What is Daisho and why we are "wrong" - open discussion.

[Promo]

What is needed that NBTHK papers blades (without koshirae) as daisho? Maybe that would be a classification to relate to.

[Alex A]

You would have to have the two swords without any doubt that they were made as a daisho.

 

You see "daisho" from time to time where someone has paired 2 random swords from the same smith together.

 

You would expect the work for both swords to be the same or very similar, signed and dated at the same time. If not dated then that poses bit of an issue. Sometimes there might be an inscription as to who they were made for. I don't remember seeing a daisho with such inscriptions, never really give it much thought. Seen plenty of Shinshinto swords with inscriptions, im assuming there must be daisho with such inscriptions out there.

 

Something like this below, modern but still with hozen.

Daisho:Tame Minobe Akihide Shi Chikushu Sanno Ju Sotsutomu Saku Showa 60 Nen 8 Gatsu Kichijitsu (August 1985)(NBTHK Hozon Token) - Japanese Sword Shop Aoi-Art

 

 

[Brian]

Correction Alex. Not made as a daisho, but carried as a daisho. A pair of swords that can be proven to have been carried together as a daisho.

[Alex A]

2 hours ago, Brian said:

Correction Alex. Not made as a daisho, but carried as a daisho. A pair of swords that can be proven to have been carried together as a daisho.

 

Hi Brian, i was trying to answer the question above be Georg as regards what the NBTHK might look for in respect of papering two swords as a Daisho "without" koshirae. Also in that respect, any documentation which would be a rare thing. 

 

So they would just have the two swords. so where do they go and what do they look for?. Your looking at two swords that were potentially made as a daisho without evidence they were worn as a Daisho.

 

The link above for the swords dated 1985 with Hozen, in shirasaya so they were never worn as a Daisho though they were likely papered as they were made as a daisho.

 

Its actually an interesting point that i have never considered before.

 

Know what your saying though about swords being carried together and being described as a daisho, not particularly matching swords either.

 

Been on the lookout for Daisho recently. What i have been on the lookout for is documentation/provenance that they were worn together as a pair but in reality thats not going to happen, too rare. From there you look at the koshirae, the more wear the better. I want to see old frayed ito, crumbling same, damaged and worn saya, good fit on everything and so on. Don't want to see anything fresh like it was cobbled together 10 years ago. That's as about as good as i expect to find for an actual Daisho that was likely worn by a Samurai but even then there is no actual proof.

[Brian]

I suspect it would be very, very difficult to paper 2 swords as a daishowithout koshirae. Yes, these were done, but since they are modern, and likely documented by the smith as having been made together...I think that was an easier call.
But 2 antique blades that had no koshirae when submitted for papers? I wouldn't think there would be more than a handful, since daisho either requires documentation that they were carried together, or the fittings need to prove that.
Not saying it never happens, but blades without koshirae getting daisho classification would surprise me, aside from Shinsakuto.

[Alex A]

Maybe Jussi might have something in his files.

 

Its what got me thinking of Shinshinto inscriptions, would say there must be some out there.

 

Also the odd earlier smiths, with inscriptions, from memory.

 

 

[Brian]

Here's what Darcy had to say about daisho (minus the pics)

Daisho

A nice to have on everyone’s list… the daisho. The name literally means “big-small” and refers to the pair of swords that only a samurai was authorized to wear. 

There are some simple basics about daisho and some misconceptions. The learning curve is shallow but some people skip over the essentials, and it can cause some damage.

 

Koshirae

The first and most salient point is that daisho are about the koshirae. It does not matter what swords you put into a daisho, but once you have matching koshirae, you have yourself a daisho. The katana might be Kamakura period and the wakizashi might be Shinshinto, with 6 centuries difference in time, but they are still a daisho once they go into matching koshirae.

Lose the koshirae and you have two independent swords again.

Keeping with this thought that daisho are a koshirae thing, you can have daisho tsuba, daisho fuchigashira, daisho menuki and even a full set of daisho tosogu that have all the parts you need to create mounts for two blades. 

