Some thoughts on papers

[paulb]

For some time there has been a debate, often heated, regarding the accuracy of attributions produced by the major authenticating bodies. In recent months this has often become very argumentative with people firmly entrenched in one side or other of the “validity of papers” debate. I think this is in part because of the way buying and collecting swords has evolved in the past decade and I would like to put forward a few thoughts for consideration.
For the sake of clarity I should confirm that I am a long term member of the NBTHK and I believe they continue to be the best authenticating body currently offering this service. That does not mean they are perfect or always right and that we should not question something if we disagree or do not understand.
I believe that much of the negativity surrounding papers is that in recent years and particularly in the west, collectors have come to increasingly depend on the authentication paper to assess and value a blade. Too often today one can read posts stating “I want to buy a Juyo” or “it’s overpriced for a Hozon papered sword”. This demonstrates our increasing dependence on the papering system to determine authenticity and value. It also confirms there is some truth in the statement that in the West we “worship papers” or buy papers not swords. Regrettably it has also become regarded as an alternative to personal study and research. 
The original motivation for issuing authentication papers was, I believe, to confirm that a blade was worthy of preservation, of good quality and in good condition and if signed carried a genuine mei. This assessment is opinion not a statement of fact. I happen to believe that the opinion of a body such as the NBTHK is worth serious consideration. It certainly has far greater experience and knowledge behind it that I do. But it is not perfect.
I have been searching for an article I read some years ago but regrettably can’t find it. I believe it was written by Ogasawara when describing the authentication process. The point he made was that authenticating works by the top tier major smiths was relatively straightforward. There are good quality examples with excellent provenance that can be used for comparison. As one progresses down the scale it becomes increasingly difficult. By the time one gets to the third and fourth tier, which if we are honest is where most of our swords reside; it becomes very, very difficult. If you consider then that many of the blades submitted for papering are in less than perfect polish those problems magnify considerably. However at the risk of being controversial it could be argued that at this lower level it doesn’t actually matter. Papering a lower level sword confirms it is genuine and worthy of preservation. One could argue that is enough, and whether it is a sue-seki or a Bungo Takada blade doesn’t greatly matter. Except that for many non Japanese collectors it does.
We are lucky that thanks to the efforts of such people as Markus Sesko and Paul Martin there is more information available in English and other non Japanese languages than ever before but it is still relatively little. As a result the student looks to the paper for guidance and education. “This papered to x smith, why?” This has resulted in papers being used and viewed in a way which I do not believe was ever intended.
As long as collectors outside Japan continue to use the papering system as a short cut to study and a way to try and value a piece these arguments will continue and I fear become increasingly fractious. It is interesting that people always complain that the authenticating body “got it wrong” if they receive a lesser result than they hoped. I have yet to hear anyone disagree with a result that is higher than they expected.
To confirm things that have often been said before but seem to be increasingly ignored:
• Buy a sword because you like it not because of the level of paper it has
• Ultimately the price is determined by what someone is willing to pay for it.
• Value should be based on quality, condition and how much you like what you are seeing.
• A paper is not a statement of fact it is an opinion albeit a very learned one
• Sometime authenticating bodies get it wrong but a lot less often than I do.
If I was spending a large amount of money on a sword would I be more comfortable and confident if it had a higher level paper? Yes of course I would. But ultimately you are buying a sword, something to study and enjoy. Hopefully you will get a great deal of pleasure from the experience. The amount you enjoy it should not be governed by the level of paper it has but by what you can see.

[IJASWORDS]

Great discussion. One of my beefs is when you are looking at buying a gimei, but really well made blade, the seller advises that the inscription can be removed and it will be papered. No names no pack drill. 

I am sure this has happened, but leaves doubts about the system. 

[IanB]

Paul,  I so much agree with what you have said. I only have one papered sword, with papers for the blades and another for the koshirae. What makes me smile is that rather shrewdly in my opinion the papers attribute the blades to 'Bungo Takeda Den' - this used to be a favourite decision years ago to park a blade in when you haven't a clue who made it. 

