Criteria For Koshirae Attaining Papers?.

[Alex A]

If anyone knows, or knows where I can find info, would be appreciated. 

 

An example https://www.aoijapan.com/katana-bishu-osafune-sukesada-eisho-10-nen-8-gatsu-hi/

 

Cheers

[Rivkin]

...having the quality worthy of preservation as a complete koshirae, signatures if present should be genuine, no modern elements? I always felt it was a very liberal standard, but on the bad side - the appraisal, except for those cases when all fittings are clearly done by the same hand, its almost always a level below in detail compared to when you submit a kozuka or fk by itself. They can simply avoid commenting on kozuka. whether its say kyo kinko or waki goto, and write instead - kozuka of shakudo with the image of ....

I often see documents which simply state what the set consists of, rather than actually trying to provide an attribution of each piece or give a hint when this koshirae became a set. So you hope they would state yes, we confirm kozuka, fk and kogai forming a set by the same hand with only fk being signed - and instead you just have renumeration that fk is signed, and kozuka and kogai are made from shakudo.

 

Kirill R.

[Hoshi]

Doubtful it would be of any use to get papers for the vast majority of 'hangar surplus' Koshirae from Aoi. As Kirill points out, there is not much to learn in terms of provenance, and it won't boost the monetary value either. You'll either get no paper or a really vague attribution.  

 

These Koshirae are bought in bulk from dealer auctions specifically for matching swords. They are then stripped and cleaned up by assistants. When a new sword comes in, they'll play tetris for a while until one fits. A lot of them even have cast menuki. The tsubas are flipped and exchanged for the stuff that won't sell. It is what it is and one should be aware of it. These are package sweeteners for westerners who want the full deal. 

 

Sometimes you'll find an original koshirae, like the Tachi Koshirae Jean pointed out on the Aoe sword. These deserve to be papered. It's rare though, and it's usually more common with Tantos or swords of unusual sizes - things for which the tetris game turns to hard mode.

[Alex A]

Cheers Kirill & Chris

 

Using the koshirae i provided as just one example.

 

The fittings certainly have decent quality, the tsuka has age, looks great and would make a nice addition to any collection

 

The thing that struck me about this koshirae is that the tsuba has hitsu-ana, but the saya appears to have no allowances. Im guessing the saya is a late addition maybe.

 

Its these little niggles that have me curious, as to where NBTHK etc stand.

[Jussi Ekholm]

http://nihontocraft.com/2015_NBTHK_Nionto_Tosogu_Shinsa_Standards.html

[Alex A]

That's great Jussi, cheers. Knew something had to be written somewhere, just couldn't find it.

[Hoshi]

Cheers Alex, 

 

It's most often the other way around. The tsuba is not original to the koshirae. The nice tsubas are generally removed and boxed, sold off separately, or mixed-and-matched with other Koshirae. I mean at the end of the day the tetris equation has a few components, it's also possible they found a saya to fit the blade, and then decided to add the tsuka + tsuba set which came from somewhere else since it held well. 

 

It's pretty risky business, because who knows how much gung there is in these old saya. On top of it, if the fit isn't great the chances are it will scratch the blade. I don't know how they proceed to really minimize the harm on the polish. 

[Rivkin]

Shish, wrong topic - this concerns koshirae Juyo.

 

Very personal opinion - these gaps are not well defined and are very context dependent.

Juyo shinto is likely to be the first class blade. The cutoff level is very high.

Juyo koto can be more of a mixed bag especially in later 70s. Very personally - don't like quite a few Takagi Sadamune, Yamashiro in wider definition (Mihara etc.) that were papered back then. Tokuju is the level where you get consistently great blades with no admixture.

Juyo koshirae is a very high level. Matching high class work created as a whole by mainline Goto. Not common at all. Very small percentage of koshirae is papered. But regular papers are more or less easily attained.

 

Kirill R.