Soshu Utsushi?

[Tokaido]

Hi all,

today I found this one on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Hiromasa-Koto-Tanto ... dZViewItem

 

Looking at the nakago (filemarks, mekugi ana) and the style of the signature I wonder, if this is a Soshu Hiromasa Utsushi dating from the Shinshinto period?

Any ideas?

 

Greetings

Andreas

[Brian]

Without checking out the blade too closely yet, the mounts look quite modern to me?

You can still see the chattering marks on the cuts on the tsuba, and the depictions are not in the Japanese style?

Same looks new too, and the f/k look unlike Japanese work. Menuki don't look like anything old or original. Could it be completely remounted in modern mounts?

The nakago doesn't look like a Koto to me, but this is just opinion for now.

 

Brian

[Jacques D.]

Hi,

 

In place of utsuchi, i would call this blade forgery (gimei) , In fact an utsushi is a copy of a masterwork by a talented smith but bearing the signature of the latter.

 

Koyama Munetsugu made a well known gimei which can be called utsuchi but he was Munetsugu