named swords

[Guest nickn]

how common was it for swords to be named?

i have two both end with maru

the one in the photos is papered to rakuyo ju takai shinano no kami fujiwara nobuyoshi

[Guest nickn]

can anyone tell me what shu e maru means

i get blood red stick or vermillion stick

[fwic2803]

Probably this signature is readable with Shuzukamaru...:-)

It was called red TSUKA

Shu - red

Tsuka - Tsuka

Maru - the same as Mr./Ms.....etc.

[Brian]

Welcome to the forum. I am sure many of our members are customers of yours or have watched your auctions on eBay.

 

Regards,

Brian

[Ted Tenold]

Yes, welcome to the NMB. Please sign your name to your posts. I'd find it odd to address you as "fwic2803-san" or "fwic2803 maru". :lol:

[Guest nickn]

red tsuka mr/ms

apart from the obvious does this have another meaning?

[reinhard]

the one in the photos is papered to rakuyo ju takai shinano no kami fujiwara nobuyoshi

 

Can we see these papers, please? Otherwise it's not worth a second look.

 

reinhard

[Guido]

The suffix "maru 丸" is used traditionally for names of ships, boys and swords. It's an indication that the sword was named in regard to its Koshirae, but there are - as we know by now - always exceptions when it comes to Nihontō.

 

"aka 赤" and "shu 朱" both mean "red", but the latter is used for the vermillion hue we find with ink seals, traditional lip coloring, lacquer etc. in Japan and China.

[Guido]

The color, poor execution and unevenness of the surface of the Kinzôgan-Mei, along with the fact that one hardly finds the name of the Koshirae inlayed in the Nakago, makes me think that it's a recent addition. I, too, would be very interested in a scan of the papers and what they say.

[Grey Doffin]

Here's a neat trick for determining the age of kin zogan (gold inlay). When the inlay is done the gold and surrounding steel will be at the same height. With time, the steel corrodes and expands a tiny bit; gold doesn't corrode so it stays the original height. If you can't feel a very slight difference in the 2 metal's heights, you can assume that the zogan was done relatively recently.

Grey

[fwic2803]

Hi,

And the character of Maru is wrong.

To be right is 丸.

Mitsuhiro.

[Guest nickn]

i only asked about named swords but again the snipes from the usual

here are the papers i bet money someone ,oh i give up

[Nobody]

red tsuka mr/ms

apart from the obvious does this have another meaning?

The proper reading for the kin-zogan may be Shuzukamaru as already suggested in this case.

However, 朱柄 generally reads Shu-e, and it means a specific stick shown in the attached picture.

Ref. http://www.e-horindo.com/butugu/archive ... st-18.html

[Guest nickn]

thank you

so shu e maru means red or vermillion gong stick any thought on why a sword would be named as such?

[Nobody]

Naturally I guess that the tsuka for the katana was red colored.

[Guest nickn]

the original saya was a rusty brown colour

[Brian]

Naturally I guess that the tsuka for the katana was red colored.

 

Brian

[Guest nickn]

yes brian i read that

i was only pointing out that the original saya was a rusty brown colour .if the original tsuka wrap was red it might have matched the saya??

[Brian]

Thought you had misread the reply.

I don't think there is any corrolation between the colour of the tsuka and the saya in most cases. Maybe nowdays when we have this "thing" for matching furniture, but I believe in my opinion the original owners were far less meticulous about koshirae matching.

 

Brian

[Clive Sinclaire]

Gentlemen

Please forgive me if I am taking this thread in a slightly different direction, but I find the subject of named swords quite interesting. There was one for sale at Christies a few weeks ago, a mumei blade attributed to Suzuki Masao and inscribed on the nakago and described as a kiritsuke-mei, were the charcaters "Kiyomu Maru" translated as "Mist Pincher" the significance of which escapes me. As the fine sword had a bright red saya I think it may have been a kinno-to.

