Kodachi and uchigatana

[Jacques]

Hi,

 

Hello,

 

An Uchigatana with a nakago of 20.3 cm?

 

/Martin

 

With such a nakago, i would call it katana, uchigatana was intended to be used with one hand only.

[hxv]

Hi Martin and Jacques,

 

I am a bit bothered by how long the nakago is, too, but don't know how to deal with this issue. It's ubu - no question about that. Would it be proper to call this sword a ko katana then?

 

Regards,

Hoanh

[Jean]

It is not ubu or should not be.

[hxv]

Hi Jean,

 

I don't understand your remark. Will you please expand on it?

 

Regards,

Hoanh

[Jean]

Two questions:

 

What does mean, ubu?

 

Have you ever seen ubu sword with ha machi/mune machi not aligned?

[Jacques]

Hi,

 

Jean, if you look at the picture named suguta, you will see that the machi are well placed.

[runagmc]

I thought katate-uchigatana was the term for a one handed slashing sword, and uchigatana could refer to any daito with shorter nagasa, designed for slashing, regardless of the nakago length? Normally when you see the term uchigatana it IS for a daito with short nagasa and short nakago, but that's just because short nagasa daito with two handed nakago aren't very common, so the distiction of one handed (katate) is normally not necessary.

 

So would it be wrong to call a sword like Hoanh's with an "uchigatana" style blade and two handed nakago an uchigatana? If so, why is the distiction of katate-uchigatana needed at all, if ALL uchigatana have to be one handed?

[Jean]

Jacques,

 

Even in suguta they seem to be not strictly aligned. Even with distortion, how can one take a picture of a nakago from above, including the machi and having the hamachi so shifted. How can appear such distortion? They appear in both pictures under the suguta one.

 

Here is the answer of Hoanh:

 

Jean: You are right about the munemachi and the hamachi not lining up.

 

Question: Hoanh, are in reality both machi aligned, or not (we are not talking about your pictures)?

[runagmc]

Jean, even if they weren't aligned, I have seen swords that I would consider ubu that have had the hamachi repaired, moving it forward slightly...

[hxv]

 

Hi Jean and Jacques,

 

OK, I understand the question now - with the sword's *ACTUAL* alignment of the hamachi and munemachi, not about my artistic talent with combining pictures. In reality, with the sword in hand, the hamachi and munemachi do match up well. Above is another picture of the nakago. When I combine the pictures, they appear not to match up due to my lack of proficiency with pictures.

 

BTW, ubu means unaltered, and the nakago is unquestionably unaltered, as I can see the sword in hand.

 

Regards,

Hoanh

[Jean]

Adam,

 

Not by NBTHK, furthermore, dangerous if there is not a new custom made habaki, it depends of course of the shift.

 

Pictures are so deceiptive, even with the last picture provided by Hoanh, they are not aligned. Hamachi should be more to the left.

 

Anyway, just to say that ubu means that in no case hamachi has been moved since the blade has been forged (all things remaining unchanged from the date of forge) or the blade is hamachi okurin and the nakago not anymore ubu.

 

It is possible that the blade was forge like this and in this case it is ubu

 

Here are a few examples of what I call machi aligned so you can compare

[Jacques]

Hi,

 

No matter machi are perfectly aligned or not, what suggests the whole sugata ? Personally, based on that poor pictures, i wonder if this sword is koto or not. If it is not a koto one, it is neither kodachi nor uchigatana.

[Jean]

Too out of focus pictures to try to date the blade. Hamon reminds me of Ishido school.

[runagmc]

Adam,

 

Not by NBTHK, furthermore, dangerous if there is not a new custom made habaki, it depends of course of the shift.

 

So, in a case where the corner of the hamachi broke off, and it had to be filed square agian, what would the NBTHK call that? Machi-okuri, hamachi-okuri, suriage?

 

The reason I ask is this post, viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2377&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=shinobi+ana&start=15

 

Nobody is correct. One of my first blades that I took to an NTHK shinsa was what I thought to be an ubu wakizashi. The worksheet came back suriage. I thought for sure this was a mistake.

 

Yoshikawa sensei then pointed out that the hamachi was moved up one CM or so shortening the blade although the nakago was not shortened.

 

Therefore Suriage.

 

mike

[cabowen]

The above is not correct.

 

If the blade is shortened by cutting the nakago and moving up the ha and mune machi, it is suriage. It is o-suriage if there is little to nothing left of the original nakago.

 

If the machi are moved forward only, without cutting off any of the nakago, this is machi-okuri, not suriage. Sometimes a very small amount of the nakago can be removed and it is overlooked.

 

These days, at least at the NTHK-NPO, slight machi-okuri blades are still considered ubu....Others may view this differently.

[hxv]

Hi Everyone,

 

After some fiddling around, I managed to take better pictures. I don't know if the pics are good enough to dating the blade approximately, but they are better than before.

 

Regards,

Hoanh

[sanjuro]

Maybe its just me, and my gears are starting to slip in my advance toward venerability, but this nakago just doesnt look right to me. It appears firstly to be curved slightly toward the ha. This may be a photographic effect of course. However, secondly the nakago appears to be too long for an uchigatana. A much later sword maybe, but not a koto blade may have this feature. If it is shinto then it cant be an uchigatana as has been observed. The pics are still not high enough res to make any call on the quality. An overall pic of the sugata would help a lot.

[hxv]

Hi Keith,

 

Here is a pic of the overall shape. In the mean time, I'll make another attempt at hi res pics.

 

Regards,

Hoanh

[hxv]

Hi Keith,

 

I tried taking close up pictures of small segments of the blade. The pics are in good focus and I didn't have to degrade the resolution. If they still are not sufficiently hires, then my lens is probably not good enough for the job.

 

Regards,

Hoanh

[sanjuro]

Hi Hoanh.

 

Better pictures... Thanks. This blade strikes me as a late Momoyama Katana rather than an Uchigatana. The sugata is reminiscent of a few similar katana I have seen from that period, and the nakago is far more katana-like than an uchigatana usually presents. Koshi sori says koto and the steel and apparent quality also point to a Momoyama date. Theres a few small openings in the hada which are also reminiscent of meduim quality work of this period after a few polishes have reduced the surface steel. In a way the forging is a little rough, which suggests a sword of the Sengoku Jidai by a competent maker but produced to a lower quality or a lower price. Not uncommon in that period.

The above is merely my impression and of course others may not agree. Kantei is a difficult enough process even when the sword is in hand. Kantei by photograph is for the very brave or the very confident. An interesting blade though.

[hxv]

Thank you Keith. Very interesting analysis! I suppose 23.5" is on the very short end of the katana range, so it's still acceptable to call it a katana. The hamon is not sophisticated, but pleasing to look at.

 

Regards,

Hoanh