Ian Bottomley

[paulb]

Hi Ian,

Yes it was one of the favourites. As the school excelled in copying other schools I guess it is no surprise. I remember one we looked at in The Armouries that had a Fujishiro paper to Bizen Osafune but the NBTHK papered it to Bungo Takada. It was a beautiful thing and one I spent  a lot of time enjoying when it was in Derycks collection.

Fall back schools seemed to go in phases and at times we have seen a lot of:

Bungo Takada

Echizen Seki

Mihara

and for tsuba it always used to be Shoami.

[16k]

Your advices at the bottom of the post should be the golden rules, Paul.

 

I have one and a half (the half being one with papers that got lost so only a photograph of the NBTHK kanteisho still exists) swords which are papered. I can’t really afford papered blades and TBH, I don’t really care whether it is shoshin or Gimei so long as I like what I see. My one and 1/2 papered swords look good, but my favorite sword is signed by Sukehiro 1 and without paper, it is likely Gimei. The signature and style seem to match, but I don’t care if I got the real deal or not. I just know my eyes sparkle every time I look at it and I never tire of doing it. So I guess it’s a feeling that no paper can reproduce.

[PNSSHOGUN]

Hi Ian,

Yes it was one of the favourites. As the school excelled in copying other schools I guess it is no surprise. I remember one we looked at in The Armouries that had a Fujishiro paper to Bizen Osafune but the NBTHK papered it to Bungo Takada. It was a beautiful thing and one I spent  a lot of time enjoying when it was in Derycks collection.

Fall back schools seemed to go in phases and at times we have seen a lot of:

Bungo Takada

Echizen Seki

Mihara

and for tsuba it always used to be Shoami.

Don't forget Uda....

[Alex A]

Ian/Paul, your discussion about Bungo Takada and Bizen reminds me of a sword I saw online a while ago, and its short write-up.

https://www.toukenkomachi.com/index_en_tachi&katana_A090819.html

 

As for papers, most of mine are not papered, because I know what they are 

[paulb]

I think I need to qualify the "buy what you like" point so as not to mislead anyone.

When starting out it makes good sense to seek advice and buy something that has been through some form of authentication. "Buy what you like" is not a slogan for laziness or an excuse not to study. What I am saying is that as you learn more you should be guided by your own experience and taste and buy a sword on its own merits not because it has a particular paper.

I once said yo my original teacher "I just buy what I like" His response was "That's great now study more and you ill understand why you like what you do."

[Josh]

Good post Paul, this is the sort of thing everyone new to collecting should read. I'll add that, as Kirill Rivkin points out, even if the certifying body does everything right, a dishonest seller can find a way to attach good papers to a different sword:

 

http://historyswords.com/2018/10/23/kiyomaro-modern-papers-and-100-guarantee/

 

As you say, the only real defense against this on a personal level is by educating yourself on the subject. I will add that we're blessed to have a lot of educational material available to us, as well as expert individuals and organizations that are willing to give their opnion, both of which help us to properly identify a sword. But, the only way to keep them is to keep supporting them. In other words, keep buying/reading/critiquing those books, keep renewing those memberships, keep looking for opportunities to see real swords up-close, and most importantly, do whatever you can to spread the knowledge and appreciation of the Japanese sword.

 

And, not to derail the thread, but if you're someone that doesn't believe that a large, prestigious certifying body full of experts can't get it wrong, remember that the FAA certified the 737 MAX as airworthy!

[Rivkin]

Fugh.

I'll try to be a troll here, i.e. more direct and arrogant-professorial than usual. So disregard everything said here as a purely personal nonsense.

First, the big elephant in the room - green papers.

There are no official explanations regarding what's happened, but frankly the most common rumor being spread around is Hiroshima's branch leaking the paper and then it being attached to gendai fakes. However, these Masahide, Naotane, Kotetsu are sold today with green papers 600k yen a piece in Japan. Not too many of those exist, the market knows about them, for a short time the head NBTHK office thought to simply modify the green papers in appearance to devalue the impact of the leak.

 

But this story is a minor issue. The larger issue is that a considerable portion of green papers issued to top names by the head office does not repaper to the same names - by any shinsa. NTHK NPO and not, NBTHK, Tanobe. Very often these blades have kantei points which directly contradict the judgement rendered. Quite a few have late Honami sayagai, some have sayagaki by Dr. Sato.

