Opinions Saught on Hizen Wak

[KRM]

Hello all, the following is a link to a page of photographs of the Hizen wak that i recently acquired. First off, i do intend to resell this blade and am looking for opinions on the accuracy of the mei and so forth. I will not directly quote anyone here on my sales page however.

 

The nakago is signed "Omi Daijo Fujiwara Tadahiro", that being the 2nd gen Tadayoshi. I do understand however that his signature was often copied in later years and that it was also copied by his students while he was still alive (dai-mei i believe it is called). I would like to know if the mei is accurate and to what degree would you label the swords current polish (i.e. 60% , 75% and so on). I understand that these are difficult things to determine with photos alone so any info you can offer up will be greatly appreciated. Also, if there is some part of the blade that i have not shown, that i should have, please let me know. I want any potential buyers to be as informed as possible (on a side note: i don't understand how people on eBay can pay a few thousand dollars for a sword that is only shown in five or six small, scratchy photos).

 

The link below (just above the single photo) contains many photos of the sword. There is an abundance mostly because i am, by no means, an accomplished photographer, much less so with a difficult subject such as this. Sorry for the photo overload, but i figured the more photos i put up, the better chance that some of them may be of use in making a determination.

 

Many Thanks,

Kevin

 

http://www.marshalltradecorp.com/coDe/tadahiro_wakizashi.html

 

[paulb]

Hi Kevin

based on a two minute assesment and without reference to any published material my first reactions are as follows:

1. Shape is good especially the slightly extended Kissaki which is somethng to look for with Omi Daijo.

2. Cant see enough detail of hada or hamon but the one thing that is certainly missing is a thick clear nioi guchi

3. The tiredness is a problem and I think would only get worse with polishing

4. The mei is along way off from any of the many variations of Tadahiros mei.

5. Overall the mei and nakago look poor quality when compared to the normal finish you see on this smiths work.

 

Sorry to sound so negative and this is only personal opinion I will be interested in what others think.

Best Regards

Paul

[Ed Harbulak]

Hi Kevin,

The signature certainly looks gimei to me, plus the tip of the nakago is wrong for this smith. The shape of the blade looks pretty decent, but the signgature isn't that of second generation Tadahiro by any means. Even the students of Tadahiro wrote a better looking mei than on this blade. A bad signature doesn't make it a bad blade, you just have to judge the blade on its own merits not the mei.

Ed Harbulak

[KRM]

Thanks to you both for your comments. They seem to make sense to me. I haven't found too many photos of his signature to compare with, but the odd shape of the nakago tip is different from the "confirmed" Tadahiro blades that i see online. I'll keep these comments in consideration when putting this one up for sale.

 

Thanks again,

Kevin