People have a misconception that daisho were usually swords made as pairs, and this does not bear out when we examine the NBTHK Juyo Token records. Rather we see evidence that these swords were all mixed and matched. The reasons for this are:

1. Some lords provided a single sword to their samurai and he was expected to provide the other, so they got sourced from different supply.
2. Desirability of a sword for use is highly individual, if you had a katana you really loved you might test several wakizashi to find one that you also really loved, in order to mount together. Love might be synonymous to “this blade feels great in my hand, and I feel good about defending my life with it.” What you may like out of one maker’s katana you may not be interested in with their wakizashi.
3. Koto wakizashi from earlier than Muromachi might not be easily accessible as they usually depend on making a tachi suriage (unless you use a hirazukuri wakizashi or a naginata naoshi). So this makes matching a koto katana difficult.
4. Some swords were assembled by theme as gifts, such as giving a Yukimitsu wakizashi along with a Masamune katana, to or from the Shogunate. In this case obviously some thought went into this to make the blades both Soshu school and with smiths that had a close relationship. But these seem to have been done like this more frequently than to match both blades together by the same maker.
5. You could break one sword and then you’d get a replacement which you could afford, you liked, and you felt could defend your life, and the last item of worry would be matching the “swordsmith brand” of your other unbroken blade.

There are however some swords that were made as a pair. These are very rare.

Daisho Token

Everyone tries this at some point, we try to get two matched blades by the same maker, so we can have our own daisho. These blades sometimes have passed their papers at different times, and we take this and construct mounts, find some matching tsuba and fuchigashira and boom, we have a daisho. 

It’s not a true daisho.

True daisho were used by samurai in the Edo period. Unless you are a samurai with a time machine, what you just made is not a true daisho. At best, these… are what I call self-assembled daisho. Or an assembly. We can colloquially call them daisho but the important thing is to not mix them up with historical daisho.

They are just expressions of a collector showing some love for his swords and assembling them so that he has something that makes him happy.

Sometimes a collector looks carefully and finds two blades with similar signatures by the same maker, and well matching styles and submits them together to try to get a very rare paper.

Daisho token

This paper is the daisho token paper and it is almost never awarded. Because the NBTHK knows we submit blades we’d like to be daisho in our fantasies, and they examine very carefully these blades and find discrepancies and so pass them on different papers, though they were submitted as daisho.

I got it once on an unusual mumei Shinshinto pair of swords attributed to Ozaki Takashige. This is not a high level smith, and the blades being mumei shinshinto were not high level blades. But they were real daisho token, made at the same time, by the same smith, intended as a pair.

 

You can see both blades are on the same paper. The Japanese heading says:

一大小 (One Daisho) and then under this heading describes the katana and wakizashi as both being unsigned by Ozaki Takashige.

This is an important thing, because a lot of swords are sold as a daisho… and then have two papers. Well, that means it’s not a daisho by any stretch unless they are in matching historical mounts.

True daisho token are hard to get, because they were almost never made in the first place… and those made were damaged, lost, mixed up and so on. 

Now 99.99% of the time people try to get a daishi token paper it doesn’t happen and it just comes back with two separate papers. This doesn’t mean that the swords do not belong to a daisho. It just means that the swords themselves are not a daisho.

Daisho tsuba are still daisho tsuba even though you take them off of the mounts, however  daisho swords lose their status unless they were made together: all the other tosogu items were made together so they retain their daisho status.

Being a daisho themselves for swords means that the swords need to be made on the same day by the same smith with the intention of being a mated pair. Same as tosogu, it’s just that while it is common for tosogu it is not common for swords, as it wasn’t a requirement.

What matters here is the intent.

On a wakizashi you found on eBay and a katana sold to you by your friend, even if they look like they match, these are not daisho token by the classification that gets them onto one paper. There was no intent of the maker of those blades to mate them together. Hence, they are not daisho token.

Historical daisho

In a historical daisho, it doesn’t matter if your sho is a tanto or a naginata naoshi, or your katana is a naginata naoshi and your sho is a shinto wakizashi: if they go into Edo period koshirae and did so in the Edo period, then they are part of an Edo period daisho. The swords are not daisho token but they are part of a daisho. 

Burn the daisho koshirae: you are left with two unrelated swords.

Secondarily, if that daisho koshirae is not Edo period, and the assembly itself is not Edo period, then it is not a true daisho. It’s a collector’s hobby project daisho. An assembly.

