Help with translation

[tyrion67]

Hello,

Would it be possible to have more information about this wakizashi blade ?

thanks in advance.

 

[SteveM]

Signature says

 

三條小鍛冶

Sanjō Kokaji　

 

It's the name of a very famous swordsmith. Best to think of this particular signature as inauthentic. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tyrion67]

Thanks.

ok.I understand better now the partial information i had, namely that this blade would be a shinshinto period recreation of a "famous" blade.
But would the Shinshinto period swordsmith have engraved the name of the "famous swordsmith " and not his name? this seems to be the case. Is this common practice?

[SteveM]

Usually its considered a forgery if a smith puts another smith's name on it. 

There are exceptions, but in this case I would consider the signature to be a forgery. 

[tyrion67]

Thanks a lot Steve. It really helps me ..

[Bruce Pennington]

  On 10/22/2023 at 6:15 PM, tyrion67 said:

But would the Shinshinto period swordsmith have engraved the name of the "famous swordsmith " and not his name? this seems to be the case. Is this common practice?

Expand  

This was quite common, Jo.  We tend to see forged names, gimei, from modern eyes.  The practice was not so "illegal" back then.  There is a famous story of a Shogun who received a sword as a gift, knowing it was gimei, yet accepted the gift.  On the other hand, it is said that lesser known smiths could increase the profit on a sale if they forged a famous name.  So, I suppose buyers were ripped off even in those days!

[tyrion67]

Thanks Bruce, that's very interesting information. 

 

I declined the offer of this wakizashi, as the very principle of this "gimei" goes against what I was looking for, even if I imagine it can be found on old, quality blades.
 

Even if indeed, the name of this legendary swordsmith was very easy to detect (not by me, obviously ), and was perhaps not made to deceive people, but to remain consistent with the "recreation" of this legendary blade.

[Jon]

Hi Jo, generally the advice is if a smith is famous or high rated and you find a blade with their signature and it does not come with papers from either the NBTHK ( modern papers are needed as older papers are considered suspect, so Hozen, Tokubetsu Hozen and above) or NTHK papers..a good rule of thumb unless your an expert is to consider it a fake ( Gimei) anything with a signature especially a high rated smith that does not come with papers is odds on a gimei  (fake). Faking Mei ( signatures) on Nihonto seems to have been a hobby since they started forging and signing Nihonto as such there are a huge number of gimei and it takes a very expert eye or a panel of experts with the sword in hand to decide ( and sometime even then they cannot decide or get it wrong). The process of deciding included both looking at how the signature is struck against the character of the blade and if it matches the smiths works.

 

So basically consider any signed  blade without papers as a faked signature ( Gimei) Its also worth noting that the NBTHK will not provide papers for a Gimei blade and the only way to get it papered is to have the fake signature removed.