November Kantei

[Jussi Ekholm]

Well we have had lots of fun doing kantei lately. As we have discussed doing it online vs. live has plenty of setbacks but this is just supposed to fun and not too serious. At first I thought I'd just go by the format of monthly kantei in Tōken Bijutsu, providing the 2 oshigata pictures for reference but I felt generous and tried to include two pictures that you can see the hada too along with my written description. However I did not want to provide a full length picture this time, as I believe you can get really good grasp about the sugata by just the numerical data provided and with the small written description.

 

The sword in question is unfortunately mumei so you cannot get a 100% correct guess. But it will be nice to see the guesses and compare them to the NBTHK attribution. The sword has been attributed by the NBTHK and I do personally feel that their attribution is most likely the correct one but as the sword is mumei there can be differing opinions.

 

Here is the information for the kantei

 

Tachi

 

Nagasa: 77,2 cm

Sori: 3,7 cm

Motohaba: 3,0 cm

Sakihaba: 1,9 cm

Moto-kasane: 0,65 cm

Saki-kasane: 0,4 cm

Kissaki-nagasa: 2,8 cm

Nakago-nagasa: 20,6 cm

Nakago-sori: 0,2 cm

 

Shinogi-zukuri, iori-mune, quite slender mihaba, visible taper, thin kasane, very deep sori that is torii-zori. The jigane is rather standing out itame, which tends to masame-nagare on many parts, some ji-nie is also present. There is also shirake-utsuri. The hamon and boshi can be seen in the oshigata. Nioiguchi is somewhat hazy and weak. Hamon is in ko-nie deki. There is bōhi on both sides with maru-dome before the tang. The tang is ubu has a kurijiri, and two mekugi-ana. The sword is mumei.

 

Have fun trying this out. I think I'll give the answer next weekend, so you'll have one week before that.

 

[Alex A]

Enju late Nanbokucho/early Muromachi   (wild guess) 

[DRDave]

From the description and measurements I'd say koto; although looking at the images, I would have expected the shinogi to be a little higher.  I'll stick with koto, and beyond that (school, etc.) I haven't clue; but I'm working on it!

[Guest Rayhan]

Going with Ko-Naminohira

[mywei]

Ko-Mihara?

 

I like Rayhans answer as well

Ko-Mihara

 

I like Rayhans answer as well

[Guest Rayhan]

Enju for the Maru-dome could be a good guess too like Alex said

[Ray Singer]

Does not appear to be a Bizen blade, but just pointing out the sansaku boshi. I like Enju for this one as well.

[Surfson]

According to an article by Markus, shirake-utsuri is most common in Enju, Naminohira and Mihara schools:

https://markussesko.com/2015/05/14/kantei-2-jigane-jihada-3/

I will go with Enju also due to the boshi.

[Vermithrax16]

I vote Enju but I imagine Jussi is throwing a curveball at us. These are fun!

[Gakusee]

Guys- Enju’s hada is a tad more refined than this. Look further into Yamato inspired schools and clearly the torizori points towards late Nanbokucho or Muromachi.

[Blazeaglory]

Was going to say Bizen but I'll go with Rayhans answer

[Guest Rayhan]

Agreed that the tell tell signs of itame and masame should point to Yamato first as Michael points out, or off shoot schools

[CSM101]

Ko-Mihara

 

 

Uwe G.

[Darcy]

Miike

[Jean]

Ryokai

[Peter Bleed]

I'll add to the Enju votes - and that was my reaction before I the other assessments. Kanetoki, mebbe.... That long flowing masame with close itame is what leads me to Enju...

Peter

[Guido]

There are some features that point to Enju - especially the bōshi - and also Miike. The bōhi looks indeed very much like Miike, however, in that case it usually extends all the way to the nakago-jiri, so I assume this one was added later. What throws me completely off is the hada, I've never seen masame-nagare in both schools. Kyūshū-mono is therefore as far as I'm willing to guess, with a slight preference for Enju, and excluding Naminohira.

[Vermithrax16]

Told you, Jussi would send a wildcard

[paulb]

Just to throw another thought in to the ring without too much confidence:

A number of people have suggested Yamato influence but have then ignored the most obvious Yamto influenced school which is Mino.

I agree that the O-maru boshi pushes towards enju but as Michael suggests I dont think the hada is fine enough for Enju. Also the "hazy" Nioiguchi is not what I would expect with Enju most examples I have see have, if anything, a tighter than average nioiguchi.

The hazy hamon suggests some Soshu influence. In addtion there is shirake utsuri which while also seen in Enju is more typically regarded as a Mino characterisitc.

Therefore this blade has a shape which suggests late kamakura/early Nambokucho. It has hada which suggests Yamato influence, the thickness again points to Nambokucho and Soshu. There is shirrake utsuri which as a first call would suggest Mino.

Taking all the above in to account a first stab on this might be Shizu. or tying it down a little further Yamato-Shizu.

