Questions about Tanto

[Jussi Ekholm]

I am not qualified to say anything about the language. However I personally believe that was the way it was historically written in signatures. I have probably viewed thousands of KaneX signatures from various sources and that is just by far the most common style.

 

Kashū Kanewaka smiths seem to have used form like this.

 

Very unknown to me smith Mino Kanesada from 1699. He used the very rare form that looks like the modern style.

 

 

Another very unknown smith to me Kanemune dated 1870. Also looks like the modern form.

 

 

 

魚 seems to be featured in signatures extremely rarely. Here is a signature from 1489 that has it. However the form is completely different than modern version. The line is written as 為魚住又四郎実安. As NBTHK has identified the characters I can type it, however if I see an oshigata like this and no proper Japanese description I would just put X for this character as I cannot read it.

 

 

[Jacques]

There is no 魚道 listed in the Nihonto meikan. 兼道 is engraved on the nakago of this tanto and nothing else. I would add the kanji 魚 reads  GYO or SAKANA;  

 

Different ways of writing Kane 兼

 

[Markus]

As Jacques pointed out, just a different way of writing KANE (兼).

 

There is even a term for that, uokane, when the KANE (兼) character resembles that for "fish" (魚, Japanese: uo/gyo/sakana).

[Tcat]

1 hour ago, Jacques D. said:

There is no 魚道 listed in the Nihonto meikan. 兼道 is engraved on the nakago of this tanto and nothing else. I would add the kanji 魚 reads  GYO or SAKANA;  

 

Different ways of writing Kane 兼

 

Ok thanks Jacques, this graphic is very helpful and better shows a spread of variations…

 

1 hour ago, Markus said:

As Jacques pointed out, just a different way of writing KANE (兼).

 

There is even a term for that, uokane, when the KANE (兼) character resembles that for "fish" (魚, Japanese: uo/gyo/sakana).

Markus, thank you for checking in to this thread. This is really interesting and explains a lot.

 

Thanks to all for the learning opportunity, it’s really appreciated.

[Bugyotsuji]

In Jussi’s post photo 4 above, the dedication to Kanezumi may reflect the unusual way the potential client wrote his name, rather than how the KaneX smiths inscribed their own.

[Jussi Ekholm]

You are correct Piers the sword in question was made by Masanori (政則) and what I have read he was Daimyō Akamatsu Masanori. I have few reference signatures by him and they all feature multiple lines in signature. I was just aiming to show how extremely rare character 魚 is in signatures.

[Bugyotsuji]

That's very interesting, Jussi, thank you. Fought for the Hosokawa!

https://en.wikipedia...ki/Akamatsu_Masanori

 

(Temporary off-topic warning. Nothing to do with the price of fish, but I have a tanto made by a Daimyo. Yours has increased my known numbers of such smiths by one!) 

[Shugyosha]

1 hour ago, Bugyotsuji said:

Nothing to do with the price of fish...

 

I see what you did there...