Strange Situation...

[James]

Hi Guys

 

Some time back I sold an Emura to another Aussie. The sword had a slight bend and the polish I would say is good to very good (hamon and hada clearly visible). The guy I sold it to (let's just call him Jack) seemed to have basic knowledge of Nihonto but nothing extensive.

Then a while after receiving the sword from me, Jack emailed me telling me that the sword had been given to another man in Australia who was going to straighten the sword and submit it to the March '09 NTHK Shinsa in Sydney on his behalf. He said that after the man checked out the sword he concluded the sword was a gimei Emura, and was in fact a Shinto era sword! I wrote back telling him that this was clearly not the case, and that he should not trust the sword to be straightened to someone who could make such a wrong and amateur mistake like that. I should point out that Jack was not after a return/refund and not after any compensation; he was just telling me these things.

 

Anyway, I didn't hear back from him until recently when he emailed me again telling me that the NTHK had pink slipped the Emura and wrote on the pink slip that that the Emura is gimei and the sword is a Shinto era blade!! I of course asked to see a copy of the pink slip which Jack is mailing to me, but how could the NTHK make such a mistake? I suspect fowl play on behalf of the man who submitted the sword on his behalf. For some reason Jack refuses to tell me who this agent is, but he also told me got the sword back straightened, and told me the man also "cleaned [the sword] a bit".

I would like to get to the bottom of this, and just so "Jack" can see this thread I hope that others can look at the photos at the following link and confirm that the sword is indeed a genuine Emura, and not a Shinto era blade. I mean, you can see through the rust on the nakago fresh yasurimei and near the top of the nakago you can see perfect fresh silver yasurimei without any rust at all!

Any other comments are welcome.

 

http://s209.photobucket.com/albums/bb13 ... i%20Emura/

[Stephen]

James off to do a AM work out but did take two at the pix....id say gimei for sure ...never seen a Emura above the hole...very crude Emura ..ill have to check the blade more when i get home.

[huntershooter]

Mei looks clumsy, strokes not confident. As Stephen pointed out; above mekugi ana. On mei alone I would say "gimei".

[Rich S]

Could someone post the nakago and mei or point me to the exact URL

of same. I'm on a slow dialup and can't load all those pics. Thanks

 

Rich

[Simmons001]

Mei looks clumsy, strokes not confident. As Stephen pointed out; above mekugi ana. On mei alone I would say "gimei".

 

I agree. I am far far far from an expert, but I have seen a number of Emura mei, and that one just looks wrong to my untrained eye

 

I would agree with the experts here and say gimei.

[Guido]

Could someone post the nakago and mei or point me to the exact URL of same. I'm on a slow dialup and can't load all those pics.

Here you go:

[Guido]

I'm far from being an expert of Gendaitô, but based on the Mei alone it indeed doesn't look too good. And after checking my books, I'm pretty confident it's Gimei.

[James]

Well, the hamon and hada match the other Emura I have seen, and the yasurimei are the same as the other Emura I have seen.

I believe that prisoners would make some of Emura's swords and probably sign them also, right?

I mean, look here at the differences in mei:

http://www.geocities.com/alchemyst/emura.htm

 

Can we at least agree that this is not a Shinto era blade?

[Rich S]

Thanks for posting the mei. I don't want to try to pass judgement

on the mei. With so many folks making and signing Emura blades at

the prison, it's next to impossible to say with confidence which he

actually made and which were made by prisoners. There are zillions

of variations in Emura mei (many that I haven't posted on the site).

But I should say that I've recently seen several "Emura" blades that

struck me a rather "weird". With prices for his blades in the 4 figures,

sooner or later someone will or already has started carving their own

"emura" blades. While the Japanese shinsa are not infallible, I would

tend to trust their judgement over my own and I've owned dozens of

Emura blades (still have three).

 

Rich S

[Stephen]

The nakago looks to have been cleaned at one time, and the choji with ashi is much larger than what most Emura den did..(see file)....and sometimes so tight it looks suguba....id have to have it in hand to make the call on shinto, no really good pix of the boshi, which would help, and if the hada is a lazy swirl that looks wet it might be his work....pix dont let me think so.

[SwordGuyJoe]

I'll weigh in agreeing on the fact that the mei above the mekugi-ana is very suspect. I would lean towards gimei. As far as shinto, who knows...

[Brian]

...As far as shinto, who knows...

The shinsa panel :lol:

If they indeed said that...I would go with that. I wouldn't suspect anything funny. Just need to verify the pink slip and comments that he claims.

 

Brian

[loiner1965]

my knowledge of nihonto is very limited but i have seen many emuras in the past and they are many variants of his mei but this looks the poorest i have seen...i would say gemei.

james would not have passed this sword on as emura if he did not genuinely believe it to be gemei

[James]

I must admit that I'm absolutely shocked if there's even a discussion about this being a Shinto blade or not. So what every one is saying is that the nakago could have had the rust cleaned that had gathered from the Shinto times, then ground down so that new yasurimei can be applied, then had new yasurimei applied in the same style that Emura does, then after all that effort, had someone clumsily chisel an Emura mei? And judging by the new patina on the nakago, all that must've happened 20th C.

james would not have passed this sword on as emura if he did not genuinely believe it to be gemei

You sure are bold to make a statement like that. You obviously can judge people you know nothing about very well.

The truth however is I never for one moment until all this thought it was gimei, and that I've sold bloody loads of swords, eBay and other, and never once had an unhappy purchaser.

[Ted Tenold]

So what every one is saying is that the nakago could have had the rust cleaned that had gathered from the Shinto times, then ground down so that new yasurimei can be applied, then had new yasurimei applied in the same style that Emura does, then after all that effort, had someone clumsily chisel an Emura mei?

 

In a word; yes. Altering nakago has, as you are likely aware, been a practice for a very long time. Chiseling a clumsy Emura on a blade makes more sense for resale (no accusations inferred) than awkwardly chiseling some shinto smith someone is likely to look up and recognize as undeniably gimei. There's simply less scrutiny on Gendaito guys like these and more reasons to establish some measure of rationalizing away the variance as "prisoner daimei" stuff. Perhaps the sword was already gimei and now it's a gimei with less scrutiny to a larger audience that is less discerning. The more Gendaito gain in popularity, and the higher prices they command, the more there will be a need to scrutinize the signatures to combat the opportunistic forgers. I've already seen *two* undoubtedly gimei Ichihara Nagamitsu.

 

And judging by the new patina on the nakago, all that must've happened 20th C.

 

Or even the 21st century to be frank. The yasuri at the very top look *really* fresh and bright. Maybe instead of asking why the signature isn't right, there should be a focus on why it's being called shinto. What is it about this blade that you could identify as shinto?

 

One observation I could add is that the mei was put on after the ana was drilled, because the chisel stroke cut a depression into the mekugi ana. That's also pretty rank novice stuff even for a prisoner.

[loiner1965]

sorry but i meant to say you would not have sold this sword as an emura if you knew it to be gimei....i have seen most of your ebay sales and all have been well represented and documented....once again my opologies

[James]

@ Steve: Ok, and thanks for the apology.

@ Ted: Wow, I never would have thought a person would've gone to all that trouble for an Emura. Thanks for your input and observation!

[James]

Not meaning to flog a dead horse but this Emura on eBay (linked below) has the same kind of large choji hamon, and check out the nakago. Yep, almost exact same kinda of patina, and the exact same bright fresh yasuri on the top on the nakago as the Emura I started this thread about.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... tsupported

[SwordGuyJoe]

I have been watching this blade too. The Emura looks the part, but the hamon doesn't seem quite right.