Which brings another question - why such extremely unusual kantei decision was done BOTH by Dr. Sato and the shinsa team.

The answer most likely lies in accepting the rumor that these judgements were not independent to begin with. First Dr. Sato (and the practice was/is not limited to him) saw the blade in private (I will skip here the hospital rumors, which are more sinister, but I don't trust them), often accompanied by previous judgements/registrations, then the blade was recognized in shinsa and given identical attribution. The practice continued later as well, but never on the same scale.

 

Again, the "issues" segment does not involve signed Mino Kanenobu with green papers, where any doubt would be most likely misplaced. They are green because no one doubts them.  We are talking strictly Juyo+ class names and blades. Frankly, the Juyo segment itself was the most affected in 1970s, about 50% of the 2x shinsa results being quite optimistic. Not in dealers' interests to raise this point.

 

And all this being said, the green papers+ market is quite strong in Japan:

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/470538221

Personally – over the years I went through about a dozen of blades with green papers and Dr. Sato's sayagaki, all mumei koto smiths of high caliber.
NONE papered to the same name. However, none so far papered (either with NBTHK or NTHK) to something exceptionally different either. The great discount for the great names, assumed with the green papers has to be taken into account, so getting Shizu Kaneuji papers to Sadamune does not destroy the value altogether. The worst-worst case was Hasebe which went Tsunahiro. A very good Tsunahiro, still with a Daimyo provenance, but a mumei Muromachi blade nevertheless.

Overall, I do think that green papers market to top names in Japan are still overvalued, and the market needs about 10-15% further discount from the current level to become “reasonable” and more or less consistent with what these blades are expected to yield when repapered.

Once the blade repapered (NBTHK) to higher level smith.

So that’s it for the green papers.

 

BTW, the earliest NBTHK papers, while highly praised, are the worst in a sense that they were not devised as papers – but as a parallel alternative to similar police sheets attesting the sword has an artistic-historical value. The reason for provincial branches at the time was that it allowed to work more efficiently with the local police which was in the process of collecting the swords. The notion that occupational forces were going house to house, arresting the shrine swords en masse is false; there were a few instances where such things did happen, but most of the enforcement was done from 1946 by the police, which also provided the earliest registration-like documents. NBTHK was not doing papering but rather attesting to the sword’s status of an antique as well as citing its provenance. 

 

More to the point, aside from the abnormal cases – kantei of real world blades is HARD.

First and foremost – it actually has limited overlap with the kantei you get in competitions, which involve the Very Typical blades by only about 150 or so of the top makers. To be really good in official competition one has to drill-memorize kantei features and learn reading them from the blade. The goal is to be able to kantei the blade without seeing them altogether by going through the list of points. 

The obvious problem is that in reality the makers were far more diverse in their individual work, there were 15,000 and not 150 of them, and the items come in a range of conditions and polishes. 

The greater problem – if you can’t kantei by filling out the table of features, and in the real life you can’t, then everything becomes murky. While living in Japan, short as it was, I handled very many great blades. Today I am ashamed to say – I remember very little of them. Couple of minutes while standing in line, with some random light overhead is not enough. Only doing the oshigata or even better – photography, helps to etch the blade into one’s mind. And unfortunately the access to the very top (kokuho) level blades in Japan is VERY spotty. There are selected very few, including a certain NBTHK official, who are dedicating their every ounce of strength to make it as difficult as possible. The person in question does an extraordinary job ensuring the top blades even in the US museums do not get either displayed or exhibited. Boston MFA is a great example of how effective his efforts are.

So if you think the judges judging your blade have a bunch of Shintogo Kunimitsu daito lying next to them for comparison, or even have access to things like this on a regular basis – this is not the case, period.

 

Unless you have a signed Edo period blade, anything classifying as “dozen” may set you back financially if you paid full name premium, but frankly represents a confirmation of the original judgement. Otherwise, the criteria used by different appraisers are different enough to create a lot of honest differences.

Soshu sunnobi tanto with thickish kasane will ALWAYS be papered by NBTHK to Shimada or other later Muromachi name. Independent of work. It can be drop dead gorgeous with killer hada and divine hamon. You will not get a Nambokucho name out of it. Both NTHK will entertain however the possibility of Nambokucho name, usually Hasebe or Nobukuni. There are dozens of little quirks like this one. Bungo Takada is famous for the later blades.

