Yasukuni Yasunori

[huntershooter]

Historian 333 has a Yasunori blade on e-bay that looks interesting.

Mei appears to be (Kotani) Yasunori as listed in Sloughs. Although the mei is located below the ana on the e-bay blade and above the ana in Sloughs, I did find an example in "Yasukuni Swords" with the mei below the ana. The plate (pg. 16) in "Yasukuni Swords" looks VERY much like the e-bay blade.

Does anyone have any thoughts or observations regarding this?

My thanks.

[huntershooter]

Was hoping the experts could give me some insight on rather this blade is gemei.

Thanks.

[Ed Harbulak]

Yasukuni blades are normally signed about the mekugi ana with a two character signature. According to the Yasukuni book, they are signed below the mekugi ana, generally as "Yasu sombody, respectfully made" when they were made for the Emperor to be given by him as gifts. I would guess these gifts were given to some officer graduating at the head of his class, for meritorius service, perhaps a major promotion in rank or something similar. I would also expect that a sword being given by the Emperor as a gift would have a lot more on the nakago than just the name of the smith and the date. So even without comparing the mei on this blade to a genuine mei, I'd want to do a lot more checking. The blade itself certainly looks a lot like what I'd expect a Yasukuni blade to look like, but when things get expensive there will always be fakes. Just my opinion and I could be totally wrong. It will be interesting to see how the bidding reflects other peoples' opinion.

Ed Harbulak