Mumei Katana

[0Takeda0]

I'm interested in figuring out more about this sword. The blade has some rust and damage. It's a bit on the heavy side in my opinion. Doesn't look too old, but I am wanting a second opinion. I'm sure the blade is water tempered, and the hamon has some character. I think it is a gendaito, maybe a shin-shinto, but I don't know for certain. Thanks in advance.

[0Takeda0]

[0Takeda0]

[0Takeda0]

There is hada, but I'm having a hard time getting in on camera. I'm fairly sure it is not a showato. I'm not seeing any signs of a remove signature or stamp. The blade was in gunto mounts that are in poor shape. Saya looks like it might have had two ashi at one point, but only one is left. The blade from mune machi to the kissaki is just under 70cm.

 

[Ken-Hawaii]

Darius, the blade may have ashi in nthe hamon, but the saya is where you draw the blade from.

[0Takeda0]

6 minutes ago, Ken-Hawaii said:

Darius, the blade may have ashi in nthe hamon, but the saya is where you draw the blade from.

Ashi, as in the hangers on a tachi or gunto saya instead of a kurigata. I think there is ashi in some parts of the hamon too, but I have not inspected it well enough. I have included a picture of what tachi ashi look like, as an example.

[AntiquarianCat]

Ashi also means nioiguchi projections extending towards the hada, sho-shin has many examples. I wonder if this could be a kazu-uchi mono with a “cleaned“ nagako... or maybe I’m totally off(I almost certainly am) and it is a WWII era.

[Geraint]

Dear Darius.

 

Does it have ububa?  Not that that alone would necessarily distinguish between Shinshinto and Gendai/Showa, just curious.

All the best.

[0Takeda0]

2 hours ago, AntiquarianCat said:

Ashi also means nioiguchi projections extending towards the hada, sho-shin has many examples. I wonder if this could be a kazu-uchi mono with a “cleaned“ nagako... or maybe I’m totally off(I almost certainly am) and it is a WWII era.

The blade definitely feels like an old "beater" or kazu uchi mono. The nakago seems to me to be ubu (though I wouldn't know), the yakidashi seems to be in a normal spot. I only received the blade yesterday, and I have even more reason to believe that it is not a wwii blade. The saya appears to be at least an inch or two too short. I have no clue how it was originally mounted. The handle it came with doesn't seem to match either.

 

I'm going to get some better pics with a more ideal background, and try to capture the hada on camera.

[0Takeda0]

10 minutes ago, Geraint said:

Dear Darius.

 

Does it have ububa?  Not that that alone would necessarily distinguish between Shinshinto and Gendai/Showa, just curious.

All the best.

There is no ubuha/ricasso. It has a very keen edge at the ha-machi

[0Takeda0]

[0Takeda0]

The hamon seems to be mostly toran, midare, and gunome. There might be a little bit of notare in the Monouchi area. It has a robust Iori-mune.

[0Takeda0]

A few close ups:

[0Takeda0]

[Babu]

I'm not seeing anything like toran. Looks more like a ko midare based on Suguba from your last few shots.

Toran would cover a lot more blade.

Can you show where you think you see predominantly Toran?

 

[0Takeda0]

1 hour ago, Babu said:

I'm not seeing anything like toran. Looks more like a ko midare based on Suguba from your last few shots.

Toran would cover a lot more blade.

Can you show where you think you see predominantly Toran?

 

Far away, it is hard to see the details in the hamon. In person, none of it that I can see looks like suguha

[0Takeda0]

I'm not sure exactly what to call the hamon other than midare, it has shape similar to the diagrams, and tobi-yaki. The hamon is not very wide on most of the blade, so toran might not be the right word

[0Takeda0]

I see a lot of the parts of the hamon look a lot like this. You may be able to see it a little in the photos.

 

What's odd to me is that the blade looks old, but the nakago shape and rust color is more indicative of a newer sword. I can't see the boshi or yakidashi very well, but both seem wavy, which of I remember would also be more typical in an older sword. I'm open to any opinions.

Edited September 20, 2020 by 0Takeda0

[Dave R]

I wince every time I see those active red rust patches. 

[Gakusee]

Gunome midare with some choji

 

The rust should be stabilised. Have seen people here recommending using horn to scrape it away but repeated treatment with choji oil should suffice. This here is one of these rare cases where the application of uchiko will actually improve things as uchiko is a mild enough abrasive to retain the hamon etc but remove rust. 

[0Takeda0]

6 hours ago, Gakusee said:

Gunome midare with some choji

 

The rust should be stabilised. Have seen people here recommending using horn to scrape it away but repeated treatment with choji oil should suffice. This here is one of these rare cases where the application of uchiko will actually improve things as uchiko is a mild enough abrasive to retain the hamon etc but remove rust. 

