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Give Back To Caesar What Belongs To Caesar

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Hoshi Experienced

Hoshi

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It's early work. I think the vast majority of the top-rated Naotane works were done during the tempo period. I think it shows how creative Naotane was already during this period, and his capacity to emulate a wide variety of koto methods. I like to think of this smith as a great experimenter and a little bit of a mad scientist. It's a fantastic school who really broke all the boundaries in their effort to recreate the old blades - culminating in Kajihei who could fake just about anyone and fool even the best experts of the time, and even frequently faked Naotane...

 

As for the blade itself, I am no fan of the Horimono - but that's a preference thing. I haven't studied enough examples to chime in on the price.  I don't have much of a strong opinion on this one...  

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Gakusee Veteran

Gakusee

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One of the truly great Shinshinto masters. I have only handled and got close to short blades but he did make long blades and beautiful on that. A reasonable number of Juyo rated katana, which in itself is a testament to the quality/shinsa perception, given that he is handicapped by the period.

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Jean

Jean

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You must all learn to look ...:)

 

I think the horimono is ato bori (engraved later but not recent either). It is not up to the smith reputation.

 

The question is : what are the characteristics of a Yamato blade: high shinogi, masame, and a SUGUHA Hamon. Naotane would never have made a big midare hamon.

 

Have a look at the horimono: Do you often see horimono being part of the hamon? Normally the hamon would have run under the Horimono and the dragon claws would never have been included in the hamon.

 

The kanteisho is dated March 2016 and shows a perfect suguha hamon under the horimono. On the right side of the blade under the dragon tail, there is in the picture a clearer spot as a mizukage.

 

This blade according to pictures and certificate has been retempered between march 2016 and now....

 

 

Thanks a lot Darcy to have drawn our attention on these facts.

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TheGermanBastard

TheGermanBastard

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Hello jean,

 

this would be the only reason aside from the blade recently having been in a fire - which would however also have altered the tang. However Retempering and repolishing the blade involves additional cost which I do not see to be reclaimed by added value easily. hence it remains a mystery to me as to why.

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Jean

Jean

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Thanks Darcy for this Alex.

 

There is only one conclusion, Aoi Art is the window of Japanese swords for Western Countries. So beware of Consignment items. You will see that Tsuruta san does not vouch for consigned items.

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TheGermanBastard

TheGermanBastard

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Its a shocker that one.

 

Why?

 

I thought it was a Japanese Sword!?

 

But to be serious: Japanese swords have been messed with for finding a sucker buying into them for centuries. This just keeps up that tradition. If Nihonto was a field of great honesty and ethics we would not need any papers to determine a blade to be Gimei or Shoshin but just take signatures for true as given.

 

I do not know what the percentage of fogeries there is in other fields of art ... but in Nihonto it is a shark tank for sure.

 

Personally I must say that it gives me a certain thrill - otherwise we wouldn't have an interesting topic like this one.

 

It is verys good to have a place to discuss like this and learn from eachother.

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TheGermanBastard

TheGermanBastard

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Thanks Darcy for this Alex.

 

There is only one conclusion, Aoi Art is the window of Japanese swords for Western Countries. So beware of Consignment items. You will see that Tsuruta san does not vouch for consigned items.

 

Wel said. There a good deals on Aoi Art and ones that you should beware of. You just have to ask yourself why a blade does not find its audience in its home country but is to be sold abroad. That my be for different tases, a flooded market or a more or less obviosu problem. With teh first two reasons you can strike a "bargain" ... with the later one you a struck and stuck ...

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TheGermanBastard

TheGermanBastard

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Ye, cheers Darcy :thumbsup:

 

Aye consigned items, be more wary in future..........thanks!

 

No, you should also be wary on none conseigned items. You should be wary all our life when doing business.

 

I take any bet that AOI Art is way more knowledgeable on swords than I am or most folks - but for sure more than I am as that is quite easy. He is a dealer who handles in one month more blades and on many occassions of higher quality than probabyl 98% of all other peopen = all none dealers. You can not beat the dealer. Not in the casiono nor in the sword market. Of course can believe you can ... but then you probably also do believe in Santa bringing you something through your chimney.

 

If he says "This is very good sword. We recommend very much. It is equal Juyo token quality" ... the you have to wonder why he does not get a Juyo tolen and sell it to your for way more. Simple answer: Because he can't.

 

You can find good deals on AOI Art. But you can't beat the dear.

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Alex A Grand Master

Alex A

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Hi Luis, believe me, when it comes to parting with hard earned cash..............I'm WARY :laughing:

 

Bare in mind that none of us doing this exercise were actually buying, makes hell of a difference to how you look at swords.

