What are the key attributes of high-quality masame-hada swords?

[AlexiG]

Hi all,

 

I have too many hobbies. I have been doing bonsai now for over a decade and have trees that were accepted in the National US Exhibition several times. What bonsai taught me is while there are overarching principles around proportion and age, you judge/evaluate trees by the specific attributes of the species (and style). For example, what matters for shimpaku junpiers (lots of interesting deadwood) is a non-starter for maples (at least in Japan); what is essential for black pine (age and quality of the bark) is irrelevant for junipers where bark is often removed before a show, etc.

 

I assume some of that applies to swords but I might be wrong.... So here is my question. With respect to swords made in masame-hada, what makes you consider it very skillfully made vs average or poor? Would you apply criteria differently to koto/shinto/shin-shinto/gendaito blades in terms of quality of manufacture? I suspect looking at tight hada, uniform nioiguchi and clear habuchi applies all the same, but maybe not. What do you think? What else do you look for in a masame blade?

 

Below are links to masame swords from different schools/times and rankings. Feel free to link to other examples that better show what to look for in masame blades.

Kunikane_Gen2_Juyo

Kunikane_Gen2_TH

Kunikane_Gen3_TH

Hosho_TH

Hosho_Juyo

Hosho_TH

Sue-Hosho_Hozon

Kiyondo_TH

Kiyondo_TH

Norikatsu_TH  (Also check examples by Jeremiah here)

Ono Yoshimitsu_Gendaito

Motomichi_Gendaito

Yasutsugu_Gendaito

Hokke Saburo Nobufusa_Gen8_Gendaito_Hozon

 

Best,

Alexi

[Alex A]

Hi Alexi. Good question.

 

Others that have studied Masame hada more will be better prepared to answer your question. Though as always expect different answers from different folks that appreciate different aspects. Poor for me means flaws and open grain, seen in mass produced blades in the late Muromachi, for example.

 

A few amateur bonsai enthusiasts here though that enjoy the hobby. Maybe one day you could show us your exhibition trees in the members area below.

 

 

[Shugyosha]

Few to zero kitae ware. 
 

 

[Vermithrax16]

I can only speak for myself but what most attracts me is the heavy deposition of nie all over the blade and especially along the forging lines. Masame can vary between very refined, you have to use lighting to see the grain, to wildly violent where it's obvious. I gravitate towards the violent. Most Yamato Hosho are on the refined side of the ledger, while Norikatsu and Kunikane can be on the more wild side.

 

Forging openings are the bane of masame works, but can be overlooked in Koto era blades due to age (though Tegai and Uda works that show masame seem to be worst offenders IMO and should not ne overlooked, it seems a deficiency) but should be absent in a Shinshinto forging or later.

 

A look though my swords that I own show that I only buy masame swords, so of course I am heavily biased 

[Bryce]

G'day Alexi,

I am no expert, but my favourite smith is Gassan Sadakatsu who produced many works in masame. I think consistency, plenty of jinie and no kitae ware are what I like. The hada can be very tight with little differentiation between layers or more vivid. Both types of hada can showcase the smith's talent. Below is a link to a thread where I show some examples of this. I must admit to still being baffled sometimes by what makes a blade extraordinary compared to just excellent. Perhaps some of the more experienced members may be able to add more insight.

Cheers,

Bryce

 

[AlexiG]

Thank you all for your replies! @Bryce Beautiful blades. May be one day I will be able to add a Gassan blade to my collection.

 

Any thoughts on the nioiguchi of masame blades?

 

Disclaimer on what follows: I am trying to learn and apply principles that I read about, but simply applying some guidelines without understanding them can lead to bad outcomes. In that spirit I am asking the question below.

