Appraiser for this Kinzogan Mei kao

[Lewis B]

Does anyone recognise the Kinzogan Mei Kao and attribute it to a specific appraiser. The style seems quite unique. 

 

 

On the Omote side there is Uda Kunifusa Kinzogan mei

[PNSSHOGUN]

Can't help with the appraiser, but it does appear rather crude by comparison to other Kinzogan.

[Bruce Pennington]

@Markus might be able to help.  I went through his list of Honami kao for sayagaki HERE, but it's hard to go from the hand-drawn kao to this nakago style.  Here are some that are close:

[Shugyosha]

Hi Lewis,

It might be my eyes, but there seems to be something odd about this mei: all of the characters, including the kao are combinations of both kinpun and kinzogan methods. This seems strange to me as it's not something I've ever noticed elsewhere - I've only ever known them to be one thing or the other but, again, that might just be me. If one were to adopt a suspicious view of this, it looks like someone has chiselled some strokes and left them unfilled to suggest that its an old attribution and that the gold has been lost and then added in the other strokes with a brush.

 

If this is a sword you're thinking of buying, I think I'd be treating this attribution with a good deal of circumspection - the "kao" seems to be a combination of half a kanji and half seal which again just seems odd to me - looking at the Hon'ami kao that Bruce has posted, they may be derived from kanji, but tend not to be direct reproductions of them and I'm sure that the top half of the kao is part of a kanji but I can't pin down which one. Again, this might be my ignorance leading me down a certain route but there are some warning signs there for me and I'm not convinced that the patina on the tang is genuine either, but that might just be the photos.

 

 

@PNSSHOGUN Hi John, these really tidy gold attributions are kinpun rather than kinzogan mei and a bunch of them have cropped up on swords recently and I feel that they are someone getting creative by suggesting that a mumei blade is perhaps something it isn't - I suspect that they are relatively easily applied by painting over a template or are some kind of transfer and the gold attributions usually aren't supported by papers.

 

Edit: the "fusa" doesn't look very much like the actual kanji either - 房 - it lacks the horizontal stroke at the top and has a vertical one instead, it might be a variation but it would be another thing that would point me towards disregarding this mei.

[Lewis B]

This is not a tanto I'm planning to purchase. It was offered to me for 800,000 yen but I had my doubts from the getgo regarding the style and application. As you remarked John, the style is quite atypical. Of particular concern is the bottom kanji with the right curve element being made of two individual gold pieces. I would expect a single piece of gold with file marks. In my experience this is not a good sign.  I initially saw the jiba and found it very fine and attractive with possibly influence of Norishige.