 

Kirill R.

[16k]

I said it in another thread about another topic, Kirill, but if I could, I’d like your post more than once. I’m a cynic and have always believed opinions were nothing more than that.

[paulb]

Sorry Kirill I am sure I am being thick but what does your contribution have to do with the original post?

I am not qualified to comment on some of the points you make others have been well documented over time especially regarding the origins of Green papers and the NBTHK's response to them. If you feel this needs further discussion and it certainly might why not start it as a separate thread?

This was a simple message, or was meant to be, which was do not rely on papers (any papers) as a substitute for personal study. It was not intended to become a diatribe on the inaccuracies  of any particular organisation or the history of their failings.

[16k]

Paul, I think on the contrary you are making both the same point but for different reasons. You say not to rely so much on papers because we should study first and foremost and Kirill points out why we shouldn’t always rely on papers. I think both posts are heavily connected since they both say: study first, papers second.

[Ganko]

Japanese dealers many years ago called papers "Benjo kami". (toilet paper)

[Bugyotsuji]

Just an observation and an extreme example from a greenhorn here. Last year I was trying to find a Tanto for my daughter who had expressed an interest in owning one.

 

One dealer offered me a Niji Mei Bakumatsu Bizen tanto in Inaba koshirae from Tottori. No papers, but he assured me it would paper any day of the week. At first glance everything looked good, the blade strongly attracted me, and I bought it. Since then I have shown it to several people and most seemed to like it at once. I asked about the idea of papering it; and all had the same look on their face, as if to say, "why bother?" And strangely, I too feel quite comfortable about it. No panic on this one.

 

Luckily my daughter took one look at the Koshirae and said she did not like it. 

[Tom Darling]

Kirill, you exceeded my wildest expectations, brilliant. On the green+ market,shows a Kotetsu, like to know who inscribed the sayagaki. Thank you.

 

 

Tom D. 

[Hoshi]

There are many beginners reading these threads, and I'm always wary of the perils posed by exposing at length 1970's issues of the NBHTK. As the political climate has shown us with extreme clarity as of late, many people are simply incapable of holding two ideas in their heads at the same time and simply cannot grasp nuance.  

 

Often, you will see adoption of either: 

• NBTHK papers are CRAP, therefore my opinion > their opinion
• NBTHK papers are Infallible, god-given truths. 

Then if you add to this the fortunate tale of fake peddlers on YJP! messing up their own game and mistakenly selling off a Green papered Sadamune which, by a miracle of fate, repapers to O-Shizu and not some mumei shinto/shinshinto/gendai crap job then the waters turn really murky and could lead beginners to venture into this swamp of garbage and get caught in quick sand.The overwhelming majority of YJP! fraud blades will turn into later work disasters and this is the responsible message to convey here. 

 

And the more mistakes people make the deeper they fall into the quicksand of self-righteous delusion and the harder it is to rescue them to the shore. At the end of the journey they start to issue their own Kanteisho and there is nothing left to do. This is the end game for "NBTHK papers are CRAP, therefore my opinion > their opinion" 

 

In any case we need to be a little bit careful with what is said here and not throw out the baby with the bath waters. Buy what you like provided you have studied to know what you like. More often than not, for mumei work, there are multiple good answers and maybe the two best answers are tied, and maybe you even get a "Den" which can go either up, or down, or sideways. Trust that NBHTK will give you one of these best answers. Then it's up to you to find the other good answers and live with the ambiguity forever. Perhaps your Den Naoe Shizu is really O-Shizu on a monday morning with a sake hangover. Perhaps your Yukimitsu was really made by a Taima smith for the temple headmaster. 

 

Shrödinger's Nihonto. And this is impossible to grasp for the "NBTHK papers are Infallible, god-given truths" people. This is where the mental break down happens and they declare it's all nonsense and quit. The absence of certainty is simply intolerable and the house of cards crumbles. 

 

Study all the possible states that the cat can be in. This is the best meaning of "buy the blade, not the paper" because in the end, the paper is just one possible state of the cat, a partial picture - and in the overwhelming majority of cases - the most accurate and probable state to describe that particular cat. 

