Katakiriha Zukuri Wak Mystery

[kotachi]

Hi Everyone,

 

I recently took a gamble on an. ebay wakizashi and now that its arrived I am trying to figure out approximate age, school/maker and such. It is mumei but has some interesting characteristics I don't have in any other swords. I am trying to use the connoisseur's book of Japanese swords but I have gotten stuck. 

 

The first thing that struck me was the shape, I don't have any other katakiriha blades and have wanted one since I missed a deal at my first sword show. It is bigger then I was expecting based on photos with a 18.5 inch nagasa and overall length of 24 inches. I had to use a decent amount of uchiko to remove some surface rust left by fingerprints but now the hada is starting to show up. I thought it was itame hada at first but now a lot of wavy masame hada is showing through but still hard to see through the old polish. The hamon is starts yakiotoshi and is very exciting on one side and super thin and bright on the side with the bevel. The last thing about it that is weird is it is maru-mune, which I never had in sword before, and there doest't seem to be any core steel in the blades constructions. There are some ware near the mune on the ura side of the blade and some throughout the mune that just don't seem show any core. I haven't really been able to narrow much down so I welcome any information or opinions people are willing to provide. Thanks for looking.

 

-Jay G.

[kotachi]

Had to resize but got some more photos uploaded.

[16k]

Nagamaki naoshi?

[Dave R]

Nagamaki naoshi?

 

 It certainly has that look, and it would explaing the nakago and machi.

[Ganko]

Looks like it has yakiotoshi about 1/2", which would imply that it is ubu. Probably a Shinshinto piece.

[16k]

Indeed! I had missed that.

[Ted Tenold]

Nakago appears to be an effort to contrive toward Hankei.  Also looks like there may have been a mei removed.   The workmanship in the sword looks compromised, disorganized, inconsistent, and I would suspect it is re-tempered.

[16k]

I was wondering about the retempering, as it would explain the yakiotoshi, but where do you see a mei removal?

[kotachi]

Here are some photos of the start of the hamon. I don't see any mizukage but that doesn't mean its not there. I also wondered about re-tempering but there seems to be a lot of activity in the ji, lots of nie that follow the grain and start to look like kinsuji or sunagashi or maybe even chikei. Would this be possible in a re-tempered blade?
-Jay G.

[kotachi]

Its pretty hard to photograph but here is the pattern in the ji I was talking about.

-Jay G.

[Ganko]

Now that I see the additional pictures, what looked like a strange  irregular hamon  on the omote side is staining from rust removal.

This may be a late Edo Awa Kaifu piece. They made katakiriba blades quite often, and strangely would sign them on the ji.