 

If I apply the principles of Nobuo Nakahara (facts and fundamentals of Japanese swords) about nioguchi quality and it being the key to understanding the skill of a smith (uniform, uninterrupted, defined/sharp boundary with habuchi, not too think or too thin) then from the examples above one can make some interesting (or questionable conclusions). The Yoshimitsu and Kiyondo blades standout and Hosho blades look like the "lowest skill" (irregular thickness, fuzzy border, nioiguchi getting close to the edge, ect). So here is the question: how much of that is the age and excess polish on the Koto blades, how much is just stylistic preferences (not bad just different rules for masame), and how much is indeed skill, or lack there of? The hardest part of this is to be objective as Hosho blades are the rarest and the most expensive in this lot and are often with the densest masame, which typically is a desired sign of quality (Yoshimitsu definitely went super dense with his tanto but got a very well defined nioiguchi).

 

Thoughts?

 

Best,

Alexi

[Rivkin]

Just one: do not read Facts and Fundamentals. He has his system which is based on very obscure things... It works for some blades, but not for others. Lots of Hasebe and Masamune will not have a "quality nioiguchi", in fact it can be quite difficult to observe. There are some Yamashiro and Bizen blades which can be judged by nioiguchi but even then Hizen's very wide nioguchi is not a sign of issues anymore than very tight nioguchi... Brightness counts more, though again his school insists that if its too bright then its acid etched etc. etc.

 

Hosho is very good, as are some Kiyondo and even some Kunikane.

[AlexiG]

48 minutes ago, Rivkin said:

Just one: do not read Facts and Fundamentals. He has his system which is based on very obscure things... It works for some blades, but not for others. Lots of Hasebe and Masamune will not have a "quality nioiguchi", in fact it can be quite difficult to observe. There are some Yamashiro and Bizen blades which can be judged by nioiguchi but even then Hizen's very wide nioguchi is not a sign of issues anymore than very tight nioguchi... Brightness counts more, though again his school insists that if its too bright then its acid etched etc. etc.

 

Hosho is very good, as are some Kiyondo and even some Kunikane.

 

Hi Kiril,

 

this is fundamentally exactly what I am trying to get to. Objectively, what makes Hosho very good, better than Kunikane? What makes "some" Kunikane good and others less so? Is it just the masame quality, or does the nioiguchi play into it? Examples? I understand that it might be difficult to convey without having the blade in hand but worth a try  

 

I dont doubt that Hosho is very good, and the one thing everyone seems to agree is that they made some of the densest masame hada (ji nie and all). So my question is whether that is where the judgement of quality ends for masame swords (plus kitae flaws), or if there is more to it as folks evaluate a blade for the skill of the maker not for personal preferences. 

 

Thanks for the thoughtful responses,

Alexi

[Rivkin]

Nioguchi is not a factor for Hosho.

Best Hosho has a lot of chikei, hamon which has strong and bright nie formation, hada with very bright jinie, both masame and itame.  Its not as uniform as Sendai or some shinshinto blades, but the non-uniformity adds character, its not awkward or artificial.

[sabiji]

To come back to Masame-Hada. Basically, in none of the examples we have a pure Masame Hada, but rather a combination of a primary Hada (komokume/koitame) and the secondary Hada, in which the Ko Hada is then placed in parallel layers (Masame).
The corresponding ratio of this combination and how cleanly these layers run (more even or wavy) would be an important aesthetic factor, at least for me. Utsushi in particular sometimes seem too deliberate and too stiff for me. But that's just my opinion.

[Bazza]

Kiril wrote:

> Lots of Hasebe and Masamune will not have a "quality nioiguchi", in fact it can be quite difficult to observe

 

As I was reading through the discussion the thought came to me:

"I know 'best' here means from an 'art' point of view, but from a battle perspective do the points mentioned one way or another matter???"

 

BaZZa.

[Bryce]

Quote

17 hours ago, sabiji said:

Basically, in none of the examples we have a pure Masame Hada, but rather a combination of a primary Hada (komokume/koitame) and the secondary Hada, in which the Ko Hada is then placed in parallel layers (Masame).

