Huge auction in Australia with more than 100 blades

[Bei]

Hello, good greetings from another newcomer to this forums.

I am from Australia and was also following the auction. There was some fierce competition then.

 

I was interested in a few lots: specifically 500, 507 and 550 before the prices went significantly upwards.

Lot 500 has been spoken of above, thank you Ian Brooks, but the other two have yet to be mentioned.

 

If anyone is willing to proffer their thoughts on these two lots (links above in the numbers), it would be much appreciated.

 

Thank you,

- Jack

  

[Ian B3HR2UH]

Lot 519. This one is inexplicable . It is a showa blade in a military mount worth nothing like what was paid .

 

Lot 546.This sword was owned by Maj Gen Bridgeford and originally came with a note from him to the effect that it was Lt Gen Akinaga's . It has been owned by a couple of people since then including another board member . As you can see the sword is in Naval mounts with an Army Generals tassel on it . What the photos didn't show was that the saya was metal like a shin gunto and not the usual lacquer over wood. I have never seen this before.

 

In Fuller and Gregorys book there is an excerpt from a letter written by Maj Gen Magata chief of staff of the 17th Japanese army . Bits of the letter are not published including the following "When Maj Taylor came to our HQ on the 9th he brought instructions from General Savige that we were to hand over the swords of the staff officers of our HQ , of the GOC 6 Jap Div and his principal staff officers. My Fukuto and those of three staff officers and of the GOC 6 Jap Div Lt General Akinaga and his chief of staff Ejima  "  were handed over on the 10th .  So Akinaga 's sword was not formally surrendered but handed over in a group . Possibly the sword was Akinaga's but I also wonder if Bridgeford wound up with that of a naval officer which explains the mounts .

The blade is signed by Tsuta Sukehiro and as far as I can tell is certainly Gimei . A friend whose opinion I value thinks the nakago has had a mei removed and this one added . My friend says this explains the thin nakago . I don' recall the nakago being thin but something is not right about it .If I am wrong about this then someone has got a bargain and I will kick myself . $32000 plus buyers premium is a huge amount to pay for this sword . 

 

Lot 555 This was the handachi signed Yamato Daijo Fujiwara Masanori. On my cursory lookup the mei matched up well with the real thing . As I said above the color and fuzziness of the nakago worried me a little . It was also slightly suriage . The price this sword reached was high but a real bargain compared to most of the others . It at least has a chance of being genuine and of good quality . Most of the rest don't

 

Lot573 . Words escape me on this as well .The blade had a Seki stamp !  At least it was a good buy compared to lot  519 given that there are fewer Naval mounts .

 

Did anyone else inspect these swords ? If no one else did I will give you my thoughts on the rest and answer Jacks questions

 

Ian Brooks

[robinalexander]

Yes thanks Ian. Keep going.

 

I grappled with the enormity of the auction, reviewed/researched as much as possible, was not aggressive enough on what I liked,  bid on a couple including the first copper 95 but lost on that and some other 94's and 98's I should have gone higher on.

 

Enjoying you sharing your knowledge and experience. 

 

Rob

 

[Tanegashima]

20 hours ago, Ian B3HR2UH said:

Lot 519. This one is inexplicable . It is a showa blade in a military mount worth nothing like what was paid .

 

Lot 546.This sword was owned by Maj Gen Bridgeford and originally came with a note from him to the effect that it was Lt Gen Akinaga's . It has been owned by a couple of people since then including another board member . As you can see the sword is in Naval mounts with an Army Generals tassel on it . What the photos didn't show was that the saya was metal like a shin gunto and not the usual lacquer over wood. I have never seen this before.

 

In Fuller and Gregorys book there is an excerpt from a letter written by Maj Gen Magata chief of staff of the 17th Japanese army . Bits of the letter are not published including the following "When Maj Taylor came to our HQ on the 9th he brought instructions from General Savige that we were to hand over the swords of the staff officers of our HQ , of the GOC 6 Jap Div and his principal staff officers. My Fukuto and those of three staff officers and of the GOC 6 Jap Div Lt General Akinaga and his chief of staff Ejima  "  were handed over on the 10th .  So Akinaga 's sword was not formally surrendered but handed over in a group . Possibly the sword was Akinaga's but I also wonder if Bridgeford wound up with that of a naval officer which explains the mounts .

The blade is signed by Tsuta Sukehiro and as far as I can tell is certainly Gimei . A friend whose opinion I value thinks the nakago has had a mei removed and this one added . My friend says this explains the thin nakago . I don' recall the nakago being thin but something is not right about it .If I am wrong about this then someone has got a bargain and I will kick myself . $32000 plus buyers premium is a huge amount to pay for this sword . 

 

Lot 555 This was the handachi signed Yamato Daijo Fujiwara Masanori. On my cursory lookup the mei matched up well with the real thing . As I said above the color and fuzziness of the nakago worried me a little . It was also slightly suriage . The price this sword reached was high but a real bargain compared to most of the others . It at least has a chance of being genuine and of good quality . Most of the rest don't

 

Lot573 . Words escape me on this as well .The blade had a Seki stamp !  At least it was a good buy compared to lot  519 given that there are fewer Naval mounts .