True daisho koshirae from the Edo period are hard to find, and those of high quality pass Juyo on their own. If the NBTHK accepted them into papers, it means the NBTHK thinks they are Edo period daisho koshirae and not slap togethers from 1978.

Pre-Shinto swords in daisho

Daisho is a concept that begins to be formalized in the Muromachi period with Oda Nobunaga’s conquest of Japan and under the Tokugawa is formalized as a badge of office for samurai. 

So, no koto smiths we know of made daisho token explicitly. Samurai did not exist at the time of the koto smiths, nor did this wearing of the sword pair exist as a badge of office, nor was it even a common pattern to wear a katana and wakizashi together both edge up in matching koshirae.

It would be far more likely that a Muromachi bushi would have a yari and small katana or large tanto as a backup. But it’s likely that these warriors armed themselves as the case required it based on what their mission was. So no koto pair of swords today will be accepted onto one paper as daisho token basically because they predate the concept. They can be united later into a daisho by being chosen in the Edo period and mounted in purpose made mounts. Now they are part of a historical daisho. 

It’s up to you to use your thinking cap to see what you’re dealing with, as a self-assembled daisho has no particular historical value other than it can be two nice swords and some nice mounts. So, no bonus value for you as a collector other than how you feel about those mounts aesthetically. Whereas a historical daisho is something that is rare and very nice to have as it is a hard to acquire artifact of the Edo period. The more parts in the set = the more rare the set. 

Daisho token revisited

When it comes then to who made daisho token the first thing we learn about them is that chiefly they are a Shinshinto thing. The idea of making swords as explicit pairs did exist in the Shinto period but it doesn’t appear to be very common. In the Shinshinto period it seems to have come into vogue then to place orders with one smith for a fully matched pair of blades. Even so, that in itself was not so common when we look at the Juyo results.

By my count there are only 23 daisho token that have passed Juyo, compared to 11,422 swords as of the time of this writing. So, the number immediately must strike you as miniscule.

The earliest daisho token that the NBTHK made Juyo is a Mizuta Kunishige pair of swords. 

[Brian]

And without koshirae, I guess it is possible with a lot of work.
 

 

[Alex A]

Super rare, but out there.

 

 

[Lewis B]

Nice Kamakura era daisho set. Ichimonji Nosada (Kanesada). The short wakizashi was originally a Naginata with early example of his Mei. I see these selling for a somewhat lower price if sold separately. 

 

https://www.tsurugin...om/items/f00668.html

[Alex A]

Hi Lewis, 

 

It highlights the problems mentioned above. As in documentation, wear etc. Looks like something put together in recent years.

 

Not that there is anything wrong with that for display, just has no old history/provenance.

 

Did see a daisho a few years ago that i thought could be legit, worn ito etc though the swords were crap. 

 

Must be remembered that finding a good fitting antique tsuba for a sword can be difficult, finding Daisho tsuba that will fit 2 swords could be a complete pain in the ass. If assessing an old "daisho" for originality, would look to the tsuba ana/fit  to see if they had been messed with recently.

 

Just an investigation thought.

[2devnul]

https://www.ebay.com...7:g:KDgAAOSwUO5nbz-1

 

https://www.ebay.com...2:g:xHQAAOSwHjdnbzTB

 

 

PS. Here is my 'Daisho' for display. 

 

[Lewis B]

Another overpriced Daisho set. Poor quality Hozon blades in a fancy set of koshirae just to boost the value.

https://www.samuraim...YXYqeVh9vqCMdJW_cUdQ

[2devnul]

14 hours ago, Lewis B said:

Another overpriced Daisho set. Poor quality Hozon blades in a fancy set of koshirae just to boost the value.

https://www.samuraim...YXYqeVh9vqCMdJW_cUdQ

3rd Tadayoshi! Thanks for that, I'm looking for any 'papered' examples of this smith's work. Much appreciated HB. 