[Darcy]

There should be no more defense of green papers. The NBTHK does not accept them now. If the NBTHK considers them junk only a fool would consider them to have any value.

 

People went to prison over this. The board of directors got changed at the NBTHK over this. The entire shinsa system got overhauled over this. Many years later the vast majority of the OK readings have been upgraded into Hozon and Tokubetsu Hozon and this is like pulling the cream off of the milk. Eventually all the cream is gone. 

Yet, there is this ongoing defense of green papers because there is a closet industry of using them to sell blades for profit based on the high hopes contained within them.

 

Please. Stop defending these bullshit papers. 

 

It was not a small problem. It was big enough that they disavowed three categories of papers and today the NBTHK itself no longer recognizes any green papers out there in the wild as anything more than a piece of paper. They are worthless.

 

Sayagaki: you need to be careful because people switch blades, and Kanzan sayagaki has been faked god knows how many times. I once bought a Kanzan sayagaki Sadamune and that was a fake sayagaki. 

 

In the years after they got rid of the old system, 10% of submissions every year for a while were Kicho and Tokubetsu Kicho getting upgraded to the new ones. The NBTHK wrote into the magazine that they had a lot of overhead dealing with explanations to people about why they couldn't upgrade certain papers. 

 

I'm attaching scans of the Token Bijutsu itself. People need to read it.

 

It's not small. It was not trivial. It was a huge scandal.

 

The first problem is not that the offices were working with papers to be just like torokusho, not at all. The offices did not have expertise and so leaned on the side of preservation vs. destruction and calling something gimei when something was questionable because the primary mission was to preserve swords. Over time the error of that system was understood better. And then it was a MAJOR scandal that organized crime got in there and started generating papers. 

 

"There is a strong market in green papered blades"

 

I will address that with:

 

"A fool and his money are soon parted" and "There's a sucker born every minute" and "Never give a sucker an even break."

 

That's why there is a "strong market" on newbie facing websites where people do not have the skills to judge what they are seeing. Nobody of any level of education is fooled and at commercial/dealer levels in Japan they are considered for what they are: garbage and those who believe in them are laughed at.

 

There is a strong market in fake Chinese blades on eBay too. On eBay one can find a lot of fake gemstones too and a very strong market in those. That doesn't have any good implication other than that stupid people will spend good money on garbage with the hopes that it is their lottery ticket.

 

These papers are indefensible now.

 

Yes, there are anecdotes where some do get validated at shinsa but that is exactly why shinsa is there. Nobody should be looking at a naked green or blue paper to anything high level and taking it as anything other than an attempt to sell a fake at this point in time. That paper has to prove itself and you do that by sending it in for new papers. Since the vast majority inside Japan are aware and laugh at these papers, and the only people who are still holding a candle for them as having any reliability are in western circles and either consumers of, or vendors of, low priced big shot name blades with these kinds of papers, that's why they end up being sold direct on auction sites.

 

If it fell into the hands of a reputable dealer the first thing the guy is going to do is try to authenticate it. Failing that, he's going to flush the thing back into the market by drop kicking the junk right out the back door. Some are bold enough to put it on their site.

 

The only grey area is when it is an item of tosogu, without any high level judgment associated with it, and a price so low that it's just considered an attached opinion because if you papered that thing to Hozon you'd just be doubling the price for no reason. But if you see a Somin with green papers out at auction: god be with you if you want to believe in the legitimacy of that paper and that the green paper scandal was only a minor issue with a few bad papers. 

 

Even if it was only 10% of papers being bad, since the NBTHK rapidly took in and shredded green papers and exchanged them for hozon, tokubetsu hozon and juyo for 37 years, all that did was increase the percentage of bad among the good that remained. 

 

It's a filter... if you scoop a net through a school of fish you catch all the big fish and those smaller than the holes stay in the water. Scoop that net through 37 times and you get all the big fish and that what is left in the pond is not worth eating. 

 

Nobody should be continuing a defense of these papers. Nobody. 

 

Anyone trying to do this is continuing a myth that is used to defraud newbies and low information collectors. 

 

Green papers are garbage. They are to be looked at as no better than your drunk uncle's opinion. Interesting, but ultimately nothing to bet real money on.

