osoraku-zukuri -- are they all dummied up?

[Peter Bleed]

I've asked my question in the title of this thread. Yes, yes, I know that the term is an old one, but it sure seems to me that there are more of these blades nowadays than there used to be. And they often looked, ahhh, "adjusted".

Peter

[Peter Bleed]

Gee, I should have looked before I leapt, I asked this question a couple of years ago here on the NMB - but  I was also recently shown another. It seems fair to suggest care and suspicion with these.

Peter

[DoTanuki yokai]

Komonjo sells them on eBay now.

 

[Surfson]

I have seen a lot of them that appear to be like these new blades that we speculate were either made in China or made under the radar in Japan.

[Dave R]

They seem pretty confident in the one they have here...   http://www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/Naohiro6.html

[Geraint]

Dear Dave.

 

I think they have every right to be confident, its a blade made by their own smith, Kokaji.  At least they can be sure that it isn't a Chinese copy.

 

All the best.

[MHC]

Hello all,

 

Out of shear curiosity only, I bought a mumei Wak from Kumonjo off ebay, for a whooping sum of $168 bucks. Total rust bucket, no habaki, junk saya, no tsuka.

 

Anyway, clean it up a bit and low and behold it is a folded steel blade, straight hamon, punched ana [not drilled], no real flaws to speak of sans the rust of course.

 

Uneducated guess by the  shape & patina on the nakago, 1800's, certainly not any older for sure.

 

Not at all worth putting another dime into it, or even taking pictures of it.......but it appears by all accounts to be a real Japanese blade, most likely mass produced, probably for conscript military use??

 

Anyway, thought I'd throw it out there for you folks.

 

Mark

[DoTanuki yokai]

I think modern smiths make them but in older das it was the only way to get a new boshi on a tip broken blade.

just want to add this

pic from usagiya

[Peter Bleed]

BINGO!. I think these are overwhelmingly re-purposed sections of daito blades that have lost their potential to survive as legal, intact, "swords." They may have been damaged or  "demilitarized". This kind of work can make use of blade that would otherwise be valueless scrap iron. It also can provide work for skilled smiths who can register only 12 swords a year. I think skilled kaji could slightly increase the sori a bit, even way back on a blade. But there is no way for them to add a kaeri to the - ahhh - boshi.

Blades like this are probably easier to export than daito, and they have a rather sexy look that might appeal to naive international markets.  They may not even have to go through the whole registration process.

For all those reason I think that sword historians working in the 22nd Century will see these are one of the features of the time we are in now.

Peter

[Shugyosha]

I remember that there was one on here relatively recently which had the look of a normal shinogi zukuri blade where someone had moved the yokote to enlarge the kissaki.
 

Can’t remember who posted the blade but it was clearly an attempt to make an osoraku blade from something less interesting. I think it’s definitely an issue.