 

As for the set, you are 100% right. 'Daisho' is the price booster here. Although Mutsu Tadayoshi is expensive (Wazamono) I think that Koshirae makes the job here. Is it possible that these swords were worn together, yes. Is it highly possible, not likely. Not to mention that Koshirae looks 'brand new', so probably restored (original Fuchi/Kashira/Menuki/Tsuba) Koshirae for 2 random swords = nice price boosting Daisho

 

PS. That Wakizashi from my 'Daisho' set is signed Mutsu Tadayoshi too 

 

 

[Lewis B]

Hadn't noticed the Tadayoshi wakizashi was TH. I guess that improves the value somewhat although the muneware is not very attractive. 

[2devnul]

I would say Tadayoshi is worth 10k alone, even without Koshirae. It is attractive to me to be honest, but I'm 'Hizen guy', especially if it comes to Mutsu Tadayoshi. 

 

Still, the fact about 'Daisho fever' being something that can be used by dealers, stays. 

[Alex A]

Found this one. Think its in with a chance of actually being a legit old daisho.

 

The saya appear Edo.

 

The blades are actually quite similar in style with similar hamon, as though someone preferred that feature.

 

All ana in the tsuba have been filled in, apart from the one needed for tha Kozuka. In other words, dont appear to be any old cobbled tsuba thrown together.

 

Thinking tsuka is orginal with re-wrapped ito. 

 

There is a reference to at least they were together in 1958.

 

This Handachi style also became fashionable around the end of the Edo period, so maybe.

 

Japanese sword Touken Komachi, Daisho, Koshirae Katana : signed as Bishu Osafune Iesuke, Wakizashi : Mumei

 

 

[Alex A]

Ps Adam, like your Daisho, don't like the stand lol (only joking)

[2devnul]

25 minutes ago, Alex A said:

Found this one. Think its in with a chance of actually being a legit old daisho.

 

I agree, this could be a perfect example of 'true', matching Koshirae, Daisho. BTW, I love Shakudo fittings. 

Although both swords are Koto, I don't think Wakizashi is Bizen. But again, this could have been put together as Daisho during late Edo/Meiji era. Like you mentioned:

30 minutes ago, Alex A said:

This Handachi style also became fashionable around the end of the Edo period

 

Price: JPY 792,000

It is a fair price for both swords, even if not Daisho. A bargain IMO, at least in Europe. Finding a Koto blade in such good condition, in Koshirae, for less then 3k$ is not easy. 

 

30 minutes ago, Alex A said:

Ps Adam, like your Daisho, don't like the stand lol

These are two modern stands, next to each other. It was just put together temporary for the picture.

Still, your comment that you like my 'Daisho' made me thinking and considering buying proper double-sword display. Maybe I should keep the swords together. They do look nice in combo. Although the only thing common for both swords is similar Tsuka-Ito color. 

 

[Alex A]

Think two swords like that deserve a nice Japanese stand. Don't have be old and megabucks, see them on Fleebay at reasonable prices, oldish wood stands.

 

Ps, for someone just wanting a display without wanting to spend a fortune, then i guess the Daisho i linked could suffice.

 

Also, never going to know when those two swords were put together for sure. May have been late Edo, may have been together in other koshirae previously. I guess one would need to take a real close look for further clues. Evaluate all the fittings and fit and wear.

 

Says in "old polish", just noticed that.

[Lewis B]

Thats a nice set and the price is super fair given the quality of the koshirae and fittings. Although I'm not that keen on Satsuma blades. Price has been reduced so there may be some negotiation possible. 

[Alex A]

Il be honest, not really looked at blades and assume gimei without looking further. 

 

Even so, still a fair deal. 

 

For a display daisho, swords have to be of no importance, otherwise price goes sky high.

 

Swords are adequate for purpose, for me.

 

 

[Alex A]

Stumbled across this fine set, very nice koshirae which is papered with NBTHK

 

Blades are also papered, though not on the same paper.

 

There is a different hamon on each blade.

 

Two ana on the Wakizashi which i find interesting.

 

Daimyou daishō by Moritsugu | Mandarin Mansion

[Lewis B]

Those koshirae are probably the most tasteful/classy pieces I've seen yet. I love the design on the saya's. Timeless. Yes, there are spectacular gold urushi koshirae but I personally find them gawdy and shouty. 

[Alex A]

I guess flash saya like that may not have appealed to your everyday Samurai.

 

Had to make an edit above, reading more into the papers. Its a punched dot date top left.