Kanemitsu school? revisited

[jrs]

I finally received this blade today and I'd like anyone's opinion on possible school. I bought it because I thought it looked like Nanbokuckho period, with nice kitae and either Bizen or Soshu (or Soden Bizen). Now that I have it, it's beautiful even though it needs to be polished. The hada is a tight ko-itame that has, for lack of a better word, "velvettiness". It does have utsuri that I can see, even in the state of polish, appearing at the shinogi and/or sometimes right at the hamon itself in between the peaks of the gunome (I'm not sure if the latter is considered utsuri or not). I cannot make out the boshi because of the scratches and/or rust but I feel sure that it is there because of the size of the kissaki and because the hi starts so far below the yokote. I think the blade is So-den Bizen but I'm not positive and the closest example of the workmanship that I can find in any of my books is Kanemitsu and his school but I'm afraid my judgement may be clouded because I just received Darcy and Bob Benson's Bizen book yesterday, which I read cover to cover, and I'm seeing what I want to see. GREAT book by the way, can't wait for the rest! Any opinion anyone has is greatly appreciated.

nagasa is 63.2cm.

sori 2.5

width at machi 2.6

width at yakote 2.1

James

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[Mark]

the width of the groove suggests Bizen. The way the groove ends near the kissaki suggests Nambukcho. The sugata looks a bit later, it seems that if shortened it would have originally been sakisori. Maybe early muromachi. hard to say more from a picture but i guess late soden bizen might be a possibility

[jrs]

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[jrs]

I corrected a typo I made in the body of my original post. I had mistakenly typed "Kanemoto" when I was intending to say "Kanemitsu".

If anyone has a suggestion as to what direction I should be going as far as school, it would be greatly appreciated.

James

[jrs]

I've had time to really look the blade over and do some research and now I'm leaning toward Bizen Tomomitsu. I've seen two oshigata with the same sugata, hamon and grooves that started below the yokote. Any opinions?

[jrs]

I also wanted to add in case anyone is interested, that there are 3 definite kirikomi, and possibly 2-3 more that I've spotted that are little more than fine nicks on the mune or shinogi. I seem to see something new everytime I look at the blade.

James

[jrs]

mods? is it ok to bring this post backup to see if anyone has an opinion now? Please delete if this is old and no one wants to revisit it, I just haven't had any new info to add and am still curious to other insights.

James