High priced Hozon papered sword experiences

[Gerry]

I've seen quite a few Tokubetsu Hozon blades that have prices that surpass those of Juyo blades, but I rarely see Hozon blades over 1M yen.

 

An example is this 2.4M yen Hozon Kanesada katana is priced so high because of the smith: https://www.tsurugin...om/items/a00642.html

 

Has anyone else seen examples of Hozon blades over 1M yen or more?

[Lexvdjagt]

Happens quite often: https://www.aoijapan.com/search/?_sfm_paper=保存刀剣&_sfm_price=1000000+20000000

 

Just to show a few examples. Many expensive Hozon blades were made by famous smiths. Some Muramasa tanto can go for up to 3 million yen or more.

 

 

Greetings,

Lex

[Hoshi]

Worth re-reading: https://web.archive....o.com/ladder-theory/

 

Best,

 

Hoshi

[nihon]

https://nihontoart.c...d-healthy-wakizashi/

This muramasa wakizashi, sold though. Original asking price was $37.500 usd

[PNSSHOGUN]

16 minutes ago, Hoshi said:

Worth re-reading: https://web.archive....o.com/ladder-theory/

 

Best,

 

Hoshi

Particularly relevant:

Too expensive for Hozon

A long time ago in Japan a dealer showed me an ubu signed Awataguchi Hisakuni tachi and it was preserved in top condition. It was then, and still is now, one of the real treats of my life as a collector and one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

He said while the owner was alive he turned down an offer of about one million dollars for the blade. Now that he was dead, the family was selling it for half a million. I wished I had that money, I wished I could buy that sword.

He then looked at me and said, “Only Hozon. Too expensive for Hozon,” and we all had a good laugh. 

There is no limit to how high that blade could go in terms of papers… or of dollar value. That much should be self-evident to anyone who studies just a little bit and therein lies the joke that someone would put the papers ahead of this blade.

The owner’s family didn’t want it published so didn’t put it to Juyo. That blade could easily be Juyo Bunkazai if the owner wanted. But they stopped at Hozon, they just verified the signature and left it at that. 

Hozon tells you the bare minimum: the blade is antique, it is generally free of fatal flaws, the signature is accurate and here is the attribution or consensus about who made it.

Today this blade has still not been handed to Juyo. It was quietly sold to someone of great taste and financial backing and quietly resides somewhere to the great pleasure of the owner. They don’t need the higher level paper to tell them what it is as they already know.

[Jussi Ekholm]

I think in the past one factor was that you could submit the blade for Hozon & Tokubetsu Hozon at the same shinsa session. So of course it was logical for good quality items to send for both. Now in the current system you will need to send Hozon and Tokubetsu Hozon in different shinsa sessions. That might at least temporarily make some good items "just" Hozon before dealer or owner sends it for higher certification. As NBTHK currently has a monopoly in the certificate business and people like to seek higher papers it is logical that most good blades will go up in their certification system.

 

Here are some old references.

 

These two are to me extremely interesting items.

Yoshimoto tachi - dealer made this Tokubetsu Hozon afterwards but 0 effect on price. Asking price was 5,200,000 yen and this is my favorite of these items

https://www.samurai-...net/SHOP/V-1913.html

Hatakeda Sanemori tachi - this was for sale at 5,000,000 yen asking price, very cool item

https://web.archive....0/info/item/a428.htm

 

Now these 2 are not something I am too much into, to me it seems crazy how attribution to top smith can create a huge price.

 

Mumei katana attributed to Osafune Mitsutada, asking price was 6,900,000 yen

https://web.archive.....net/SHOP/O-630.html

Mumei katana attributed to Kiyomaro with 7,000,000 yen asking price (I was remembering 10M but it might have been another mumei Kiyomaro or my memory fails me as I don't track these more modern items)

https://www.aoijapan...ei-yamaura-kiyomaro/

 

There have been some other amazing items too but they have not have had a public price listed online so I have no idea about their asking price. Of course one thing to consider is that asking prices can vary a lot. There was a flawed Ōdachi with Hozon paper that I was looking out for but it went out of my budget and ended up going bit over 2,000,000 yen. However very quickly it landed to Japanese dealer who had it for 5,800,000 yen asking price, and it was gone super fast.

 

[Cola]

15 hours ago, Gerry said:

I've seen quite a few Tokubetsu Hozon blades that have prices that surpass those of Juyo blades, but I rarely see Hozon blades over 1M yen.

 

An example is this 2.4M yen Hozon Kanesada katana is priced so high because of the smith: https://www.tsurugin...om/items/a00642.html

 

Has anyone else seen examples of Hozon blades over 1M yen or more?

 

If I do the translation to euros (1M yen = 6200 euros), then plenty of local dealers ask more than that for hozon or unpapered blades. 

But perhaps they don't count for your question because they cannot easily be submitted for shinsa here?

 

https://kyodaiorigin...shi-in-the-year1973/

https://kyodaiorigin...74-with-nbthk-hozen/

https://www.samurai-...hi-nbthk-hozon-token

 

[Natichu]

2 hours ago, Jussi Ekholm said:

I think in the past one factor was that you could submit the blade for Hozon & Tokubetsu Hozon at the same shinsa session. So of course it was logical for good quality items to send for both. Now in the current system you will need to send Hozon and Tokubetsu Hozon in different shinsa sessions. That might at least temporarily make some good items "just" Hozon before dealer or owner sends it for higher certification. As NBTHK currently has a monopoly in the certificate business and people like to seek higher papers it is logical that most good blades will go up in their certification system.