 

The second report citing 10% of subs being upgrading junk kicho papers is from 1992. 

 

I wish NMB would take an official position on this, as the NBTHK has an official position (a. they admitted the problem was a major scandal, the police were involved, the board changed over and the shinsa system completely overhauled from this "minor" problem and b. the remaining papers in the market are disavowed) and to not tolerate the continual desire of people to find ways and reasons for certain papers to be good (i.e. to support the value of an item  during a sales pitch or that is held in a collection). If that paper is one of the mere handful that is OK, then it needs to be authenticated by resubmission: there are no other alternatives.

 

Every time someone posts a dissenting opinion in support of this crap, it further muddies the water, which leads to newbies getting screwed, which puts money in the pockets of people who do not care about newbies getting screwed, and when the newbies find out they are being screwed they exit collecting. That exit damages the ENTIRE MARKET only to benefit the handful of people who use this crap to leverage short term sales to people who have faith in them  and these papers for no good reason.

 

There is no reason today, on this planet, in 2020, to look at any green paper and say anything more than "Hmm." any more than you would take the opinion of a friend. They are useless for any serious matter.

 

 

 

[Ken-Hawaii]

Thank you, Darcy.

[paulb]

As this post has taken a somewhat unexpected turn I feel I have a responsibility to make sure there is no amiguity or missunderstanding about my original post.

My comments referring to accurracy and validity of papers referred ONLY to modern papers (i.e. The system introduced post scandal)

I do not believe in or support the validity of green papers and certainly do not believe they should be considered as proof of authenticity when considering a purchase. As said in so many different way they are worthless in the modern market.

I come back to the original point which I was trying by obviously failed to make:

when looking for a sword, the first thing you should look at is the sword. If you like what you see then it makes perfect sense to assess the validity of any supporting documentation. If you don't like it then regardless of what papers might have its not for you.

What you shouldn't do is start with the mindset " I want a Tokubetsu Hozon or Juyo papered sword".

As always this is an opinion, it happens to be mine.

It has nothing to do with supporting outdated and discredited papers it is trying to remind people that the primary point of interest here should be the sword not the paper

[Bugyotsuji]

Point taken, Paul, but some of the branches on this tree make interesting re-reading during lockdown. Thank you for this nice thread. 

[Alex A]

Swords and provenance so intertwined, like most art.

 

When a sword meets a certain criteria that all experienced collectors know about, then one way or another it has to have papers, otherwise you wont be able to sell it, simple

 

There are swords that don't need papers, either because its blatantly obvious what they are, low price end, or the owner does not care and is happy with his own assessment and its beauty. Sometimes a questionable sword may come along with such a fantastic old koshirae that makes ownership worth while without papers. Newbies need to gain experience and know what something is worth, with or without papers. This is all about personal opinion and what a collector is willing to live with. 

[16k]

... and once again, Paul, I don’t think the thread took a different way. What Darcy says goes directly into your argument. We shouldn’t buy a sword just because it has papers. We should first study it and if it is papered, so much the better, but that shouldn’t be the main point in one’s decision.

 

Btw, it’s also easy for me to say that as most of the swords I can afford aren’t papered. Papers often double the price of a sword, so you feel like you’re paying half the price of the sword for a piece of paper. 

[Brian]

The forum has an "official policy" that green papers are not valid. It is repeated every time a green papered item is discussed. Every time.
But we are not some censorship board that can ban discussion of something because we don't like it. We are not an official body and do not represent anything official.
It is not my right to ban discussion or posting of something, especially since it forms part of the history of the item.
People who actually follow the forum and read posts, know full well the value of these papers. If someone is buying swords based on those papers, then they are A) Not reading the forum, and B) Have no interest in learning.
It's like saying we all decide a member's opinion is not valid anymore, so we just ban him from speaking.
We do more here to educate about green papers than any other organization or dealer or entity aside from the NBTHK.
 

[Bugyotsuji]

Some years ago I bought a Man-en "Hime-Koban" or "Hina-Koban". The guy wanted ￥40,000 for it. "With paperwork, this would have cost you ￥120,000", he said. "You can send it off. It will cost you ￥10,000", he added. 

 

Later I realized that there are at least three markets for Koban.

