Soshu possibly?

[Utopianarian]

New here but reading and learning as much as I can. I’ve had this Sword. Trying to research it more

[Utopianarian]

More pics

[Utopianarian]

Additional pic

[Utopianarian]

This sword details of this blade: nagasa 69cm. Sori 1.7cm motohaba 2.9cm sakihaba 1.9cm kissaki nagasa 2.9cm nakago nagasa 18.8cm kasane 0.6cm. It is suriage and was fitted with high end Shin Gunto mounts with family mon.

[Utopianarian]

With different lighting

[Utopianarian]

Nakago O-suriage

[ChrisW]

Definitely shoshin. Very nice!

[Utopianarian]

Thank you, I am on waiting list to get polish and was hoping it was worthy of full polish. Was looking at using David Hofhine

[Utopianarian]

If anybody out there has a good guess as to the school it may be from or the era Nanbokucho, Muramachi etc.. please chime in..

[Utopianarian]

Kissaki

[Utopianarian]

More pics

[Utopianarian]

More pics

[PNSSHOGUN]

Hi George, can we see the mounts?

[Utopianarian]

I will post them when I get home tomorrow. I don’t have any of the gunto mount photos saved to my phone of this sword. I remember there is a family mon on the fittings that look or resemble a diamond. They are in decent shape. I will post pics when I get home

[Utopianarian]

Here are other pics of a few other guntos that I have

[Utopianarian]

Here is the mei of a WW2 sword I sold recently. I am more into the old stuff now. Not so much the mass produced swords of WW2

[Rivkin]

George, I am sorry but the pictures leave too much to imagination, so its sort of wild guess. Some of the features make me feel its no earlier than mid Momoyama, and possibly substantially later. Hamon has a streak of rather large nie on top, but rather wide and featureless below, something we don't often see on truly old koto pieces.

Without having the sword in hand its even wilder guess, but I would pass on polishing. 

The market is skewed in such a way that with post-1450 blades even if it papers Naotane it gives you a modest profit over the polishing costs, but 95% of the rest is a pure loss.

 

Kirill R.

[Utopianarian]

Thank you Kirill, I know the zoomed in pics don’t give a true sense of scale that is hard to capture in a pic. I am going to try when I get a chance send to Shinsa.

[Utopianarian]

The Nakago has a pretty dark thick well established patina that seems to predate most Shinto blades that I have handled. I know that isn’t saying much but is an observation I’ve noted. The double bo hi runs deep into the Nakago as well. The sword has a deep curvature and was possibly koshi zori but now more tori zori I would guess. Quite a bit was cut off the Nakago.

[Grey Doffin]

Hi George,

If the sword is worthy of a polish it deserves a properly trained polisher.  The one you have chosen doesn't qualify; sorry.  You could send it to Bob Benson in Hawaii to see if he recommends a polish.

Grey

[Utopianarian]

Thanks Grey, I think I will check into that. I wonder how long the wait would be for polish from Bob Benson. I’ve read a lot about him and know he is highly regarded. Btw I bought a book from you Grey a few months ago. It was very informative and interesting especially the signed rare Hiromitsu Tachi found here in Ca in 2003!! Thank again

[Utopianarian]

Here are the WW2 gunto fittings the questionable Sōshu sword came in

[Utopianarian]

Here pics without all the heavy exposure lighting on it

[Utopianarian]

In contrast to pic posted earlier

[Surfson]

Hi George.   I agree with Kirill that neither we nor you have enough information.  

 

You haven't mentioned whether there is a signature on it, and none of the pictures are clear about that.  If it is signed, you should post some photos of the mei, and in any case, if you want more opinions on it, you should post some good pictures of the nakago.  If it is not signed, then it is "osuriage" instead of "suriage", meaning that the mei, if it ever had one, is gone.   

 

The good news is that the blade seems to be in a very good state of polish.  If it were my sword, I wouldn't dream of sending it to a polisher of any sort until I studied it more and probably not until I sent it to shinsa for a professional opinion, since it is in fine condition for judgement.  It is not that hard to send a sword to one of the NTHK shinsa teams in the US.  If you don't attend the show, you can send the sword to whoever is coordinating the shinsa and they will submit it on your behalf for a small fee.  I have to warn you that there are some purists on the NMB that will argue that the NTHK is a waste of time and any good sword should be sent to the NBTHK first. I have always erred on the side of thinking that more opinions are just more information and eventually I have to make my own mind up based on the summary of the data and input.  I have had mumei swords about which the NTHK and NBTHK had different views.

 

If you do decide to have it polished, my advice is to send it to a reputable polisher in Japan.  You can do this through Benson or any number of other agents that will handle it for you.  

 

Finally, it does sort of have a Soshu feel to it, at least based only on the hamon photos. 

Best of luck with it, Bob

[Utopianarian]

Thank you Robert for the clear distinction between suriage and Osuriage. This sword doesn’t seem to have any type of markings on the Nakago besides the double bo hi that runs into the Nakago. I apologize for the poor pics of the Nakago. The is no signature. The only other marking I could find was an (-) or a straight line running horizontally which doesn’t appear to be file marks at the bottom part of the Nakago. Thank you everyone for your thoughts and knowledge on this mystery.

[Prewar70]

Ichimonji?

[Jamie]

You might want to post a picture of the horizontal mark your talking about.

I don’t personally think this looks ichimonji.

I’d lean Soshu ish If old though it will have strong activity between the habuchi and ha.

[Surfson]

Are you sure it is suriage?  The end of the tang looks kuri or some other shape not typically associated with shortening.  How many holes in the tang.  If you want more guesses on age, we need good close up shots of the tang.  If it hasn't been shortened, that will tell us quite a bit about age.  

[brannow]

I would lean to Soden Bizen.  Nice sword!  Dont let any Gomez with a stone near it.  The way I would play it is send it to Japan for shinza then decide on restoration through qualified crafstman.