 

Here are some old references.

 

These two are to me extremely interesting items.

Yoshimoto tachi - dealer made this Tokubetsu Hozon afterwards but 0 effect on price. Asking price was 5,200,000 yen and this is my favorite of these items

https://www.samurai-...net/SHOP/V-1913.html

Hatakeda Sanemori tachi - this was for sale at 5,000,000 yen asking price, very cool item

https://web.archive....0/info/item/a428.htm

 

Now these 2 are not something I am too much into, to me it seems crazy how attribution to top smith can create a huge price.

 

Mumei katana attributed to Osafune Mitsutada, asking price was 6,900,000 yen

https://web.archive.....net/SHOP/O-630.html

Mumei katana attributed to Kiyomaro with 7,000,000 yen asking price (I was remembering 10M but it might have been another mumei Kiyomaro or my memory fails me as I don't track these more modern items)

https://www.aoijapan...ei-yamaura-kiyomaro/

 

There have been some other amazing items too but they have not have had a public price listed online so I have no idea about their asking price. Of course one thing to consider is that asking prices can vary a lot. There was a flawed Ōdachi with Hozon paper that I was looking out for but it went out of my budget and ended up going bit over 2,000,000 yen. However very quickly it landed to Japanese dealer who had it for 5,800,000 yen asking price, and it was gone super fast.

 

Regarding the shinsa process, I had thought it was the opposite - that previously you had to submit twice to get TH, but could now submit once and have it evaluated at both levels. The NBTHK price listing (https://www.touken.or.jp/english/aboutus.html - see Shinsa Price List) seems to indicate you can do both at once. 

 

Interesting to see that I've gotten it backwards! Does anyone know when this shift happened? 

[Jussi Ekholm]

Thanks for correction Nathaniel.

 

I am bit ashamed that as a long time member I was clueless that they are accepting shinsa for Hozon & Tokubetsu Hozon at the same time again. I think things changed a bit during the Covid times. Pre-Covid I remember you could send for both items at the same time.

https://web.archive....ish/shinsa_fees.html

 

Then after Covid I think it might have been changed, as this is the shinsa page from 2023 and no mention of simultaneous send in.

https://web.archive....english/aboutus.html

 

As I have never sent items to NBTHK I haven't checked that closely as I don't intend to send items. I personally dislike the multiple level certification system but I understand their reasons for it.

 

[Gerry]

17 hours ago, Hoshi said:

Worth re-reading: https://web.archive....o.com/ladder-theory/

 

Best,

 

Hoshi

Thanks for sharing. this is certainly useful read.

[Natichu]

38 minutes ago, Jussi Ekholm said:

Thanks for correction Nathaniel.

 

I am bit ashamed that as a long time member I was clueless that they are accepting shinsa for Hozon & Tokubetsu Hozon at the same time again. I think things changed a bit during the Covid times. Pre-Covid I remember you could send for both items at the same time.

https://web.archive....ish/shinsa_fees.html

 

Then after Covid I think it might have been changed, as this is the shinsa page from 2023 and no mention of simultaneous send in.

https://web.archive....english/aboutus.html

 

As I have never sent items to NBTHK I haven't checked that closely as I don't intend to send items. I personally dislike the multiple level certification system but I understand their reasons for it.

 

Certainly not intends as a correction Jussi - as far as I'm concerned, you're much more likely to be right than I am! I figured I had things backwards. Maybe one of the forums more knowledgeable agents/vendors will be able to weigh in to set us straight one way or the other. 

[Gerry]

Thanks for all the insightful replies, and once again, the breadth of knowledge on this forum is amazing.

[Gerry]

This topic also brings up another question I have.

 

With the hobby of appreciating nihonto, how much of the value and perceived quality of a blade is due to subjective vs objective reasons?

 

For example, with my limited knowledge, objectively, collectors look at the tightness and color of the jigane, the activity in the hamon, the physical balance of the blade, no kizu/ware, etc.

 

However, there are subjective aspects also, such as the sori, the pattern of the jigane, the overall shape of the blade, the hamon style, etc.

 

Do seasoned collectors generally agree on the combination of subjective and objective aspects of a blade to determine its value? Or do they have quite varying degrees of preference? I guess that's where the papers come in, to give a consistency in the appraisal of a blade.

[Robert S]

On the purely subjective side, there are those, like me, who are interested in aesthetics only, and don't particularly care about papers, attributions, value...  Mind you, we run a grave risk of being the greater fool in the market as a result, but as long as we're playing with "who cares" money, that's OK.  It's not that I'm not fascinated by attributions, and the historical knowledge which is so rich on this forum, but I wouldn't buy a blade with all the papers and attribution in the world if it didn't appeal to me at an aesthetic,  non-intellectual level.

[Gerry]

I'm in the same mind of thought as you...as with anything to do with art, the item has to elicit an emotional pull. All the swords I've purchased have had to excite me on an emotional level above anything else, so that I get a sense of enjoyment whenever I hold the sword.