Thoughts on this kissaki?

[Matsunoki]

Hi Alex

Be interesting to find that thread but no luck so far.

Ive handled one such old Tachi blade. A graduated  heavier Hadori had been used to disguise where the hamon ran off which then changed into a more subtle Hadori to create the illusion of a midare boshi. It was convincing from a distance until you really looked at it…no activity of any sort. Lifeless would be an appropriate word.

Just interested to know if any other techniques were used that were genuinely undetectable.

[Alex A]

Just had a look and i cant find it either.

 

Again from memory, think it was Ted Tenold that talked about it, though may be wrong.

 

 

[PNSSHOGUN]

This may be what you are thinking of:

 

http://www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/acid polishing.html#fake hamon

 

[Alex A]

Just wish i could find the thread.

 

But from memory, an imitation hamon can be added to a blade where the hamon is weak or even non-existing.

 

Though wouldn't expect miracles from the technique

[Matsunoki]

2 hours ago, PNSSHOGUN said:

This may be what you are thinking of:

Thanks John. Very interesting and very scary for anyone buying a blade from images showing “nice” 😳 strong Hadori (from someone you don’t know). Might not be any hamon at all.

The article emphasises that you need to look for metallurgical activity carefully….and then you can “break its trick”!

……and there is a huge difference between looking and seeing I think. 
Long live sashikomi I say. 
Apologies to @nulldevice for partial hijack of topic.

[nulldevice]

2 hours ago, Matsunoki said:

Thanks John. Very interesting and very scary for anyone buying a blade from images showing “nice” 😳 strong Hadori (from someone you don’t know). Might not be any hamon at all.

The article emphasises that you need to look for metallurgical activity carefully….and then you can “break its trick”!

……and there is a huge difference between looking and seeing I think. 
Long live sashikomi I say. 
Apologies to @nulldevice for partial hijack of topic.

No apologies, this thread has been incredibly insightful for me.

 

a simple question about a kissaki has taught me about artificial hamons, fatal flaws, kantei tips, and more.

 

This thread is exactly what I’m hoping for so far! 

[Ron M]

Just a small detail I have read once..drawing in a boshi is called something like Katachi Tsuke and there are several ways to do it. It is an art, and its value is highly regarded. 

[Matsunoki]

For me, this  topic raises some tricky ethical points. 
I wonder, which would we prefer?

A sword with a fake boshi or the same sword in its honest state?

Maybe it’s ok to cosmetically improve it for display (museum) purposes but for me personally it’s fakery and making out the sword to be something that it isn’t.

Of course as soon as you bring money into the debate it gets a bit more worrying.

[Grey Doffin]

If an old master oil painting is shown to have had a corner repainted after damage, is it any less a masterpiece?

Grey

[Matsunoki]

39 minutes ago, Grey Doffin said:

If an old master oil painting is shown to have had a corner repainted after damage, is it any less a masterpiece?

It is still a masterpiece…..I’m not disputing that at all. Just saying there’s no need to add unnecessary “fake improvements”.

My personal taste I guess. However when the value is potentially dramatically and deceptively increased then we have a serious problem.

 

[Franco D]

28 minutes ago, Grey Doffin said:

If an old master oil painting is shown to have had a corner repainted after damage, is it any less a masterpiece?

Grey

 

"Is shown."  "Knowing."  "Revealed."  There are matters of ethics. One being that, if for no other reason, a drawn-in boshi is not the work of the sword's original maker. 

 

Regards

 

"Desire is the cause of suffering"

 

 

[Jacques D.]

2 hours ago, Grey Doffin said:

If an old master oil painting is shown to have had a corner repainted after damage, is it any less a masterpiece?

Grey

All paintings by the great masters such as Rembrandt, Delacroix, Jericho etc. are restored, as the varnish deteriorates over the years and the paint suffers the effects of light.

 

 

[Matsunoki]

10 hours ago, Jacques D. said:

All paintings by the great masters such as Rembrandt, Delacroix, Jericho etc. are restored, as the varnish deteriorates over the years and the paint suffers the effects of light.

Am I missing something here? I thought we were talking about fake boshi. 
 

[Jacques D.]

1 hour ago, Matsunoki said:

Am I missing something here? I thought we were talking about fake boshi. 
 

 

[Matsunoki]

@Jacques D.

 

Yup.

[Matsunoki]

Another interesting informative post, perhaps controversial (makes it more interesting?) that has been pointlessly and irrelevantly sidetracked (into comparisons with “fine art” restoration) and thus brought to an abrupt end, finishing with the childish use of a meme that I didn’t even bother to watch. 
Simple fact, hamon running off end and thus no boshi is a fatal flaw.

Fake boshi applied by whatever method does not change the above fact.

Fake boshi could be tolerable on some swords provided not done to deceive or for  financial gain etc etc etc- we could  have had an exchange of views on all of that, we could have enlarged the topic into fully faked hamon but no, thread ended - sadly. 
 

[Grey Doffin]

Sorry Colin but I think my post about old master paintings with cosmetic repair was precisely to the point: if the painting can still be appreciated for what it is why should 700 year old Nihonto be different? In my mind this is a continuation of the subject.

