Yoshimitsu Tanto

[Jonas Ne]

Today I received the Tanto purchased from Mark that he posted in a previous thread. Here are some of the better pictures that I could take of the blade. I plan on submitting the blade to the upcoming NTHK shinsa. There is some surface rust along the corner of the mune and the signature is really hard for me to see unless in perfect lighting which I tried to capture here. I havent done any measuring yet but will update the thread as soon as I do so. 

 

On another note, is this blade in a good enough polish to submit to a shinsa? I have never submitting a blade before and am not familiar with the process. In the meantime I will be doing As much research into the blade as I can in my freetime.

[Jonas Ne]

[Ray Singer]

It certainly seems to be in good enough polish to submit, however please note that if an inscription is not readable enough they may simply write on the papers that the nakago has unidentifiable kanji. 

[Rivkin]

Think kasane, work consistent... However its quite possibly Muromachi generation. First generation has very fine and prominent masame, nice jigane.

[Jonas Ne]

3 hours ago, Rivkin said:

Think kasane, work consistent... However its quite possibly Muromachi generation. First generation has very fine and prominent masame, nice jigane.

I'm a super amateur at this so what I'm saying may be completely incorrect but imma give it a shot. When looking very closely at the blade under magnification and the naked eye, towards the HA (which appears more in polish) I see swirls and almost circular traits that resemble an Itame hada. I read that Itame is a mixture between masame and mokume. Am I observing incorrectly? If not what would that mean for the blade? It appears very prominent in the correct lighting and doesn't seem to be lifted from the steel as an oil stain I imagine would be.