Information in the research of two swords that I have recently purchased.

[CaptainMac]

Good Day,

I would like to research my recent purchase a little more and was hoping that this forum would help provide further info/details/history/ownership pertaining to the two swords as well as their relevant sword smiths etc.

 

I have attached a couple of photo's and can provide further more detailed photo's if it would help.

 

They were both purchased at the same time during a recent visit to Japan.

 

The information I have been provided by the seller (in Japan) is as follows;

"Long sword:

Made by Bisyu Osafune Tadamitsu lived in Bisyu area (Okayama prefecture now) in Muromachi era (AD 1336 - 1573).

Fittings are supposed to have made sometime later in its history.

 

Short sword: 

Made by Masaie who lived near Tadamitsu in Bisyu area and same era.

 

Regarding the family crest seen in the scabbards, it was a special one only Shogun family members can use during 300 years of Edo era.

The original owner of the swords was one of them. They lived in Hokkaido after Japanese civil war called Boshin sensou,

and they handed those down to their relative in Shiga prefecture about 80 years ago."

 

Please note that any information provided will be for my own benefit only and will in no way be used for commercial gain or item's sale.

 

Thanks in advance for any information and advice you can provide.

 

Best,

Mark McDowell

 

[SAS]

Nice daisho, more blade pics please.

[CaptainMac]

I don't currently have too many pics of the blades, but here is what I have.

I can upload more later.

 

Thanks,

Mark Mc

[PNSSHOGUN]

Hi Mark, the quality on the Koshirae seems quite low, I suspect they were made recently. The swords look very nice though, and appear to be papered together as a Daisho, which is very desirable.

[Jim P]

Hi Mark, You need to take some better photos the ones you posted will not tell us much. I would take the story with a pinch of salt same for the family crest also the papers ? are not from one of the main line appraisal orgs { NBTHK ,NTHK } they may be fine but you may find that if you put them in to NBTHK or NTHK you may not get the same result as papered daisho are very rare. So looking forward to photos of the bare blades this will help members see traits like sugata. hada, and hamon

 and you will get much better reply's   PS  photo 3 in your last post of the Wakizashi it looks like hamon runs off at the Kissaki but it may be the photo or my bad eyesight   

[SteveM]

Actually its not a daisho, because at 1.9 shaku, the Tadamitsu is considered a wakizashi, and is registered as such. So it is two wakizashi, and judging from the registration cards they came from different places. The Tadamitsu was registered in Kyoto in 1951. The Masaie was registered in Mie Prefecture in 2014.

 

There are a lot of smiths named Tadamitsu, and the signature as listed on the registration card (備州長船忠光) doesn't give any hints as to which it might be. The date of Eisho 7 (1510) should point to which Tadamitsu we are looking for, but I couldn't quite nail which one this is. 

 

The hollyhock on the tsuba is a Tokugawa mon, but the one on the saya (maru ni mokkō) is more common. The paper that came with the swords calls this an "Oda Mokkō", which is a five-petaled motif, particular to the Oda family, but the mon on the saya is just a standard maru ni mokkō.

[Jim P]

Thanks Steve, Now that's an interesting two wakizashi daisho

[Geraint]

Dear Jim.

 

It is not unheard of to have a daisho with both blades in wakizashi size, one just under katana size and one rather smaller, though in this case I think Steve's excellent analysis suggests that this pair were only associated rather recently.  We look forward to seeing more pictures when they arrive.

 

All the best.

[Jussi Ekholm]

Seems like the issuing body for papers is 美術日本刀保存会 - Bijutsu Nihontō Hozon Kai. Unfortunately I have never heard about them before, seems like it was issued in Janurary 2019. I think I might have seen a paper or two issued by them at Japanese auction sites before but I've skipped them.

 

With google I managed to find they probably are located in Okayama: https://www.hotfrog.jp/company/1123282600243200

 

I think the seller left out lot of information saying to you and that seems to be quite common with most sellers. He should have been able to tell you that Tadamitsu was dated as Steve translated to you, and that Masaie is attributed to Bingo province and not Bizen. There were many Masaie smiths in Mihara school and Muromachi period smith could be very likely. Also the fact that both blades fall under the modern wakizashi classification, which will affect the price, as well as the fact that they were most likely quite recently put together in matching koshirae. The sellers in Japan know well what they are doing and what will attract buyers.

