Hindman Auction

[Mark S.]

So did anyone else watch the Hindman Auction that just ended?  Did you get anything?  Your impressions / opinions… before I give mine…

[TheGermanBastard]

Yes I participated.

 

I came in 2nd on this one:

 

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/a-tanto-cd841a4806

 

In my oppinion a really great Koshirae The signature looked legit, too. I liked it very much but who knows how deep the other bidders pocket were? Deeper than mine for sure..-

 

I bought two blades:

 

https://asian.smugmug.com/Sale-976/Lot-671/

 

To be frank I did not check the Mei. The patina on the Nakago looks akward to me but I was in for the mounts and appealig Sugata - my personal taste - while I would not consider it to be typical of that school. The blade has unfortunately seen quit a few polishes so far and I feel will need some TLC.   Tsuba and Menuki could be good. FK look to be better quality Nara or Kyo Kinko pieces? Tsuba could be Kyo Kinko, too? If anybody does have any oppinions on the signature etc please drop me a line.

 

And this one since I have a perfectly matching Tsuba. To me the mounts were appealing

 

https://asian.smugmug.com/Sale-976/Lot-679

 

The Sengo was Gimei in my oppinon.  Had I only seen the blade I would have said it could be good. However the signature did not look good to me and I feel the Koshirae was assembled of varying quality pieces . mainyl on the lower end but for the Kashira.

 

https://asian.smugmug.com/Sale-976/Lot-674/

 

I wonder what others thought about the Norishige?

It had sold for around 20k USD with a major auction house some years ago. It did not look anywhere close to a real Norishige to me and I suppose it would have sold at 5 to 6 times that back then if it had been considered to be authentic. This teime it stoped at 5500 USD.

 

Some of the Katana where also good. I would have liked to see the "Sadamune" in person. Of course it was nowhere close to that attribution but I wonder it may have been a solid pre Muromachi piece. Liekly not looking at the bidding ...

 

Did anyone of you buy anything?

[nickm]

Amazed the norishige stopped at 55.. I would have bought it for that

[TheGermanBastard]

43 minutes ago, nickm said:

Amazed the norishige stopped at 55.. I would have bought it for that

 

Well, you likely couldn't have bought it for that since the bottom estimate is often also the reserve and if that treshold is not met, teh lot remains unsold.

[Mark S.]

I had the chance to go preview several of the blades as I live near Chicago.  I was interested and bid on 4 of the items, but won nothing as there were people MUCH more interested than I.  I recently made another purchase so funds were limited and I wasn’t serious about chasing anything.  My overall impression of the ending bids vs what I saw in hand leads me want to stick with the Chicago Sword Show and dealers here at the NMB.  There is a lot of money flying around out there and some items I just did not understand how they ended where they did… but each to their own. 
 

I looked at the Norishige and I am nowhere even close to qualified to even make a wild-ass guess about such a blade/gakumei.  From the machi to about half way up the blade, it almost had a Mino-like hamon feel to it, and then the rest of the way to the kissaki was more Norishige-like based on what I found on line.  The koshirae was nice and solid and someone spent a good sum on that habaki.  A blade like that and you would want someone like Darcy to chime in.  Either someone got the deal of a lifetime or is gonna be awful disappointed.  And to think a Norishige is ‘floating around under the radar’ seems rather implausible.  
 

I also looked at the Sadamune and the Rai Kuniyoshi.  Once again, two names out of my league.  The Sadamune’s nakago looked off… almost ‘muddy’???  Is that normal to age like that?  I’ve seen it a couple other times and it always makes me think something is wrong?  It may be just my novice inexperience.  The Rai Kuniyoshi had some condition issues, the mei I have no idea if good, and the mei placed ABOVE the mekugi-ana threw me.  But once again, what do I know.

 

Blades I was interested in resided a little more in the ‘conservative’ section of collecting:

650 - Kikumon Iga no Kami Kinmichi katana: I thought it a solid blade but the mount was ‘meh’.  The Kaneiye tsuba was in questionable condition.

662 - Bushu Terushige Wakizashi: was in good condition, but I was least serious about this blade.  Would only have bit if it was a steal.

666 - Yamato Masanori Wakizashi: was in pretty good condition and the koshirae was solid.  It looked like a pretty nice set, and I almost kept bidding… but then I kept adding in the buyers premium and I just couldn’t do it.  Once again, limited funds.

