Possible The Finest Sword With A Hefty Pricetag!

[Viper6924]

Whilst I was visiting Piers in Okayama this past May, we were told to head over to Okayama Pref Museum, to witness something quite amazing.

On display was the famous Tachi attributed to the Fukuoka Ichimonji school from the 13th century. It´s also known as the Sanchoumou. It´s a National treasure and as such commands the utmost respect.

Whilst Piers and I was closing in on the museum, we saw several buses parked outside which was catering for all the people wanting to catch a very rear glimps of this masterpiece.  

It´s belongs to an old woman in Okayama. Now I saw in a recent article, that she has desided to sell it. For the moderate sum of 320 million yen. Apparently it´s going home to Echigo (Niigata Pref) where it once was owned by Uesugi Kenshin.

 

Here.s the link to the article: www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201608240063.html

 

I have also included a scan from the paper we got in the museum.

 

Truly happy that I was able to spend 30 min with this treasure.

 

Jan

 

[ggil]

The most amazing temper line ever! What a work of art!

[cisco-san]

:clap:

[Jamie]

Ichimonji to me looks almost like fire. I'd love to see this in person, consider yourself lucky to have seen it.

[Stephen]

Mark me green with envy

[Ted Tenold]

Sanchoumou is often pronounced "Yamatorige" but the former is the correct reading.  Most people have heard/know it as Yamatorige which is why I mention this.  Sanchoumou is the inspiration by which Ono Yoshimitsu creates his well known "Yamatorige" utushimono.

[Greg F]

That hamon is just outstanding and truly reminds me of fire more than any hamon I remember seeing before. At that price I would be very nervous holding it, but would absolutely love to anyway. Would've liked to see some more pics of it. Thank you for sharing this Jan. Cheers.

 

Greg

[vajo]

I found that picture of the sword legend. 

 

 

The Picture ist from that website (i hope it is ok to link it)

[SAS]

Wow!

[md02geist]

Is she allowed to sell it, seeing as it is deemed a national treasure?

[Ray Singer]

I believe that the owner is supposed to give the government an opportunity to purchase the item first. If I recall correctly that was the process which happened with O-Kanehira. 

 

Separately, there is another Ichimonji mei-to for sale, which resides here in the states. 

 

http://nihonto.com/AraIchi.html

 

Best regards,

Ray

[SteveM]

Maybe that was the process used here too, as apparently this sword is going to the municipal government in Jōetsu, Niigata.

[Gasam]

How, just freaking how did they do that? What ungodly level of control was needed for this to come through I wonder.

 

That hamon is... almost an impossibility, to my mind at least.

 

Thanks for sharing :-)

 

Cheers,

[Ray Singer]

One theory is that the Ichimonji smiths did this type of wild juka choji-ba without clay. There was an article on the JSSUS where Yoshindo Yoshihara demonstrated how he could produce an Ichimonji type hamon with no clay. There was another gendai smith who recently passed away (I don't recall his name) who did so exclusively, successfully reproducing this hamon and creating works which also exhibited midare utsuri.

 

Best regards,

Ray

[Ray Singer]

JSSUS Volume 27, No 2 - March - April, 1995

"The Ichimonji Hamon"

 

Includes discussion on Sanchomo and the utushimono done by Ohno Yoshimitsu.

 

Best regards,

Ray

[Greg F]

Hi Ray ive seen a doco with that technique with out clay. The control of all elements involved in this style of tempering seems to be on another level imo.

 

Greg

[c2tcardin]

Can someone lend me $3.2 million!

[Bugyotsuji]

Jan, you said you would give it to me!

 

Apparently the yearly taxes on this sword would be crippling, which is why she lent it out to the Prefectural Museum.

[Gasam]

Heyas,

 

There is a movie on youtube (Im sure a number of you have seen it, I know it has been mentioned on these forums) of a modern smith forging a sword for a shrine. He aims to recreate a choji hamon. He does so without any clay. The first attempt at yaki-ire leaves part of the blade with a weak hamon, so the guy simply reheats and quenches again, this time to his satisfaction. I am on vacation now, almost no internet, so cannot research where I saw it. but I was always intrigued since seeing this film that a hamon could be achieved without clay.

 

Cheers,

 

Edit: could it have been the sword episode of "begin japanology" with peter barakan?

[Ken-Hawaii]

That Ichimonji is...incredible!!

 

Ken

 

[Greg F]

Gasam, Thats the one. Cheers.

 

Greg

[Stephen]

no sword is worth that much

[drbvac]

We shall see Stephen - it will be worth what she can get for it   

[Eric Santucci]

  On 10/11/2016 at 1:05 AM, raymondsinger said:

There was another gendai smith who recently passed away (I don't recall his name) who did so exclusively, successfully reproducing this hamon and creating works which also exhibited midare utsuri.

Best regards,

Ray

Sugita Yoshiaki. His work was very unique and quite good. Sadly he did indeed pass and it was in 2012.

[dig1982]

This method of tempering is called "hadaka yaki", here a link that explain all the steps

http://www.pracownia-japonska.pl/teksty,hadaki-yaki,23.html

And this is the page of Sugita Yoshiaki, on the left links there is pics of some beautiful works done with this method.

http://www.murakumokai.jp/sugita/sugita-top.htm

[Brian]

  On 10/12/2016 at 12:34 AM, Stephen said:

no sword is worth that much

There are thousands of paintings worth a lot more than that.

IMHO, this sword is worth more than any of those. Guess it just depends on your definition of art? I'd purchase this before any $5M painting, statue or car.

[DirkO]

I consider myself lucky to have held Ono Yoshimitsu's version of the Yamatorige, let alone the real deal!
Contrary to what one might think, this piece is not that widely published. The only decent write-up I think is in Showa Dai Meito Zufu (hugely underappreciated book)
If Sato Kanzan and Junji Honma think very highly of it, that's saying a lot seeing they were very discriminate about what they liked.

Sorry about the picture quality, the book is larger than my scanner I'm afraid! However, it does show the hamon nicely!
 

 

 

[Darcy]

  On 10/12/2016 at 12:34 AM, Stephen said:

no sword is worth that much

 

 

People buy modern made watches for that much and cars for more than that and those are just the production of machines.

 

People buy modern sculpture that can be whipped up in a day, or made in series of copies and these can go as high as $100 million.

 

You can dump a couple of buckets of paint on a canvas and sell it for $10M.

 

National Gallery in Canada bought a painting which was three stripes for 1.8M and got lambasted for it by the public. People wanted heads rolling in the street. This was about 1990. On the market today it's worth $40 million. 

 

Chinese are plopping down $10M for shacks in Vancouver just because they like the view and plan on knocking the shack down.

 

People buy boats for more than this that just require endless maintenance and eventually fall apart and are worthless.

 

$3.2M for one of the finest artifacts of samurai history and a Japanese national treasure... is too much? This is dirt cheap.

 

There is no blue book for used swords.

 

This is the Yamatorige.

 

Any statement of no X is worth that much needs to have "to me" appended to it. I can pick up the phone right now and sell this sword if it could be exported and it would take me about 15 seconds, just enough time to say it's for sale and what the seller is asking.

 

BTW, this has excellent Muromachi koshirae since the days of Kenshin. 

[Darcy]

Also the value is approximately a pile of 600 rusty bingobungo swords. 

 

Or 1 million big macs.

 

Now there is a game show for you. 

 

Let someone choose between a huge pile of big macs, a huge pile of rusty crap swords, and a single historically significant masterpiece artwork. All the same value. It will tell you a lot about the person choosing.

[Shugyosha]

Mmmmm....Big Macs....