Grey

[Matsunoki]

On 6/6/2024 at 6:26 PM, Grey Doffin said:

Many tachi from Kamakura and earlier have this problem. It isn't fatal but isn't insignificant either.

Grey, well we will agree to disagree on that comparison but honestly, you are the last person I would wish to upset. However your statement above is inaccurate and imo dangerously misleading to any newbies plus I suddenly doubted something that was drilled into me over 40 years ago.
I  have already agreed with you that a fake boshi on a masterpiece sword can still leave it as a masterpiece…..just a fatally flawed masterpiece (or National Treasure …or whatever)

It was the totally pointless posting of a video about painting restoration on a topic discussing Nihonto that struck me as ridiculously off topic…..followed by a childish meme. 
I thought we were better than that hence my disappointment that a topic that could have developed and helped many was killed.

The whole issue of fake boshi/hamon is far more important to really understand nowadays given the preponderance of swords coming from Japan with such heavy obscuring Hadori depicted in pretty useless images that frankly buying them is a total gamble unless you can trust the vendor. We see posts on here where innocents have been “caught” and end up disillusioned. 

I would have hoped that the discussion could look at exactly when such a fatal flaw could be deemed acceptable (and by whom….and why) and exactly what does acceptable mean anyway.

Buy Hey ho.

On 6/6/2024 at 6:26 PM, Grey Doffin said:

Many tachi from Kamakura and earlier have this problem. I

This element of your statement could have led to a discussion about the ethics of fake boshi etc and also the important  potentially disastrous effect on financial values. And how do we quantify “many”…..1 in 10, 1 in 1000?

[Lewis B]

On 6/7/2024 at 4:15 PM, Franco D said:

 

yes

 

Regards

Thats the reason I passed on the Ko Uda at the Utrecht Expo. Completely devoid of boshi on one side. Question I have is why it would get Hozon papers with such a kissaki issue. Maybe the Shinsa review panel could detect the slightest shadow of the original boshi under their lights. I couldn't see anything under halogens or diffuse sunlight. 

[John C]

Related to what Lewis said above, I wonder how many swords are altered after receiving papers. Origami include pictures or facsimiles of the nakago, however the blade tip could have been dropped and repaired in the interim. How would one know?

 

John C.

[Tsuku]

36 minutes ago, John C said:

Related to what Lewis said above, I wonder how many swords are altered after receiving papers. Origami include pictures or facsimiles of the nakago, however the blade tip could have been dropped and repaired in the interim. How would one know?

 

This exact thing happened to one of the few extant Tokuju Taima. The only way to know is to compare the oshigata (or Tokuju photograph) with the blade as it sits, with a very critical eye.

 

But for a TH? You could detect a repaired/reshaped kissaki by virtue of the geometry being off, but you could not say whether the repair predated the kanteisho or not.

[Robert S]

Lewis:  I totally agree with your comment on "preponderance of swords coming from Japan with such heavy obscuring Hadori".  I think there is a real issue there.  I frequently see pictures of blades where even in the picture you can see that the hadori polish has little to do with the real hamon.  To my mind this is where the link with art restoration comes in.  I would characterize that sort of polish as being really bad art restoration, with the potential to terminally damage a blade if it has little meat left.  To my mind there is little difference between a fake boshi and a polish where the polish obscures the hamon, and makes the blade look like something it isn't (better or worse).

 

Being perhaps a little controversial, but I'm not sure that that form of polish is much better than the amateur attempts that are robustly discouraged (for good reason) on this site.

 

Robert S

[nulldevice]

32 minutes ago, Robert S said:

Lewis:  I totally agree with your comment on "preponderance of swords coming from Japan with such heavy obscuring Hadori".  I think there is a real issue there.  I frequently see pictures of blades where even in the picture you can see that the hadori polish has little to do with the real hamon.  To my mind this is where the link with art restoration comes in.  I would characterize that sort of polish as being really bad art restoration, with the potential to terminally damage a blade if it has little meat left.  To my mind there is little difference between a fake boshi and a polish where the polish obscures the hamon, and makes the blade look like something it isn't (better or worse).

 

Being perhaps a little controversial, but I'm not sure that that form of polish is much better than the amateur attempts that are robustly discouraged (for good reason) on this site.

 

Robert S

The art restoration channel posted above is one of my favorites. He states over and over again that his mantra is to "only touch up the bare minimum" to restore a piece and to avoid any of your own artistic expression from tainting the original intent of the artist. 

 

We see this in the case of bad hadori polishes, potentially some cosmetic boshis, and other attempts at making a blade something it's not. There was an example of a very poor hadori polish showing some undulating hamon on a blade that very clearly had a suguha pattern hamon. There was no activity in the hamon and the polish obscured the actual activity in the blade in an attempt to make the hamon look attractive for the unknowing buyer who wants the "wavy temper line". 