I have been using very little uchiko and choji oil

 

I used uchiko after I took pictures as to not make the steel patterns harder to see. One of the last owners touched the blade a lot with their bare fingers without cleaning afterwards, you may see the fingerprints in the photos.

 

I also have slabs of horn

 

[Gakusee]

I think you can use uchiko more liberally here 

[Rivkin]

Nakago has more shinshinto (if not more recent) look - deep, widely spaced yasurime, light patina which is very patchy at the top.

However, if the drawing you made is correct, clustered choji with points looking towards each other is basically Muromachi Bizen trait. It was not really popular in shinshinto, you usually see there larger choji, and if clustered, then actually more spreading out rather than pointing towards each other.

I would check boshi, if its pourely straight then early Edo until about Joji it is. If its certainly not suguha, then conversely you can practically speaking cross over the early Edo as a possibility.

Judging by shape it theoretically can anything between the late Muromachi and shinshinto, though some periods are more likely than others.

 

Kirill R.

 

[0Takeda0]

9 hours ago, Rivkin said:

Nakago has more shinshinto (if not more recent) look - deep, widely spaced yasurime, light patina which is very patchy at the top.

However, if the drawing you made is correct, clustered choji with points looking towards each other is basically Muromachi Bizen trait. It was not really popular in shinshinto, you usually see there larger choji, and if clustered, then actually more spreading out rather than pointing towards each other.

I would check boshi, if its pourely straight then early Edo until about Joji it is. If its certainly not suguha, then conversely you can practically speaking cross over the early Edo as a possibility.

Judging by shape it theoretically can anything between the late Muromachi and shinshinto, though some periods are more likely than others.

 

Kirill R.

 

Exactly. The blade looks as old as Muromachi, but the nakago looks no older than 80-150 years imho (or like it may have been tampered with that long ago).

The yakidashi looks like it could be koshiba (though I can barely see it), and it is sharp at the ha-machi, which would suggest an older blade.

 

As someone younger than 20, I don't have the years of experience to know for certain. From the four showato, and at least one gendaito I have handled before, the yasurimei/file markings are deeper on the other gendai blades I've handle, and the rust is a little darker on this sword than the other gendai swords I have seen in person. Though, there is some red pitting spots on the nakago, like moisture got trapped in the handle, which may be why it looks the way it does.

 

Also, in my opinion, the blade's overall shape and hamon look like they could be older bizen, but the kissaki shape doesn't look like a lot of the bizen blades I see online, I don't really know how much that matters though.

 

As far as the boshi, it's hard to make out, but it looks a little wavy. I will get pictures of the boshi, but my phone camera probably won't show it well enough. The upper portion of the Monouchi to the kissaki is covered with scratches from use.

 

As for the drawing, it is a cropped image of another sword, the hamon in the drawing is very accurate to what the pattern on the edge looks like in person.

 

Even though it's a mumei, could it be worth sending to a polisher?

[Rivkin]

In Japan they do a lot of "cheap polish" where you get full daito serviced for 100,000-250,000 yen, and the quality is in general acceptable, but internationally including Japan the price is more in 400,000-600,000 range. This generally precludes polishing anything save signed ubu to first tier smiths etc.

 

Kirill R.

[0Takeda0]

The boshi looks in between Jizo and modarekomi from what I see. I am going to see if I can see it better after adding more uchiko powder.

[AntiquarianCat]

On 9/20/2020 at 3:25 AM, AntiquarianCat said:

Ashi also means nioiguchi projections extending towards the hada, sho-shin has many examples. I wonder if this could be a kazu-uchi mono with a “cleaned“ nagako... or maybe I’m totally off(I almost certainly am) and it is a WWII era.

I must have been sleeping when I wrote this. I meant towards the cutting edge aka away from the hada. Embarrassing typo. Anyways Sho-Shin still has good examples. I’ll let people who know better than me analyze your sword.

Also seeing as how your sword is completely out of polish and rather abused (and ergo no need to worry about wrecking a polish), maybe you could rub it with some of Fred Lohman’s uchiko. The archives linked to here describe how to use it safely in out of polish blades by using a monodirectional stroking pattern. I did what they said with my atobori carved sword (I probably won’t polish) when large swaths of it’s hada were almost totally obscured by being out of polish and now they’re visible and you can even see the nie crystals. I guess if you have a beat up sword and you have good quality uchiko and you use it as directed it might help.

[0Takeda0]

I've been weary of using my Hanwei 'uchiko', but that's all I have on hand at the moment. I'll wait until I have real uchiko before I do any more. I have it oiled, and have used a little powder on it already.

 

Thanks for the help

[AntiquarianCat]

You could buy some from the Lohman company, it’s worked quite well and not that expensive. I think a lot of other expert restorers/polishers sell good uchiko as well. 

[Dave R]

I bought mine from here. Fairly easy to deal with, they take paypal and you get the real thing at a decent price.  https://www.namikawa-ltd.com/product/164