676 - Kaneyoshi tanto: Wasn’t sure about mei, but there was some nice activity and koshirae was very solid.  
 

 

 

[TheGermanBastard]

650 looked like a solid Kinmichi blade. Counting in the cost of a new polish it sold not at the lower end.

 

 

[Mark S.]

650 Kinmichi

$3500 blade

$875 premium

$2500 polish

$500 shirasaya 

$400 habaki

$300 state-side shinsa

 

Does this end up being a $8000 package someday?

[Mark S.]

Another frame of reference… look at end bids for the bid items and add the 25% premium.  Then consider papers/polish/etc. Add it all up.

 

Now go look at the 2 blades Ray just posted in the For Sale section here to see what $$$ can buy for papered/polished blades.  I know this all is IMHO… but I think there were a lot of treasure hunters at the auction.  I do hope their speculation was correct… for their sake.

 

And none of this is a slam at any of the buyers at the auction… or an advertisement for Ray.  I just am promoting the wonderful opportunity we all have to be a part of the NMB community.  Not everyone is so lucky. 

[DoTanuki yokai]

5 hours ago, NihontoCollector said:

 

https://asian.smugmug.com/Sale-976/Lot-671/

 

To be frank I did not check the Mei. ...  If anybody does have any oppinions on the signature etc please drop me a line.

 

 

If you only want it translated "Bishu Osafune KatsuMitsu".

Im not sure with the Katsu because it is very faded.

[TheGermanBastard]

Hello Christian, I was aware of this but have no clue if it is Shoshin or not.

[TheGermanBastard]

5 hours ago, Mark S. said:

also looked at the Sadamune and the Rai Kuniyoshi.  Once again, two names out of my league.  The Sadamune’s nakago looked off… almost ‘muddy’???  Is that normal to age like that?  I’ve seen it a couple other times and it always makes me think something is wrong?  It may be just my novice inexperience.  

 

What was your oppinion on the "Sadamune" as far as the Jigane etc. goes. I could not tell much from the additionally provided images.

[Mark S.]

1 hour ago, NihontoCollector said:

 

What was your oppinion on the "Sadamune" as far as the Jigane etc. goes. I could not tell much from the additionally provided images.

I’ll be honest, I never got past my discomfort with the nakago and the condition of the blade did not allow for a decent assessment of jigane, or knowing more than the blade having a well defined edge of the suguha hamon.  I would say it was fairly tired.  I also looked at several blades and my interest was elsewhere so I could have missed finer points because I moved on fairly quickly.
 

Many of the blades were in a pretty poor state of polish and condition.  You really had to know what you were looking at, or looking for, to get much info from them.  They will need some work to be study blades.  Add the time crunch (snuck away from work for a little while ) and number of blades and detailed assessments were difficult and I am not comfortable with my knowledge/experience level to make snap decisions on ‘diamonds in the rough’.

[TheGermanBastard]

The Sadamune did not look tiered to me in the images - contrary to the "Rai" blade. The Hada looked pretty tight on it from what could be seen in the images

[Mark S.]

Only going off my initial impression.  And that is only worth what it is worth from ‘me’.  First few inches of blade from kissaki looked nice but rest of blade looked ???.  It was the exact opposite of most of the blades I looked at where the issues where in the first several inches of the kissaki.  Look… I’m no expert and I really wish I would have had one of our more experienced members in tow.  An ‘experience’ would be to sit next to… say… Bob Benson (example) while looking at these blades and having that expert saying “worth a polish” or “a dog”.   I’m sorry that can’t be me…

[Surfson]

Wow, I live in Chicago and was completely unaware of this auction.  Were there some high end swords?  

 

[Mark S.]

1 hour ago, Surfson said:

Were there some high end swords?  

 

There were some high end names but none with papers or ‘in-polish’, and few even in acceptable old polish.  There may be a few hidden gems, but most were going to require work to find out.  There were some nice looking koshirae in the mix.  

[Surfson]

Yes, just looked through catalog.  It looked like there were a couple of "sleepers" though.  

[TheGermanBastard]

39 minutes ago, Surfson said:

Yes, just looked through catalog.  It looked like there were a couple of "sleepers" though.  

 

Which ones did you consider to be sleepers?

 

I was going back to teh catlogue again and think that the Sadamune may have been worth a shot given the low amount it went for. Just based on the images I had seen, it looked not too bad to me despite the ood Nakago. (While of course this was not a Sadamune for sure)