Kantei

[Rivkin]

There are obviously those enjoying the proper type of kantei. The shijo comics released by the mainstream organizations.

Yet I know there are those hungry for the crack feeling of kantei by photo.

It must be illegal! It cannot be done! Only the shijo can capture the true secret of the nihonto!

Yet we just can't stop ourselves. Again and again we must feel the stream of image bytes flowing into our system.

 

Today I present to you the blade so controversial, in NBTHK journal no less it was stated that this type should not be used for a judged kantei competition!

Whether in shijo or in hand, it shall remain a forbidden fruit!

But I am sure real crackheads will not be stopped from guessing by such cowardly words!

 

Go ahead, enjoy the show. Who will get the first atari?

I will add that on the other side the kaeri is not nearly as easy to observe.

First image is probably the key. Tape is included in the overall photograph for dimensions.

[David Flynn]

Sue Yamato.

[Gakusee]

Going out in a limb here as truly outside of my knowledge comfort zone. 
 

Some suriage Satsuma Shinto disguised to look older. 

[Jussi Ekholm]

I am very clueless without measurements and slight description, as I lack eyes for details many members have.

 

Going to guess Yamato Shizu on this one.

 

Not really fitting what was described in opening so I think it could be not typical work by the maker to whom this was attributed to (as I believe this to be a suriage sword).

[Brian]

That partial mekugi ana way down at the bottom, if that was a primary ana then this sword is vastly o-suriage and may be much older than it indicates.

[Alex A]

A controversial blade!, so detecting a curve ball.

 

Any chance of more information?

 

Utsuri ?

Width at hamachi/kissaki ?

Kasane ?

 

Looks O-suriage but difficult to tell without close ups.

 

Kind of thinking this may be a later sword, the jigane.....................intentional ?but need more info.

 

See why Satsuma mentioned, and Yamato Shizu for other reasons.

 

Cheers

[paulb]

An interesting blade and to be honest I don't know what it is. The shape is telling me one thing  the jihada and hamon something else. The combination of the very dark sunagashi type activity within the hamon might be considered "potato vine" and this in combination of what looks like ara-nie in the jigane supports Michael's opinion about being Satsuma. 

If I have to guess I would go with late Edo Satsuma

[Rivkin]

4 hours ago, Jussi Ekholm said:

Going to guess Yamato Shizu on this one.

 

It is "typical", the issue is how this group of smiths is attributed, which creates a strong potential for alternative interpretations.

 

The blade has 4 attributions, all somewhat different, issued by:

Honami Tenrai

Honami Koson

NBTHK

Tanobe san

 

The attribution Yamato Shizu is cited by Tanobe san as a possible alternative. My congratulations - it is by no means an easy blade.

But the main attribution is different. 

[paulb]

A late second guess if I'm allowed based on sunagashi and what looks like hakikake running from the boshi through the yokote. If it is late Nambokucho then I would go for Shikkake.

 

[Gakusee]

22 minutes ago, Rivkin said:

 

It is "typical", the issue is how this group of smiths is attributed, which creates a strong potential for alternative interpretations.

 

The blade has 4 attributions, all somewhat different, issued by:

Honami Tenrai

Honami Koson

NBTHK

Tanobe san

 

The attribution Yamato Shizu is cited by Tanobe san as a possible alternative. My congratulations - it is by no means an easy blade.

But the main attribution is different. 

Very interesting that it comes with some many opinions and alternative views…..

 

I would never have gone Yamato Shizu on this one…. The nie seems a bit too crude and ostentatious to me compared to the typical Yamato Shizu. But when Tanobe sensei mentions an alternative, he also gives his main opinion and I am curious what it might be. 
 

Well, looking forward to more info 

[Rivkin]

12 minutes ago, paulb said:

A late second guess if I'm allowed based on sunagashi and what looks like hakikake running from the boshi through the yokote. If it is late Nambokucho then I would go for Shikkake.

