muramasa sect?

[drjoe]

i'm a novice, but a number of things caught me eye on this blade that seem unusual. the nakago seems to be in awfully good condition for a muromachi era blade (though maybe it's just the camera flash), and is the polish an acid wash?

 

anyway, quite an interesting hamon with the hitatsura/tobiyaki.

 

not thinking about buying it or anything, just want to learn and i would be grateful to hear comments.

 

ttp://www.ebay.com/itm/JP-Sword-Tobiyak ... 1c21913455

[Pete Klein]

Joe -- that link does not work.

[drjoe]

oops -- looks like i left of the first "ht"

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/JP-Sword-Tobiya ... 1c21913455

[Curran]

That one hit a few branches falling out of the Ugly Tree.

[leo]

Hey Joe,

as this sale is still running and the seller did not make false statements or promises, you will not get many comments on this. What you get is what you see, an antique blade with antique koshirae, no more, no less. If you like it and the price is low, buy it and put it on a stand. You will not have to invest in restoration costs!

 

Regards,

Martin

[drjoe]

Hey Joe,

as this sale is still running and the seller did not make false statements or promises, you will not get many comments on this. What you get is what you see, an antique blade with antique koshirae, no more, no less. If you like it and the price is low, buy it and put it on a stand. You will not have to invest in restoration costs!

 

Regards,

Martin

 

i see, thanks for familiarizing me with the rules. as i said, i'm not looking to buy it -- it caught my eye as an odd looking piece, and i am just trying to learn more about what i'm seeing. maybe i will get more comments when it's done in 4 days.

[uwe]

...........maybe i will get more comments when it's done in 4 days.

 

That's quite possible

Uwe

[runagmc]

Brian can correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think there was a forum rule against discussing items that are for sale or auction on the internet. The way I see it, if a person sells honestly, they have nothing to worry about.

 

This forum is about the study and preservation of Nihonto, so... if a person wants to ask questions about a public sale or auction, I don't see anything wrong with that. And if somebody on this forum gives biased or bad advise, you can be pretty sure another forum member will correct it. That's the beauty of the forum... our combined knowledge and experience is much greater than our seperate knowledge and experience.

 

This sword has bad rust pits that don't look like they would polish out, while still maintaining a healthy shape. Just my opinion... Also looks like a very half-assed dress up polish

[Guido]

The sword looks Yakinaoshi to me.

[runagmc]

It does have an unusual roughness in the ha buchi like rough nie, plus the hamon runs off well before the machi... could be saiha. Really, the rust pits are so bad I don't know if it matters. They could mabey be polished out, but not without ruining the shape...

[drjoe]

there are several things that looked "wrong" to me about this blade, and i was trying to articulate and confirm what i was seeing with my untrained eyes...

 

first, the blade has obviously large pits that weren't polished out, despite what looks like a fairly recent polish. but overall it looks odd to me, like maybe an acid etch, though the boshi is hard to make out and it disappears before the machi. so what is going on with the polish and the apperance of the hamon here?

 

the tobiyaki/hitatsura (i never know which term to use in these cases) doesn't really look intentional to me -- it looks sloppy and weird, like the clay lifted off. i was wondering what to make of that, and whether it made sense given the school/smith that is being claimed.

 

and finally, the overall feel of the blade, the difficulty in seeing the hada, and the appearance of the nakago made me wonder whether it is likely to be a koto blade. and i wondered whether anything was known about the mei, assuming it is accurate, that might help to date/identify it.

[Brian]

Ferric chloride I think...not acid. Etched.

 

Brian

[uwe]

......yokote line

Uwe

[Jamie]

IMO studying good swords will teach you more than looking at swords in bad shape such as this. However, I too have done this. Like any custom work good blades don't come cheap in most cases. One good one will teach what ten bad ones won't though.

[leo]

The deep rust pits are not difficult to detect and stated in the sellers description. This makes a restoration useless as I said before.

The way the hamon starts, yakinaoshi might be possible, but I am not sure. Still, the hamon looks like made by hardening(yakiire) and not by etching. I looks a bit enhanced though, maybe by chloride as Brian indicated.

[drjoe]

The deep rust pits are not difficult to detect and stated in the sellers description. This makes a restoration useless as I said before.

The way the hamon starts, yakinaoshi might be possible, but I am not sure. Still, the hamon looks like made by hardening(yakiire) and not by etching. I looks a bit enhanced though, maybe by chloride as Brian indicated.

 

that was my mistake on terminology. i didn't really mean "acid etched," i meant enhanced with something like FeCl or acetic acid. thanks for confirming my suspicions on that part.

 

any comments on the hitatsura other than the possibility of yaki-naoshi?

 

what about the alleged attribution?

[runagmc]

As you suspected, the hamon shows a lack of control in places rather than intentional activity.