, even though I see what the Shizu has that the Kunikane doesn't, I prefer the newer sword.

 

Same thing happened in Japan. I was surrounded by about a dozen national treasure swords. And all I really felt was, "Yes these are amazing." But all I could think about was the Shigetsugu gensuito in the Yasukuni jinja that I saw earlier. No reason that has any real logic to it, just feelings I guess.