 

 

All are welcome - we have at least two more attributions to go through! Negative on Shikkake.

[Rivkin]

4 hours ago, Alex A said:

Utsuri ?

Width at hamachi/kissaki ?

Kasane ?

 

Width can be ascertained from the tape measure, though with some difficulty, but I am quite a bit lazy to put tape in both directions.

This blade however is a great example of shijo kantei's limitations.

Tanobe san writes in his description that bohsi is yakitsume. On one side the kaeri is indeed almost absent, there is sort of just flame of hakkikake extending along the mune, but on the other side there is kaeri. Took me 10 minutes playing with lights to detect, but its there. Very thin but actually reasonably (but not too) long. 

Kasane is not too informative here, but what you are stricken to discover in hand is that the blade has almost no niku. Its in perfect condition but no niku. Very light and the center of mass is towards the nakago.

Utsuri - well there are areas much darker than others, but they are also chikei-rich. Can it be called utsuri - hm....

 

[Rivkin]

Lets actually add the sayagaki's description:

The forging structure is an itame that tends to nagare towards the ha and ji-nie appears. The hardening is a nie-laden midareba that is composed of notare and that is mixed with gunome, ashi, and sunagashi, kinsuji, and yubashiri that are interwoven with the hada. The nioiguchi is bright and clear and the bōshi runs out as yakitsume.

[Toryu2020]

I would say Kaneuji himself - and would ask, is this ippon Kantei or?

[Rivkin]

Negative on Kaneuji.

Its 100% illegal kantei. Everything is permitted. 

 

I don't want to formulate my answer as dozen etc. The hints are here, they already outline the possibilities in a narrow circle. Obviously its something not completely orthogonal to Yamato Shizu, but there are two-three features which are not particular consistent with Shizu lineage.

Itame is too dense, dominant and strong.

Hamon is gunome-midare, more non-uniform compared to Shikkake, more nioi based. Nioguchi is clear, broad and bright.

[Toryu2020]

So right time period wrong road haha!

I am going with Chogi - and I would like to see the yakitsume if that is possible...

[Rivkin]

Hard to be certain on the period - I think sayagaki purposefully avoids being too specific on the matter.

Negative on Chogi: he would tend to uniformly wide mihaba, powerful kissaki, in o-suriage tends to loose koshizori.

 

In case if there is a will to do the Sa route: sayagaki and other descriptions do not say this, but the steel has slight dark hue.

[Ooitame]

Bungo Takada utushi? 2nd guess second gen Tadakuni.

[Ronin 47]

How about Mino Kinjū (美濃金重)?

[Rivkin]

We are somehow going in a bit of a wrong direction I am afraid.

I don't want to throw any more direct hints, so I'll allow myself to do a bit of sensei posturing. Please understand it does not come from a big league player, just an old and frail carp who now and then gets some weird stuff.

 

The way a typical kantei competition works (not that I know much about them, seriously) is you have say two blades that are 100% stereotypes. If kantei book says Nobukuni has shirakke utsuri, they'll place there only the one with shirakke utsuri. Even if its not that common actually among Nobukuni. The set of choices is also kind of small - shinshinto is Kiyomaro, shinto is Kotetsu, don't expect much Muromachi except maybe Oei Bizen etc. etc..

 

Then comes a curve ball. That's where someone like Kinju can come in... As long as it has a well defined feature and a reasonable well known, even if its something aside from well traveled path, its going to be in. You do have Kinju and Tadayoshi in competition all the time. You sometimes have Masamune, even though his "characteristic" traits are kind of vague or all over the board, but its just going to be stunning and relatively early Soshu blade, so one can then say "Masamune" more or less based on the quality.

 

There are a (very) few major schools however which are not supposed to be used in judged competitions, with some exceptions. They are very seldom used in this venue, and its openly acknowledged. That's one of those. P.S. I actually checked and there is one smith from this school who actually does enter competitions with reasonable regularity... and maybe as a curve ball.