 

 

G'day Thomas,

You have lost me. Can you please explain this a bit more?

Cheers,

Bryce

[sabiji]

45 minutes ago, Bryce said:

 

G'day Thomas,

You have lost me. Can you please explain this a bit more?

Cheers,

Bryce

Well, I'm surprised! Am I the only one who sees it that way? Take a finely woven fabric and lay it in several folds. That's all.
I once owned a Kunikane and a Suifu Masakatsu (I think a nephew of Katsumura Norikatsu). If you look closely at the hada, you will find a fine ko-mokume between the layers of masame.

[Stefan]

Hi Sabiji old  friend !  Od course  i can see it. Who told  You the first time about the  secondary  hada...Ups  has been me.  You  remember the nice  evening  in the pub...An good  pint and an more than  interesting talk. Had been good times.

Well  one  of the most  prominent  smith  for this  is Sendai Kunikane. Far as i remember Mishina  Sensei  got his  Mukansa  for  bringing out  just this  effect  on an Kunikane, the super fine  secondary  hada in the masame  structure.

[Rivkin]

18 hours ago, Bazza said:

Kiril wrote:

> Lots of Hasebe and Masamune will not have a "quality nioiguchi", in fact it can be quite difficult to observe

 

As I was reading through the discussion the thought came to me:

"I know 'best' here means from an 'art' point of view, but from a battle perspective do the points mentioned one way or another matter???"

 

BaZZa.

My answer would be "its extremely complicated".

Even discarding the impact of polish, which however is quite large when it comes to nioiguchi, nioiguchi physically demonstrates the temperature gradient due to heat conduction between the portion of steel that is cooled directly by water and the portion which is cooled slowly through clay.

So theoretically a very clean steel will give you a tight and bright nioiguchi while slag will create something hazy and uneven.

But its not exactly true. 

First, the forging comes into play as heat conduction within lamination is always higher than between laminations - so if the blade is itame you can have tight and bright nioiguchi (Yamashiro), if it has mokume or masame going in and out hamon nioiguchi there is good chance is not going to be as well defined. 

Second, daito has quite a lot of material at habuchi level and thus will cool down slower compared to tanto. So tanto with all conditions even will have different (and often brighter) nioiguchi compared to daito, and daito with niku will have broader nioguchi compared to something thin, and if there is a core iron which has some other thermal resistance (usually it does), then two piece sword will have tighter and brighter nioguchi compared to a single piece work... By the same token controlling hardening is usually easier for tanto and for the same amount of nie on daito the margin for error is considerebly smaller.

 

 

[DoTanuki yokai]

From my own experience how a blade is hardend can change nearly all of its appearance from color of steel to nioi or nie and the appearance of the forging pattern. 

I don’t have enough examples yet to say something with confidence but hardned a Tanto twice with very different outcomes or 2 small blades that I made from the same piece of Tamahagane but they look totally different because one was quenched with clay and the other without it. 
Im not a professional smith and lack the years of experience to say that I quenched the blades at the same temperature or if the water had the same temperature because I all do this with my amateur senses. 
Also my polish is some self invented stuff with artificial stones that is also very time consuming when done right but that’s what I don’t have 

 

I would stay with this in the Izakaya when it would be some controversial new thing but all this is described also by Mukansa smiths in the „Modern Japanese Swords and Swordsmiths: From 1868 to the present“ book in the interviews. 
 

 

[Bryce]

Quote

On 9/19/2023 at 4:31 PM, sabiji said:

Well, I'm surprised! Am I the only one who sees it that way? Take a finely woven fabric and lay it in several folds.

 

 

G'day Thomas,

I can see what you are getting at with the example you posted. I am not sure this applies to all of the examples listed. Perhaps the masame is so fine that you can only differentiate the layers when you look really closely? Here is a photo of two examples by Gassan Sadakatsu. From a distance they both appear to be koitame. When you zoom in you can see the masame.

Cheers,

Bryce