1. Koban with no authenticity paperwork. You take a gamble, at a price, to send it off to Tokyo for assessment.

2. Fake Koban with no authenticity paperwork. There are collectors for these and they have their own value depending on when and where and how they were made.

3. Koban with certificate. You pay top dollar for these.

 

In that world at least, it seems that you pays yer money, and you takes yer choice/chance.

[Guido]

Japanese dealers many years ago called papers "Benjo kami". (toilet paper)

 

Interesting. I never heard that, and always thought that toilet paper is chirigami.

[Bugyotsuji]

Guido if a dealer said Chirigami and his customer showed non-comprehension, they might add by way of explanation, toiretto pe-pa-, (O)Benjo no kami. Actually the word Benjo itself seems to have gone out of general usage nowadays.

[Tom Darling]

Why stop at Green Papers.  You know and I know, newbies in general haven't got the slightest clue what their looking at. They ask if it is papered to confirm its validity, and no more, done.  Read, read, read and read some more. That is all i got to say.  Good luck.  Peace.

 

 

Tom D.

[Rivkin]

I see Paul your point that the discussion might evolve into green papers etc. But it is unavoidable.

This being said, I disagree with much of what was stated in your original post. So I have no choice but to upgrade my troll level to "department chair".

 

First and foremost - collecting is a personal and subjective endeavour, and the notion that there is a "right way" to do that runs into a plethora of limitations. I much rather believe in what my tactics instructor said "The question is not what you can or can't do. The question is whether you understand the consequences".

I am probably equally discusted (if I read your post correctly) with the fact that every discussion of a blade evolves involves 5% being said about the blade and 95% about the papers.

This being said, I think the path of "buy the blade, not the papers" has its thorns.

 

First, it is unlikely the said blade will be with you forever. And to sell any blade, one needs some papers. Otherwise at a show the buyer will walk away from your table, move to the next one, point the sword towards the next dealer with "look what I got... what do you think about it", and will come back enraged 15 minutes later after somebody sitting 40 tables over will tell him "well, it does have hagire". It ALWAYS happen. So must sell with papers. But then selling Juyo and TH are two completely different things time and economics wise and not to take this into account when investing would be unusual.

Second, most purchases today are done online. In this case, papers help to put the item into ballpark of sorts and clarify what is missing in scans, photographs etc. 

Third, the argument which I disagree with, but it has its merits. Courtesy of my acquaintance. "nihonto is a field with a continuous 500 years long history of collecting", as he likes to point out. "If during this time the item was not recognized and assigned in the very least TJ, then it is not important. People buying things papered any level below either don't value their time and money, or don't understand nihonto, and most likely - both". Period. No excuses.

BTW, I asked him sort of "what are the bad papers", and its definitely jubi. Garbage through and through. Let us return to this in a moment.

 

Yet those who are collecting the same subject in fact have very different goals. I learned that for me the thrill of learning something new is a major factor. Studying something in hand, something that has potential, but where the truth is elusive and requires a effort, is a reward by itself. Which meant going through a lot of garbage in the very beginning. Which in good times means digging up either unpapered or unloved blade and having a top name associated with it couple of years later. So there is higher than average risk of gambler-like behavior, or having a very good blade, which yields a different name anytime its submitted. Is this an inappropriate way of collecting? It is not for everyone and it has its own risks. And maybe moneywise that is simply what a simple lecturer can do, and the rest of the many words is just a fancy justification of this path.

 

Another approach is to say something like - you are better off owning one Juyo than 6-7 "regular blades". In some cases you learn more about what good blade is supposed to look like by having a single Juyo. But if 6-7 blades are at least decent to good, chances are you'll learn more about what you really like, or about the  different styles that exists. But then if collector has been active for a decade+ and you see now hundreds of blades to his name and none are outstanding, that's an issue. But then again - it is an issue only if the consequences are not properly appreciated. 

 

So, now to the "bad papers". For me the classical example are those issued by Honami Kachu. The knee-jerk reaction, taught to us by dealers - "oh, he was a great appraiser, just there are many fakes". No, the appraisals he did for Owari Tokugawa, they are still in the collection there. They are about as bad as a random selection of his papers purchased on yahoo Japan. Burned blades, horrible as life blades, given the top names. In fact, before him Honami barely issued any papers at all, and then he opened the floodgate. But because his papers are still commonly encountered with the masterpieces, we opt for a polite "there are many fakes". Yes, there are, but it is not where the problem is.