 

Again, this thread has been incredibly resourceful not only in my original blade I posted of a reshaped kissaki, but now diving into what we need to look out for regarding repaired blades and their polishes and when it may or may not be okay to add to a blade in the case of very old or historic pieces. 

[Grey Doffin]

I'm not upset Colin; all is good. Related to my post about the painting as compared to the tachi is the term "fatal flaw" For me, fatal implies worthless, not to be collected., which isn't the case with a Kamakura era tachi with a cosmetic boshi. Maybe a different term is needed.

Another facet of the topic is retempered boshi, which I'm sure has happened. Where would they fall on the fatal/non fatal scale?

And getting back to the blade in the original post in this thread: I am more bothered by the hi broaching the ko-shinogi than I am by the possibility that the boshi is cosmetic; it strikes me as a more fatal flaw.

Cheers, Grey

[nulldevice]

15 minutes ago, Grey Doffin said:

I'm not upset Colin; all is good. Related to my post about the painting as compared to the tachi is the term "fatal flaw" For me, fatal implies worthless, not to be collected., which isn't the case with a Kamakura era tachi with a cosmetic boshi. Maybe a different term is needed.

Another facet of the topic is retempered boshi, which I'm sure has happened. Where would they fall on the fatal/non fatal scale?

And getting back to the blade in the original post in this thread: I am more bothered by the hi broaching the ko-shinogi than I am by the possibility that the boshi is cosmetic; it strikes me as a more fatal flaw.

Cheers, Grey

What originally drew me to this tachi was the ubu nakago and kamakura sugata which is always hard to find when you dont have a huge budget. It also had what appeared to be some jifu and maybe jifu utsuri but pictures are hard to gauge that. It would be typical for the school. But the hi breaching the ko-shinogi was for me, unattractive, and prompted this thread which has taught me a lot. 

 

The sword search continues, but the lessons learned from this thread have made me more educated as I keep looking. 

[Franco D]

3 hours ago, Lewis B said:

Completely devoid of boshi on one side. Question I have is why it would get Hozon papers with such a kissaki issue. Maybe the Shinsa review panel could detect the slightest shadow of the original boshi under their lights. I couldn't see anything under halogens or diffuse sunlight

 

Cannot comment on why a Hozon level sword would receive Hozon if the boshi is missing, it shouldn't. 

 

1 hour ago, Robert S said:

Lewis:  I totally agree with your comment on "preponderance of swords coming from Japan with such heavy obscuring Hadori". 

 

It would appear that some like their swords with heavy make up on. There could be a number of reasons for this ranging from having something to do with; 1. quality of the sword 2. the taste of the owner 3. the ability and skill of the polisher. Or some combination of any or all of these three.

Of the swords I've seen in hand I'm not seeing heavy Hadori use when the sword has been excellent as well as the polisher. 

 

 

[Matsunoki]

9 hours ago, Grey Doffin said:

For me, fatal implies worthless, not to be collected.

Grey, well I don’t agree (again!). My understanding of the term “fatal” is used where the ability of the sword to function as intended as a weapon is compromised. It can certainly impact the £value but that is not it’s intended meaning.

 

10 hours ago, Grey Doffin said:

I am more bothered by the hi broaching the ko-shinogi than I am by the possibility that the boshi is cosmetic; it strikes me as a more fatal flaw.

I don’t think a Hi deviating by a few mm is “fatal”. I cannot recall reading or encountering that anywhere. It does not impact the swords ability to function as intended.
On the other hand a reworked kissaki where the hamon/boshi is lost is a far more serious situation. After all the kissaki is said to be the “face of the sword” and a critical  area of blade assessment. This flaw is documented as fatal.

 

10 hours ago, Grey Doffin said:

Another facet of the topic is retempered boshi, which I'm sure has happened. Where would they fall on the fatal/non fatal scale?

Interesting point. I’m not sure if a boshi alone could be successfully retempered without retempering the whole blade. Maybe someone can help out on that technical point. Personally I doubt it.

However imo retempering does not affect the blades ability to function as intended thus you could argue it isn’t fatal. However it will seriously impact the blade’s financial value. It could still be an important sword historically and could still be extremely interesting to study. Just my opinion.

[Grey Doffin]

Hi Colin,

You said, "My understanding of the term “fatal” is used where the ability of the sword to function as intended as a weapon is compromised." If we were talking about a weapon only, I understand where you're coming from (but I doubt a mild steel kissaki on a slicing weapon (tachi) would be much of a compromise). But Nihonto are not a weapon only; they are also art and history and have always been valued as such. I don't think the hi breaching the ko-shinogi hinders the function as a weapon; it does diminish the value as art.

Grey

[Matsunoki]

I

1 hour ago, Grey Doffin said:

But Nihonto are not a weapon only; they are also art and history and have always been valued as such

Grey, yes I do understand but as far as I know there are no separate definitions of “fatal “ for Art swords although the term Art Sword is itself very open to debate……

In my mind old  tachi etc were made solely as weapons. Granted, some are now regarded as Art but a missing boshi is still fatal and thus very bad news. To

say it isnt fatal is very misleading imo 
I’m sure opinions will vary.