If nothing else this blade proves how similar many of these works were/are and many examples have features that you might not typically expect to see.

[Ted Tenold]

Hokke Ichijo

[Alex A]

Jussi,

 

Looking at the oshigata of the boshi, do I see Nijuba ?

 

If so, when combined with masame-nagare, its a typical characteristic feature of Enju.

 

According to a page 751 of koto kantei

 

Just a thought.

[Guest Rayhan]

Imagine it is a beautiful example of Ko-Kongo Byoe and we are all wrong, lol!

[Alex A]

Haha, its a case of "I will make it fit what I said it was"!

[Guest Rayhan]

At this point yes Alex lol!

[Tom Darling]

Enju and Dotaniki group.

 

 

Tom D.

[Jean]

Against Miike is the fumbari. Ryokai is Yamato influenced, with high shinogi, shirake utsuri and less refined hada with masame...

[Tom Darling]

My other guess is Bizen Nagamitsu. early Bizen - Enju kitae would be ko-itame,mokume. Best regards,

 

 

Tom D.

[Jussi Ekholm]

Congrats Rayhan and Dwain for the Ko-Naminohira guess, well done. I’ll try to give a little write up on things and about guesses that came.

 

The sword was judged by NBTHK to be of Naminohira school and they added extra information in the brackets dating the sword to the early part of Muromachi period. I think personally that the size and shape of the sword can easily guide the thinking towards late Kamakura. Like Michael said earlier, shift of sori more towards the middle could point out to Nanbokuchō & early Muromachi, however it can be seen on Kamakura era too, so I will write a quote from Hinohara Dai that was on May issue of Tōken Bijutsu. Which can shed a light on how difficult it is sometimes to identify swords shape.

 

 

But then there are those cases where it is not clear at first glance if it is a Kamakura or an early Muromachi tachi. In such a case, one sometimes hears comments like “how can an expert not recognize at least the period immediately?” That is, an expert should at least know right away if he is handling a Kamakura or a Muromachi blade. Well, from my own experience and handling somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 blades, I can confirm that these cases exist and that they are not rare at all. But here it is recommended to go back from examining the jiba to the sugata, the first traditional kantei point, and after studying the shape again more closely, eventually return to the jigane and the hamon. Often, the initial gut feel was right but that feel should either be substantiated or dismissed to arrive at a well-founded opinion.

 

I think Nakago is one giveaway towards early Muromachi. While it is old it still does not seem to be very old. The feeling you can get on very old nakago is not present on this one. I did not provide nakago picture on this guessing game, the bit rectangularish ana is original and other one later add on. The oshigata was made by Aoi-Art, I am not sure if it is Tsuruta himself who does them or someone else? I am seeing that there is a small (weak) spot in the middle of bōshi that he has probably tried to add to the oshigata. Which might make it bit blurry on that part.

 

As the sword is mumei there is no absolute answer in this case. I think Kyūshū-mono is already an excellent answer. The hada would be one thing that is common in Kyūshū-mono. Muromachi era Naminohira school is not generally highly regarded and unfortunately this sword is not of high quality, so it makes identification more difficult. Ko-Naminohira is usually well regarded and more cherished. Most of the common sword books will tell you that Naminohira quality went down a lot going into Muromachi period. Muddy, hazy etc. terms I’ve often seen in nioiguchi descriptions of Naminohira swords.

 

Enju is also an excellent guess, while I was trying to figure out what common terms are used to separate Kyūshū schools from each other, there was great tip-list at the end of Kyūshū portion of Nihontō Kōza. The traits of Naminohira and Enju are overlapping a lot, and I think that higher quality sword might get Enju attributions and lesser quality swords could go more towards Naminohira.

 

Miike is another guess that fits this sword very well, going by the written features in the blade. And only by hands on look it could most likely be evident that this is not at Miike level quality wise. I have seen few swords in bad condition that have Miike attributions, but they are quite rare at lower tier.

 

Bingo guesses Ko-Mihara and Hokke are again very understandable. Itame & hint of masame is often described and bōshi could easily fit in too. And shirake is often listed too in description on some Mihara swords. In Nihontō Kōza for example nioiguchi of Hokke is described sometimes becoming misty.

 

For Yamato-Shizu many of the features also match, same thing with Ryōkai too. Like Paul said well, the differences are so small in many cases and the details are overlapping. My written description is not at the level of NBTHKs monthly kantei. I might have misworded some details and a more experienced person might see something differently and word it better.

 

There can be also lots of differing opinions from different organizations. There is one sword for sale that has NBTHK attribution to Naminohira & beginning of Muromachi and JASMK attribution to Hōju & late Nanbokuchō. While the difference in locations might seem dramatical schools being in the opposite ends of Japan, well surprise they share many common features so small details might turn the cup towards one or other.

 

I hope everyone had a fun time guessing.

[Guest Rayhan]

Thanks Jussi! It was fun!

[mywei]

Dang it!

 

Thanks Jussi