 

Did anyone else inspect these swords ? If no one else did I will give you my thoughts on the rest and answer Jacks questions

 

Ian Brooks

Hi Ian

Regarding your comments on the mei on my ex Lt Gen Akinagas sword, you didnt miss out on anything of value. Before I bought this word I compared the mei with the one in Fujishiros book, it was way off being made by him. Also the colour of the Nakago was chemically treated, aged to look old but had no pitting or rust on it. It wasnt thin.

I prob should have kept the sword, but it always worried me being a fake and being almost Naval, from what I have read regarding Akinaga, I could not see him owning that sword. As you would know senior officers carried more than one sword during their campaigns and there have been documented cases of them handing over someone else's sword at the surrender. My interest over 30 yrs collecting the arms and armour of the samurai, wasnt just nihonto,  there is so much more to collect associated and used by the Samurai. The Matchlocks as Barry would know I actively pursued examples to buy. My father had a superb Matchlock pistol which was lacquered with a gold Tokugawa mon.

I know where that went, but the owner has passed away, so it too has gone in the feudal mists of time.

It was good of you to give credit to Donald Barnes, not Rodney Bellars for that collection.

I wonder what happened to the rest, my enquires have hit the wall of silence.

Nigel Willey

 

[Ian B3HR2UH]

Well as no one else is game to comment on the swords  I will stick my neck out

 

There were about 250 swords . How do you assess these in a short time ? I disregarded all metal hilters and parade sabres which I have no interest in . Anything in poor quality mounts I disregarded as the blades in these will generally be of low quality too . If the blades in medium quality mounts  were out of polish or had condition issues I left them alone too  . There  were some Yasukuni to at the auction so the above criteria caused me to miss them and probably some other things that were worth investigating further . Where mounts had some quality about them and no major condition issues , I tried  sometimes unsuccessfully , to take the handle off and see what was there . If I couldn't get the handle off I looked no further unless like on lot 572 I remembered seeing the nakago previously .

 

Here are the ones that appealed to me.

 

Lot 504 , I used to own this and regret selling it . I hoped to buy it back but not for $ 3850 + premium

Lot .507.  I have a soft spot for Kai gunto . This had a good quality mount in good condition . The blade was OK as well  . I bid too $4000 and was the underbidder . If I had popped one more bid on I would have been up for around 5000  which was too high .

Lot 513 This was a signed and dated but short katana (  by Kiyonobu ) in an original undicked with mount . For $2866 I thought this an OK buy in the context of the overall really high prices.

Lot 514 . This was by Morihisa an Ishido school smith . I thought this possibly the best blade there and a good buy at $3721

Lot 534 was a nice little shin gunto at a reasonable price of $ 2561 . I am showing my tastes here as others would dismiss it as an average blade in shingunto mounts 

Lot 548 a really nice shin gunto mount ( again showing what I like ) with a blade signed Yoshisuke saku . I thought a friend was going to bid so didn't . If the buyer wants to sell it to me for the closing price $ 2950 then lets talk

Lot 550 . On my criteria above I missed looking at this one which may be OK just not at $5200

Lot 559 a long blade signed Moritoshi which was a good buy at $ 4000 if the mei was right ( I had some doubts as it was not as well cut as that on the Moritoshi I referred to above )

Lot 561 a nice gunto mount with a good quality  mumei ( Shinto ? ) blade $2661

Lot 572 . This was the other one that I bid on. The blade was well made in excellent condition . It purported to be tachi mei originally but an orikeishi mei was now missing . It had nice bohi that were atabori . I bid to $4000 but was blown out of the water as it sold for $ 5950.

Lot 626 . A member here bought this and it is one that I would be happy to own . Ex Donald Barnes like almost all of these and Ex Bruce Ruxton for Victorians who will no doubt remember him

Lot 653 was another that I liked as an overall piece . It was also bought by a member

 

Ian Brooks

 

 

[PNSSHOGUN]

Some lots I had my eyes on:

 

Lot 636: Nice Gendai by Hokke Saburo Nobufusa went for $3000ish.

Lot 664: Kotani Yasunori in beat up mounts, rusted Nakago, blade looked like it needed a polish. Went for a bargain at $1600

Lot 668: Good Type 98 with blade by Ikkansai Kunimori. Decent example, the one Neil sold recently was nicer. Can't recall price.

Lot 682: Early Mei of Chounsai Emura in premium early mounts with dual Mon on Menuki. Blade looked pretty bad. Went pretty high considering a polish was needed and saya had damage.

Lot 694: Good Kai Gunto with what looked like a blade signed by Shibata Ka, hard to tell from photos. Not sure what it went for.

[Bei]

Thank you kindly for your insight. Seems I have quite a bit to learn about identification and what makes for a quality piece!

 

- Jack

 

[lonely panet]

Buying from the photographs they had taken was a big gamble imho

[PNSSHOGUN]

Very much so, this was also a double edged sword in that the lousy photos hid some special pieces.

[Kiipu]

On 3/3/2022 at 12:13 AM, PNSSHOGUN said:

Some lots I had my eyes on:

 

John, I saved one picture from lot 634 as it had a 鍛 stamp.  Do you by chance know who the swordsmith was on this lot?