Also a friend of mine owns a very good gendai wakizashi by a 20th century smith named Munemitsu. On the nakago is the smith's name and the characters "Shumpukan". This means "Hall of the Spring Wind" and is a reference to a poem which likens the slashing of a Japanese sword blade to the "lightening in the spring wind". This was also the name of Yamaoka Teshu's kendo dojo (as well as mine) and many shopping malls in Japan today! The original oshigata of this sword resides in the kamiza of my dojo and it is Sword 58 on the UK Sword Register on http://www.To-ken Society of Great Britain, should you wish to view it.

Thanks for your indulgence.

Clive Sinclaire

[pcfarrar]

Also a friend of mine owns a very good gendai wakizashi by a 20th century smith named Munemitsu.

 

Clive,

 

I have a Katana by the same smith. He's the son of Koyama Nobumitsu. The mei on mine is identical to yours, minus the Shumpukan. I had the same problem trying to figure out which Munemitsu it was but Chris Bowen nailed it for me.

 

Peter

[Eric H]

The previously mentioned Katana by SUZUKI MASAO

 

Eric

[Clive Sinclaire]

Hi Eric

I assume that it was your sword and I was sorry not to be able to buy it. Do you know to what the name referred or what it meant?

Regards

Clive

[Eric H]

Hi Clive

 

The sword was offered in 2006 by a dealer at € 11980. This is what he wrote ... "A signed Katana from Edo period with attribution to TSUEKIRI MARU by NBTHK. This blade is not signed by the smith, but the signature is the sword owner's name"

Since I have a particular interest in swords by Kiyomaro and his mon I have saved the pictures. I have never owned this sword. Perhaps there is an explanation on the origami, left beside "Suzuki Masao".

 

Eric

[Nobody]

The NBTHK paper only shows the inscription and describes that it is a Kiritsuke-mei other than the attribution.

 

This is my guess:

The inscription looks 梜霧丸 to me, and I think that it is the name of the sword. The name may read "Sagiri-maru", although other kanji 狹 is usually used for the term. It just means mist (霧: kiri). In the context, “sa (梜)” is a prefix without exact meaning, and “maru (丸)” is a suffix to be used for a name of a sword.

[Clive Sinclaire]

Gentlemen

Further quoting from Christies catalkogue on the Masao, it states that there is a "Silver habaki engraved with the characters for "hasamu-kyo" and "kiri-mu". What is the meaning of this, is it different from the nakago kiritsukr-mei or simply a different way of reading them?

Clive

[Nobody]

Further quoting from Christies catalkogue on the Masao, it states that there is a "Silver habaki engraved with the characters for "hasamu-kyo" and "kiri-mu". What is the meaning of this, is it different from the nakago kiritsukr-mei or simply a different way of reading them?

I suspect that the kanji on the habaki are the same name on the nakago. However, the first kanji might be deciphered incorrectly by the reader. (FYI: http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_ ... ID=5205401 )

 

Because;

梜 read “kyo/sa”,

霧 reads “kiri/mu”,

 

While;

狹 reads “semai/kyo/sa”,

挾 reads “hasamu/kyo”.

[Eric H]

The Habaki

 

Eric

[Thierry BERNARD]

found this named sword on ebay!

 

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160344785280&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fshop.ebay.com%3A80%2F%3F_from%3DR40%26_trksid%3Dp3907.m38.l1313%26_nkw%3D%2B160344785280%26_sacat%3DSee-All-Categories%26_fvi%3D1&_rdc=1

[Guido]

The Saidanmei of the sword Thierry linked to makes me feel uneasy (but maybe I'm just getting a little paranoid). I would expect a tester's mei along the lines of "山田浅右衛門吉X (Yamada Asaemon Yoshi_X)", and not "浅右衛門男山田萬吉", a name that is to my knowledge not listed in the Yamada family register (besides the strange way the name is written, i.e. the family name after the Zokumyô). And why do the papers only state the date of the Kinzôgan-mei, but not the name?