 

It has shusho (i.e. post-Edo shumei) attribution by Honami Tenrai, which was more or less obviously purposefully erased. Very likely because its very specific. The unfortunate thing is that both NBTHK and sayagaki attribute the blade to basically the same school, but not to a specific (and controversial) person. The blade's features to an extent do support a narrow attribution, but I have not heard about unsigned blades (there are signed examples) actually attributed to him within the last four decades probably. Well, it also depends on whether we consider Him as one generation, two or sort of one and two nidai. I think one should concentrate here on the school and consider a personal attribution speculative.

 

Another note that sayagaki and NBTHK declared the shusho as unreadable. Well, obviously Markus Sesko can read these complicated kanji extremely well, while I have some experience with pulling out erased shumei in the photography so they are visible again. To further pad myself on the back I will also say at the beginning I did not understand sayagaki and was not aware of Honami opinionson the blade at all, but I strongly suspected the attribution to be along the lines what Honami proposed.

 

[Mark]

i will guess tametsugu

[Ooitame]

So I am assuming my guesses are wrong. This blade is an outlier with aspects from different schools.  Atleast I tried, will leave ot to more trained eyes.

 

[Rivkin]

Negative so far.

Its "typical" for the school, though such subtype is admittedly rare. |Aspects from different schools would imply it to be of secondary role, and its a bit dangerous statement in this case. The bigger issue: school's kantei overall is awkward. 

But arriving to the attribution in this case is pretty much two step procedure on many fronts.

Given X and Y means Z.

Or if we assume its X, then given Y it can only be Z.

[Toryu2020]

Can we at least know the period?

[Alex A]

Not a guess but this has led me to such places as Hankei and Mizuta

 

Bit of a wild goose chase so far

 

The Ara-nie in the jigane is the issue, for me.

[Toryu2020]

Hankei is a good guess.

[Rivkin]

Ok.

The real purpose of kantei as we all know for the organizer is to have no risk o-sensei cosplay while embarrassing everyone else.

Putting my (100% illegal) sensei cap on:

Strong koshizori even in o-suriage, very pronounced taper locks us into either very late Nambokucho - early Muromachi, or Kamakura plus maybe earliest Nambokucho.

In the first case Shikkake guess is reasonable, but gunome is not too periodic, nioi-guchi is broad and bright, jigane is itame, hamon tends towards nioi especially at the edge.

I personally would follow with either Sue Sa or Naotsuna (since both did a lot of work in such sugata and nioi hamon with nie activities), but the negations are obvious - you don't often see that long and that broad nie stripes with them, boshi is wrong etc. etc

Yamato Shizu is a viable and probably the best option if one is committed to seeing this as late Nambokucho sugata.

 

The actual opinion of NBTHK paper is that its Kamakura. The seller swore he was given more precise indication (early-mid) but I would refer to Cicero's "on honor" in regards to antique dealers. He did not research the blade in a sense of checking the shumei, checking the Honami publications.

Honami are specific with late Kamakura-earliest Nambokucho. So here Yamato Shizu remains a decent alternative.

Sayagaki does not comment explicitly on the period, maybe as it is unaware of Honami work, but does not contradict or expand on the papers, so the Kamakura dating stands.

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

 

[Alex A]

Agree about Yamato Shizu

 

That Ara-Nie though in the jigane, could not find any other sword by Yamato Shizu to match it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rivkin]

Nah, you do see it with Yamato Shizu. Shizu is not that great with itame jigane and he goes pure hard nie in hamon. A bit rougher overall.

[Toryu2020]

Thank you for clarifying - very interesting piece. I would put a lot of faith in the attribution from Tenrai as he is my teacher's  grandfather and is actually the first person to put the Hon'Ami system of kantei as we know it into print.

 

Looking forward to the reveal but I do have to say I totally disagree with the following statement;

 

"The real purpose of kantei as we all know for the organizer is to have no risk o-sensei cosplay while embarrassing everyone else."

 

We can argue about that elsewhere...

 

-t