Bohi-vermillion: a bohemian 1400's Katana design

[waljamada]

So I bought a collapsible Japanese mulberry wood sword rack from ebay (meant for traveling swordsman apparently) that has 5 racks. I only had four swords...this was a conundrum. I decided to take my saved vacation money for this year and take mini road trips instead to purchase one more sword which I wanted to be papered and under $3,000. This one is attributed to the Sue Tegai school in the early 1400's (and possibly almost missed being able to drop the Sue by a matter of years). The sword has an over 26" nagasa but it's a thin quick blade. It has the red lacquered hi and my favorite part is that they are asymmetrical with one side being shorter. The bohi placement is also in a unique location of the blade. So perhaps a religious customer? A bohemian sword design by a smith? Done to hide flaws? More common than I know of? Take a look and see what you think.

 

 

https://ibb.co/album/iZruWF?sort=date_asc&page=1&params_hidden%5Blist%5D=images&params_hidden%5Bfrom%5D=album&params_hidden%5Balbumid%5D=iZruWF

[Ken-Hawaii]

Nice blade, Adam. Glad you skipped a long vacation to buy it.

 

Not sure I would call your bo-hi's location "unique," though. Most are higher, but not all. At this point in time, it's imposible to discover exactly why & where it was made, but it's certainly not a negative factor.

[waljamada]

Thanks Ken, I'd like to change "unique" to "unusual" placement of bohi on a katana.

[Rivkin]

Yes its a bit weird, and it was I guess attributed thus as nagomaki naoshi.

Regarding the red lacquer, very many people fear it, but I never saw anything disastrous with it. Its actually quite expensive to apply, and was quite often done to temple blades, usually yari and such.

 

One has to guess that while today when publications talk about kogarasumaru they are talking about the one in Tenno collection. But by late Edo there were 16 kogarasumaru, and no less than 4 kusanagi all owned by major temples with supposed provenance all the way to the source.

They had quite a lot of blades, especially some temples.

 

Kirill R.

[waljamada]

Rivkin,

 

Thanks for sharing about kogarasumaru. That lead me down a fun research read!

[Jussi Ekholm]

Hard to say based on your pictures but I'd think the sword has really sloping shinogi-ji and it is quite thin at the mune, this is often called high shinogi. I believe it was one way of weight reduction with minimal compromise to blade strength. However I think there is problem if you want to carve a hi in it as there is already only little bit material left. I believe that is one reason why you can see bit out of the norm bohi styles on some swords.

[waljamada]

Jussi,

 

Ive enjoyed the thought experiments this sword has given me. One has to assume that since the bohi placement is not the norm that there is reason so. Makes me wonder if the bohi was original to the blade (we shall never know sadly) and the reason for it especially if it does impede structural integrity. Potentials such as it being a temple sword, perhaps a presentation type sword that could also be functional. If created this way the blade could also be by the swordsmith, or commissioned, as a piece with meaning (could the different length bohi mean something?). Could just be an experiment. Maybe a brief trend in some circles. Fun to wonder. Or, of course, it's done originally or later to cover something.

 

While researching I've read many discussions on lacquered bohi which always mentioned the reason of covering flaws, but logically when I follow that thought it seems difficult to fully accept on a large scale. I get the fear they can bring though. A lacquered hi is a very obvious and almost a flashy aesthetic feature, if a prominent reason for it is to cover flaws then it would be a loud and public way to denote a flawed blade. That notion seems to be more modern as the old accounts always refer to the religious/spiritual aspect. But it could also be that over time lacquered bohi were added to old flawed blades piggybacking on the religious aspect of it. It still would have taken a specialist to do the work so I wonder if there was enough profit motive to do such an operation. Seems if caught it would ruin the dealer or smiths reputation. Risky business.

 

Adam