Any good references on measurements of swords..sori etc

[Jon]

So does anyone one know of any good references that have the measurements of different schools etc of swords..so charts of sori, Kasane, Nagasa etc for different schools, provinces, eras…the references I have tend to be descriptive…like a shallow sori..but that’s not really as helpful as know what the actual measurements are likely to be.

 

 

[Toryu2020]

Jon

A friend tried this - I think the real flaw was the sample sizes were just too small. (see below) The NBTHK and NTHK always list dimensions, however as far as I know this info is not compiled anywhere. Pay attention to this detail in the listings and slowly it comes to help form an image in your head...

 

-t

 

https://www.amazon.c...dresen/dp/1523962089

[Geraint]

Dear Jon.

 

An interesting question.  Most sources take a slightly different approach in that sugata, including width, sori, fumbari if there is any, taper, size of kissaki and so forth, are all used to indicate the time of the blades production rather than the individual school or style.  Having said that there are some distinguishing features such as koshi sori which might lead to a specific school.  Descriptions sometimes refer to a specific smith doing something which is out of character for the time in which they are working, bucking the trend as it were.

 

Sori on its own is a problem as it clearly would relate to the length of the blade so a number on its own would not help.  For example a sori of 9mms would look very different on a kowakizashi than it would on a katana.  Also any suriage would tend to change things.  Add to that the various waves of revival where swords were made to represent swords from an earlier period.  Most of the basic texts have some diagrams of the basics with regard to sugata, those at least are a starting point but they are intended to get you to a time period by and large.

 

It would be lovely if one could say that a small number of specifics could tell you who the blade was by but the situation is much more complex than that which is why the subject is so fascinating, so frustrating and so never endingly involved. (That is also why any mumei sword shown here tends to get a pretty wide range of suggestions as to its age.)

 

Years ago I used a system for identifying timbers that involved a set of A5, (or the foolscap equivalent), cards with perforations around all the edges.  The idea was that you clipped out the perforation next to a particular feature of the timber so each card might have twenty or thirty gaps. When you wanted to know what you had got you stuck a knitting needle into the hole for a certain feature in the sample and lifted, all the ones with that feature fell out of the pack and by the time you had done that several times you would be left with the answer.  Wouldn't it be lovely if such a thing existed for us?

 

All the best.

[Jussi Ekholm]

Do you have specfic smith, school or period in mind?

 

I have so far gathered data on 13,000+ swords of c. pre 1450, and while it is helpful in some ways it actually can be more puzzling than giving out answers. There can be a lot of variety in the surviving pieces by the same smith. I think majority of swords would fall in to having quite similar dimensions but personally I love the few original monster swords that are surviving.