 

I hope you don't find this comment too negative as that was not my intention. I do believe you have 2 genuine Japanese swords from the late Muromachi period as is listed in the paper. Even though the issuing body does not hold commercial value their attribution seems to be most plausible one given one is signed and dated and other signed. If signatures are legitimate I'd guess other organizations would give the same answer.

[Darcy]

To clarify on these things put on one paper as a daisho, if that was attempted with the NBTHK they would not paper them as such.

In order to paper as a daisho, they need to be made by the same smith, on the same day, and intended as a pair for each other.

By definition two koto swords cannot be papered as daisho since that idea of one smith making two blades as a set does not appear to have occurred to anyone until after the Momoyama period, after daisho became popular at the end of the Muromachi period.

 

With Shinto blades on a monthly basis people are trying to get their "daisho" that they assembled of two swords made by the same maker, sometimes even with the same date, passed as daisho token. These inevitably fail because they were not purpose made sets. 

Bearing in mind that two swords as long as they are made within six months of each other will have the same date on their nakago, because smiths had a habit of only dating February and August as dates on blades. So when a blade says February it is probably within +/- 3 months of Feb. It isn't clear to me if the date used though is the last date (i.e. is the left fencepost, so the Feb date covers Feb-August and the August date covers August-Feb) or if is the center post of the span (Sep-March then for Feb date). Probably a modern swordsmith would know. 

Anyway point being is that people constantly try to game this and you can see afterwards when they sell their "daisho" that the dates of the papers and serial numbers are consecutive on the two swords in the daisho, they probably submitted together for one paper the the NBTHK issued two because the swords are not a daisho (i.e. purpose made as a pair).

They are still a daisho (i.e. long and short swords mounted together for use) when in the koshirae. But you just need to understand the different contexts (any two swords you put in matched koshirae become a daisho for the purpose of wearing, but two swords are daisho token sans koshirae only when intended as a pair and this is where the high degree of rarity comes in). 

Since any collector can put together a self-made daisho there is no combination value bump when you do so. If they were mismatched swords together historically and the daisho koshirae exists from when this happened in the Edo period, now you have a valuation bump. And if the swords were made together as a set intended for each other, you also have a valuation bump. If that set of swords retains its original koshirae you have another valuation bump. 

In this case the swords are probably united now by a collector or dealer and so are just two swords.
 

[Brian]

Thank you Darcy, good info as always

[Alex A]

Stringent rules there it seems from the NBTHK, 

 

Interesting when you see, blades of the 47 Ronin http://japaneseswordindex.com/ronin.htm

 

Which one would expect to be worn as a "daisho"

 

 looking back in history, was not unusual for Samurai to have even oddball combinations.

[ROKUJURO]

....In order to paper as a daisho, they need to be made.....on the same day....

 

Really? I thought they would take longer to make one.

[Ken-Hawaii]

I guess that brings the question of when a blade is considered to be "made."

[Brian]

Really? I thought they would take longer to make one.

Did you miss this part?

 

"Bearing in mind that two swords as long as they are made within six months of each other will have the same date on their nakago, because smiths had a habit of only dating February and August as dates on blades"

[Gakusee]

Let’s not be pedantic indeed. What Darcy said and meant was that the swords ought to bear the same month and year (swords are not dated to a specific day). When we use the term “dating” nowadays, we of course mean a specific date, namely a specific day in the month, but that was not the case with the swordsmiths in the past. Due to the mythological and auspicious meaning of Feb and August, those are the two months which are engraved on the nakago of older swords. I have heard from Victor Harris that the moonlight in Feb and August has a specific glow and emits just the right radiance for smiths to judge best when and how to quench a blade (or something along those lines).

 

On the bigger point about the blades, also they need to have historically been together as a daisho, which can be traced and verified in some way.

 

But even in the Koto period one could have had a tachi and also a shorter accompanying blade thrust through the sashi. I do not think they had matching koshirae

at that time but two blades were carried by warriors.