 

Then comes jubi. Dismissed papers. Yet the market on them is 5-20 million yen. Many quietly argue it is extremely overvalued, and if those were to repaper - the names would be a notch smaller, and the price would be in 1-4 mil range for quite a few/majority of those. Would I recommend burning jubis? Well, that's quite a bit extreme. They can be overvalued, yet there are some fantastic jubis out there as well.

 

Greenpapers… The great obfuscation lies in blaming "provincial branches". Pretend outrage, yet no exact name from NBTHK being mentioned. How familiar it is to those experienced with Japanese business model. "In the act of noble sacrifice our President retired to take responsibility for the acts of provincial account department, of which he obviously had no knowledge". Been there. 

The reality is that if you are to track the "ambitious" green papers, chances are - they originated in the head office.

In 1970s the market for swords was booming for the first time in many decades, NBTHK was a monopoly (seen many NTHK papers from the period? Overall pre-2000 NTHK, non-US papers?). Two thirds of judgements rendered at the top level were optimistic. Juyo papers... Many would not repaper today at all, most would be just run of the mill koto blades. Optimistic sayagaki by Dr. Sato. There is a reason they cost less than Dr. Honma's. Even if you don't believe that after 1976 he was in a hospital where blades were not allowed. And yes - optimistic green papers. Which are apparently the only things maligned - because they are relatively proletarian in price today. 

The facts are that a very solid majority of them are as honest as any papers issued today by any group. If you suspect that Mino Kanefusa is troublesome only because it has greenpapers - the problem is not in papers. The problem in not being able to kantei even simple and straightforward examples, and not understanding why those who can do not put great emphasis on whether these papers are green, blue or yellow. Green with Yasutsugu attribution - I personally would not go for that. Shinto kantei is hard and peculiar, I don't know how to do it and will always suspect some issue with the blade - even if I like it. Buy the blade not the papers - if I understand the subject, and here I don't. If you know your Yasutsugu - who am I to suggest what you should or should not buy. Green with major koto names and sayagaki. I take those by default as optimistic, one notch up from what they should be. Top name in the school instead of a representative name in the school. As I said, maybe I am a gambler. So far I did not run into problems (yet, with a notch-down expectation) with repapering, though I am certain that sooner or later there will be a day when I will. I personally am ok with that. It is unfortunate that in Japan these items still yield larger prices than the notched-down attributions. But such is the market. What is being sold in "green" in the US are honest mid rank blades and I don't know why am I supposed to have problems with them.

 

So finally - to the question of Studying.

I suspect because of the frequency it is being mentioned, the hardships of this path are not fully appreciated. Maybe in 1950s-1960s some roads were more open and the officialdom more relaxed or even helpful. This is very much not the case today. Unfortunately, more often than not the lack of personal experience is filled by "logical extrapolations". Certainly gentlemen of the nihonto world do not concern themselves with studying even the most important collections of continental tsuba or chokuto before publishing works on the said topics. But you'll be surprised it is not that different when things come to Yasutsuna or Masamune.

 

And really, really, finally - a dilemma of sorts. Robert Haynes went through a whole bunch of tosogu and dismissed a number of papered (modern NBTHK) tsubas as "obvious gimei". What to do if one is to sell those??? I heard from quite a few tosogu collectors believe that NBTHK shinsa is bad, but I don't have strong background in tosogu to understand the issue myself. Aaagh!

 

Kirill R.

[paulb]

Kirill

I disagree the discussion evolving in to green papers was totally unavoidable it was not   even mentioned in the opening post.

You are perfectly entitled to "diagree with virtually everything said in the original post" it is as stated an opinion not a statement of fact. However if you disagree then surely the correct approach is to say what you disagree with and why. You didnt do this either in your first or this post you simply used it as an excuse and platform to go off on some tangent of your own

I am not commenting on the validity or otherwise of what you said. What frustrates me is that this has become a platform for you to express your opinions on something never originally mentioned.

Have you though of a career in politics?