Signed Sword i got from my grandfather,,

[goinlower6969]

This is signed sword i got from my grandfather,, any info wld be great...

[Stephen]

for ppl with bad necks like me, think he wants this in translations asst.

[goinlower6969]

Im sorry about that,, how do you tell whats the right way to read this?

[Stephen]

blade up tang down

[goinlower6969]

O that was easy,, any clue of the age of this piece and its value? Its in really good shape..

[Stephen]

please put swords in Nihonto and fittings here. maybe take a breath as you can overwhelm with all you have, and looks like your sending some to ebay. Most here help to learn not to sell.

[goinlower6969]

Yeah the tsubas and arrow tips i put on ebay,, swords i wanna get research on and see what they are and valie first..

[ottou812]

Also ending your post with a name instead of people calling referring to you as 'goinlower6969' would make it a friendlier to most folks on NMB willing to help you.

[goinlower6969]

Sorry, my name is Todd

[Gabriel L]

I am away from my books but I'll get the ball rolling on the ura side (reverse):

 

越前 ECHI ZEN (Echizen province)

住 JU (resident thereof)

 

FYI from the photos shown it looks like a real antique nihonto... but you should post photos of the blade as well. Also this shouldn't be in the tosogu forum, should be in the nihonto section unless you are trying to get info on the mounts (in which case you need to post more closeup pics thereof).

 

Gimme a sec to translate the omote (front).

[Gabriel L]

伯耆 HOKI (Hôki province)

守 KAMI (Lord thereof)

藤原 FUJIWARA (Fujiwara "clan" title, honorary)

江 NOBU (????)

全 YASU (?)

 

[Hoki no Kami Fujiwara Nobuyasu]

 

I'm having trouble seeing the last two characters, which would be the smith's name. I'll keep looking, but try to take clearer photos.

[Stephen]

Hawley Hir 169

 

Hoki no Kami Fujiwara Hirotaka.

 

from Echizen

[Gabriel L]

汎隆

 

Thanks Stephen.

 

Unfortunately I'm useless without books (and even then I'm no expert :lol:). But I gather this smith is supposed to be decent. Now whether it's gimei is another matter (not one for me).

[goinlower6969]

Do you have any clue of the value of this sword? Todd

[Mark]

how long is the sword? hard to say value without a close look but probably more that $1000 and less than $3500...........just a guess from a picture

[goinlower6969]

The blade measures around 25 1/2 and whole sword 36 inches..todd

[Gabriel L]

probably more that $1000 and less than $3500...........just a guess from a picture

With respect, there is no picture of this sword (just a wide shot of the koshirae) and it's impossible to give a value without A) judging the craftsmanship of the blade itself and B) assessing the authenticity of the mei.

 

There's a hozon wakizashi with same mei for ~$3100 here, but the mei doesn't match perfectly IMHO. There's a tokubetsu hozon katana with the same mei (presumably) that sold at Christie's for ~$11000 here; no pictures. There's a daisho of blades with this signature here, also tokubetsu hozon; the mei looks much more like a match to me. Another Christie's katana here, realized at ~$6000.

 

Some more info and an example from Sho-Shin here. Too bad they didn't include the mei.

 

This is all just with a Google search, no special knowledge applied. There's no guarantee before shinsa that your mei is genuine, that these other swords are supposed to have been made by the same smith (some signatures match multiple smiths, although in this case I feel subjectively that we are talking about one smith), that your sword is in good condition, that it matches the level of work of other examples, etc. etc.

 

And all of this is completely academic since we haven't seen the sword itself yet. The mounts are not the sword; the nakago is not the sword (though it's a very important part); the blade is the sword.

[Gabriel L]

Speaking of which... $1950 wakizashi, mumei, but several copies of reference mei. They look decently close to my (humble) eye.

[Mark]

i was just going on what i could see ( i realize there are no pictures of the blade). That is why i put such a large range. If the blade is not well made it should still bring close to $1000 on eBay as it is a signed katana in complete mounts, the flashy saya should help on eBay. Even if the blade appears well made the sword does not have a paper, is "out of the woodwork" so not in fresh polish, so i would think $3500 or so is about the max range. Maybe i am wrong, he asked for a value and i said it was a "guess". just trying to be helpful