Bought my first Sword!

[ttruong]

Hey everyone found these forums after I bought my first samurai sword, I attached the photos below. Please let me know what you think appreciate any history or feedback on what I've gotten myself into.

 

Thanks

Tim

[Grey Doffin]

Heianjo Nagayoshi Saku.

Can't tell much from the pictures and I don't have the time now to research the smith, but it looks like a nice 1st sword.

Grey

[John A Stuart]

Heianjo Nagayoshi, looks pretty good. Do you know which generation? John

[ttruong]

Don't really know hoping someone could point me on in the right direction, the books to check out at the library etc.

[Lance]

There's actually a lot of information online if you just google Heianjo Nagayoshi. He was a well regarded smith and an excellent carver of horimono who worked during the late 1480's to early 1500's. He was also supposed to have been a teacher of the more famous smith Muramasa. If you look at the picture on the bottom of the page linked below there's a good example of Nagayoshi's as well as info about his school/lineage. and a signature to compare yours to. (just remember the more famous a sword smith the more skeptical your supposed to be...)

I also added another link to the same site with a sword by Muramasa where you can see how similar their swords were.

http://www.sho-shin.com/heianjo.htm

http://www.sho-shin.com/tokai2.htm

 

A good book to learn about judging swords in general is "The Connoisseur's book of Japanese Swords" by Kokan Nagayama.

JSSUS (Janese Sword Society of the United States) has a set of books:

"Sue Koto, Japanese Swords of the 15th and 16th Centuries by Yoshikawa Koen and others" is a great source of information, especially for $60

http://www.jssus.org/

Hope this is Helpful,

Lance

[Tcat]

Sugata looks pleasing, and the tsuba is quite charming, nice buy!

[runagmc]

Can you take a couple of closer pics of the edge of the blade? It almost looks like there is a very thin gunome hamon with hadori work making it look like a wider sugu hamon... or mabey I'm seeing things

[ttruong]

Just took some let me know what you think

[runagmc]

I saw it right after all... a thin gunome hamon. I was worried the hardened edge of the blade might have been lost in some area's by polishing, but it looks like it's still complete.

[ttruong]

Some other pics of the sword please let me know if you have any more information thanks!

[ttruong]

what do you guys think about the authenticity I just emailed these pics into an appraiser and he said they looked fake did I get jipped here?

[pcfarrar]

It's real, Meiji period "tourist" koshirae.

[Brian]

Yep, but the tsuba is better than the rest of the fittings, and the blade is earlier than the fittings.

You did ok.

 

Brian

[cabowen]

nakago doesn't appear too old....hard to say from the lighting.. shinshinto?

[ttruong]

I compared the signature to what it should look like and looks a little different does the style match Heianjo Nagayoshi's work or does it look like someone trying to pass off his work as someone elses?