 

Aoi,s consigner info

 

-3. In order to make a payment to consignor from us immediately after the item has been sold, we cannot accept cancellation on items indicated as ‘consignment sale’ for any reason

 

They don't give refunds..........usually.

 

In their defence, they recently refunded me for a sword I was not happy with, that was on consignment.

 

Paid with credit card, wonder if that helped...........dunno.

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Hoshi Experienced

Hoshi

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It's a massacre. Total loss of value. 

 

It's hard to buy the ''appeal to westerner taste'' argument. Retempering + fake polish, that's expensive. You're not going to get your money back easily especially since the odds that the fraud is spotted are pretty high. 

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Gakusee Veteran

Gakusee

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Another one of Aoi’s “specials”. Of course, in the rush to read comments, not many of us looked at the Hozon certificate before we commented. Saiha and not disclosed - that is shameful.

Time and again we flag Photoshopping and other things....

With Aoi, one needs to be super sharp and analytical when buying only through photos.....

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vajo Grand Master

vajo

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I dont think it is retempered.

If it was retempered the heat of 800 degres hat burned out the spot on the right side of the nagasa. And i think the horimono have some signs of the re-temper.  I think that what we see is the new polish. 

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Jean

Jean

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Chris,

 

Darcy quote:

 

« Someone might say it's just the hadori that's changed but the hamon now clearly cuts right through the dragons and if it was like that before then the polisher would have only put hadori on the bottom third of the hamon. That would be even more weird.

 

So I think it's another recent retemper. Paper is dated Heisei 28 which is March 2016. It went onto their site in October. They may be responsible for it but they have it flagged as a consignment.

 

There is a little nick in the blade on the bottom right just above the machi. It is in the picture too.

 

So this blade did not get a full polish. Otherwise it would be gone.« 

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Darcy Mentor

Darcy

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I have to break my self imposed exile for this. That was for private consumption and not as a thread starter. What I'm going to talk about with friends in email is going to be handled a bit differently than if I am posting my thoughts in public for consumption by everyone so I have to clarify my my thoughts here.

 

To be clear this is speculation based on what I can see, and what I can see is not so much. In the past there have been swords posted to this site from that site in which nobody looked at the papers, and the papers have information that reveals more about the piece in question than the knee jerk evaluation does. The Kiyomaro that came and went and came back and has some weirdness to it had an older paper that said the mei was from the very end of his life, and that can have some additional things read into it. So it's important when the man puts a picture of the paper up, that you look at the paper, he's put it there for you to look at after all and there is a message there that is implicit. Do your homework is the message, and here is the information.

 

There are some weird things on this piece and one of them seems to be the horimono quality. Also they pass halfway through the hamon which is unusual and in none of his works. But they don't look like any of the good horimono that are associated with this smith and also Yoshitane.

 

The hamon in the paper and the hamon in the photo of the blade are very different and about six months exists between the photo and the paper. There are two scenarios:

 

Scenario 1. for some reason the polisher put hadori on the blade as if it had a low suguba hamon in the Hosho style which complimented a masame construction when it really had a florid notare hamon. His reason for doing this may have been that the hamon was invisible so he put a fake one on. Then this blade with the florid notare hamon that was invisible with a fake suguba hamon on it went to the NBTHK who gave it Tokubetsu Hozon in spite of this and the dragons. After papers then the polish was corrected and the hamon revealed. And the hamon just happened to go halfway through the horimono. And mizukage appeared after the polish was corrected on the right hand side.

 

2. the blade was found, as-is not so good condition, papered to be sure the mei was correct, and after this money spent to "enhance" it as the hamon was maybe dim and not saleable.

 

There is a possibility it is indeed just polishing but it's hard for me to wrap my head around the original state being dressed up for a low suguba hamon and then the hamon being this florid thing going through the horimono. Maybe it's been given a bit of acid treatment which brought out the jihada as well as the hamon. 

 

Whatever it was, it is after it was papered is the only thing that can be known for sure.

 

As for "someone should tell Tsuruta san", this I think would be speculating that you have some knowledge you can impart to this man, who is I think an expert in swords and needs no lessons from westerners and is aware of the strengths and weaknesses of everything he acquires for his inventory. They are what they are and they are filling a niche in the market, as there is demand for what they sell and how they sell it.  

 

Back to exile. 

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Brian

Brian

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All very good points, and they should be read in the general context of purchasing and not just this specific item too. In other words, people just read a description and make up their minds from that. We need to be able to look further, examine for ourselves...analyze....compare with known traits..don't just take what is presented. And be wary...always be wary.

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