Yamashiro? o-suriage

[Marius]

Dear All,

 

I have just purchased this sword on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0295904038

Your opinions will be highly appreciated. As for me, I like the hada, wchich reminds me of Hizen-to.

 

What do you think?

[Marius]

Oh, of course I have noticed the broken tip and I am ready to accept it :-)

[John A Stuart]

Hi Mariusz, I like it. Nice jigane. No apparent flaws. Good price. John

[paulb]

Interesting looking sword. I can see why the jigane reminded you of Hizen work, but at a guess i would suggest this is a little earlier. The Nioi Guchi is relatively tight compared to other Hizen work and the hada has a lot in common with Yamashiro and Enju jigane. When you get the sword could you take some pictues of the boshi? on the image I looked at there was no turn-back visible and this would be unusual for Yamashiro, Enju or Hizen.

As said befor interesting sword and beautiful hada. Well done

regards

Paulb

[Marius]

Interesting looking sword. I can see why the jigane reminded you of Hizen work, but at a guess i would suggest this is a little earlier. The Nioi Guchi is relatively tight compared to other Hizen work and the hada has a lot in common with Yamashiro and Enju jigane. When you get the sword could you take some pictues of the boshi? on the image I looked at there was no turn-back visible and this would be unusual for Yamashiro, Enju or Hizen.

As said befor interesting sword and beautiful hada. Well done

 

Than you for these encouraging words :-) I will take some close-ups when it arrives.

[Darcy]

Yeah the photos of the middle parts of the blade would have had me say it is a Hizen sword. Looks like there may be a small tight turnback, but hard to tell if it is that or yakisume.

 

There is something strange about the nakago, the shinogi line takes some odd bends when entering the nakago and the dimensions change rather severely coming down in one angle from the hamachi to the beginning of the rust, and then the taper changes. It looks like a mismatch to me, the nakago doesn't go with the rest of the sword. But looking at his other photos there are strange lens distortions throughout. I can't really rely on any of this to make a lot of sense.

 

To my gut feeling it looks like a nakago that has been welded onto an existing sword because in spite of the lens distortions it is clear that there is a rapid tapering down as it progresses into the rust. I don't like the feeling of this at all, does not have the appearance of an o-suriage sword here.

 

I am going to go out on a limb with that and say it's a Hizento with a koto nakago welded on. But the boshi is still a question, if it is yakitsume then it doesn't correspond well with Hizen work. I am not confident in this analysis but just what it looks like to me. I would put this into the hands of someone like Benson right away to get a look at it.

 

Worst case scenario you cut off the bad nakago and end up having to do suriage to get a wakizashi out of it.

[Marius]

Darcy,

 

many thanks for having taken the time to analyse this sword. I see those things now that your sharp eye has identified them as oddities. The sword seems it is a puzzle then... I shall inspect it closely as soon as I have it in my hands. I will take some close-ups of the boshi and the nakago. The welding should be in some way visible, especially under magnification. But, it would seem rather odd to weld a mumei nakago on a sword, wouldn't it? After all it is a low-end sword woth a "low-end nakago", and to do a "proper" welding job costs time (and hence money). Although, anything is possible whenever money is to be made. I shall be back soon :-)

 

Thanks again, I appreciate it :-)

[shan]

Hi All,

Darcy,Wouldn`t welding a nakago onto a sword usually be done to considerably enhance the values of that sword by say placing on a tired blades cut off & signed nakago to a plain unsigned blade?

Or could the nakago have been damaged and a repair have been effected?

I can`t see the objective here?if it was to fool shinsa well ...It wouldn`t.

or was it was solely to fool buyers by appearing older,which means it was done recently.

Regards

Shan

[Marius]

Since I see the hamon now dropping off right under the hamachi (and it looks like a genuine hamon) I have nnother idea:

 

could this be an o-suriage tachi which originally had yakiotoshi and a koshizori shape? Might an o-suriage to a koshi-zori have produced these strange bedning of the shinogi in the nakago?

 

Just trying to guess and imagine what an o-suriage sword like one of these http://www.sho-shin.com/sai9.htm might look like.

 

I know, I am just dreaming, the reality is probably much more prosaic.... I bought a nice tsunagi

[Jacques]

Hi,

 

Looking at the measurements, specially the motokasane, this blade doesn't make me think to an old Yamashiro one, rather shinshinto.