An attribution rarely seen

[Ray Singer]

Bizen Wake (和気):

 

https://www.aoijapan.com/katana-mumei-waki/

 

https://nihontoclub.com/view/smiths/meisearch?type=All&mei_op=contains&mei=和気

[lovelight]

Pretty healthy looking ha-machi for such an old blade.

[SAS]

It looks machi okuri but i would buy it if I had Bill Gates' money!

[lovelight]

Makes sense. The difference between the upper and lower nakago makes me wonder if it might have been shortened twice. But my experience with nihonto and koto blades specifically is very limited.  

[ROKUJURO]

To me it looks quite clearly as if a later MEI in the upper part of the NAKAGO had been removed or obscured. Not very well made.

[Ray Singer]

No doubt at all I think that a gimei signature has been crushed.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20130101060911/http://www.ksky.ne.jp./~sumie99/sword18.html

[Alex A]

Thick Kasane for an old blade!

[Peter Bleed]

Thank you Ray. I would not have considered this blade  very carefully had it not been for you encouragement.

Peter

[Jussi Ekholm]

I think Wake and Nitta are quite interesting and schools that have very limited information on them. Shigenori and Shigesuke are the only Wake smiths I've encountered yet but there are few other Wake smiths listed in indexes so far I have not yet seen a signed (or even unsigned attributed) sword from other than the 2 famous smiths.