Kawachi no Kami Kunisuke o-tanto, gimei?

Dear All,

another ko-wakizashi (or o-tanto) from my collection you might want to see - if I am wrong, just ignore this post :-)

With my limited knowledge I simply have to assume that all unpapered signed swords are gimei, I make this assumption for this piece too. I would like to ask you your opinion about the tanto in general and the mei, too. Attached are some pics (shot by the seller) and the measurements:

Total length: 43.8cm or 16 7/8 inch

Cutting edge: 32.2 cm or 12 5/8 inch 

Sori: 0.6 cm or 3/8 inch

Best regards

Good evening,

I think this mei false for the shodai, nidai and sandai Kunisuke. The work and graphics are not in the style.

What type of hamon is this? i have a badly rusted blade around here with a hamon that i think might look just like this one. looking good either way, Marius!

Remy

Hi remzy, That would be hakomidareba. John

Hi,

Maybe i'm wrong, but i think that this hamon looks like Uma-no-ha.

Heres a link i found while searching for what you said Jacques, looks close to the hamon we have here! http://www.japanesesword.com/Images/Swords/06/1106/1106wak3/1106wak3.html altho this one look kind of shiny...

Main difference lays in the Tani pattern

Heres a link i found while searching for what you said Jacques, looks close to the hamon we have here! http://www.japanesesword.com/Images/Swords/06/1106/1106wak3/1106wak3.html altho this one look kind of shiny...

Remy,

I'll take some close-ups today so that we will see the features of the hamon, whch has sunagashi. Also the hada on the sword you have shown us (its muji to me) is different from what my tanto has.

Best regards

Hi Jean, So you are saying that the tani in this case are too round to be hako ? so thus umano ? John

Dear All,

attached are some pics of the "Kunisuke" tanto I have promised. What do you make of this hamon and hada?

Thanks for looking. I appreciate your comments very much - an excellent opportunity for me to learn :-)

Best regards

Yes John, a bit to roundish, have a look at the following link for hamon/ hako:

http://home.earthlink.net/%7Esteinrl/terms/terms.htm

deleted my post, as link to pictures is not active any more....

Hi Jean, Yes I have those on my HD and did refer to them last eve. Wow, so close, I don't see too much difference really, just the rounded tani. The gums of the teeth I guess. Right on. :lol: John

Hi John,

Let's Give back to Caesar (Jacques) what belongs to Caesar (Jacques), he is the one who mentionned it, I only stressed the differences...

Sure, I was saying 'right on' for showing me what I had missed. So, thanks both. John

Hi,

Here an exemple of hako midare wich is a "speciality" of the Kanewaka school:

Jacques,

do you think this tanto comes from the same school? The hako-midare is much more regular on my tanto.

Also, why would someone place a false mei on a sword which is so characteristic, then? Was Kawachinokami Kunisuke a swordsmith whose mei would be worth putting on a good sword (I reckon this tanto is good, isn't it?)

Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles...

Best regards

Mariuszk,

On your tanto the hamon is uma-no-ha (horse tooth) not hako midare (box shaped)

About Kunisuke, he was a great smith and his mei was often false (d?)

Kunisuke worked with a hamon ko notare mixed with gunome. and his nakago jiri was ha-hagari jiri and not kuijiri.

Mariuszk,

 

On your tanto the hamon is uma-no-ha (horse tooth) not hako midare (box shaped)

 

About Kunisuke, he was a great smith and his mei was often false (d?)

 

Kunisuke worked with a hamon ko notare mixed with gunome. and his nakago jiri was ha-hagari jiri and not kuijiri.

Jacques,

many thanks. Since my library is in my house and I am away from it, I have only managed to look for Kunisuke in "The Connoisseur's Book of Japanese Swords" which I have at hand. I have indeed found him, so he was ceratinly above Chu-Saku.

Another gimei blade in my collection, then. Never mind, I like the blade, be it only for the horse-tooth hamon

I have bought it three years ago (I knew even less than now back then The seller has told me:

"I can guarantee the Kunisuke as shinmei 100% textbook mei and all the characteristics on the sword are correct"

Seems he was either not very knowledgeable or simply hm... dressing ups his sword...

Thanks again for your help and best regards

Hi,

For pleasure a good Kunisuke (tokuho)

http://homepage2.nifty.com/FUJITOKEN/page053.html

This seller is a crook. Put his name on your black-list.

reinhard

Who do you mean Reinhard; Fujitoken? John

I don't know who the seller was and it doesn't matter to me. This sword's characteristics and its mei are so far from from Naka-Kawachi's and his father's, that claiming this to be "100% textbook" is obviously an attempt to find a victim and can hardly be explained by ignorance.

Just trying to do Mariusz a favour.

reinhard

I don't know who the seller was and it doesn't matter to me. This sword's characteristics and its mei are so far from from Naka-Kawachi's and his father's, that claiming this to be "100% textbook" is obviously an attempt to find a victim and can hardly be explained by ignorance.

Just trying to do Mariusz a favour.

Reinhard,

I do appreciate it. I bought the sword three years ago, at the beginning of my nihonto passion. I have also bought the "kuniyuki" tanto from the same seller (there is another thread on that one). He was describing the Kuniyuki as gimei, so I have found him trustworthy. He might not have known better with this Kunisuke gimei, anyway. He is not selling swords anymore, as far as I know.

Today my knowledge is not much bigger that it was back then, but I know that an unpapered, signed blade is gimei. I would have bought this tanto anyway, because I think it is a good sword.

What do you think? was it worth buying?

Best regards

What about the 4th generation Kunisuke Kun1202?

Shinto era, I haven't looked up his mei yet.

Either way, it is a nice looking tanto with decent hataraki, nice unusual hamon and looks very healthy. You shouldn't be trying to find a value on it, because a value guide just does not exist. If you like it, and enjoy the blade, then it is worth it.

Something is only worth what someone else will pay for it. I think $2K is a reasonable price for a sword like this. Someone else may think it is expensive..and someone else might think it is a bargain. Even if it was mumei, I frequently see nice tanto like this selling for over that figure, so you did ok IMO.

But enjoy it yourself for what it is.

Brian

Hi Brian.

Seems to me that the rant of Reihnard is more about the attribution of

the blade and hence the reliability of the seller rather then the price.

The use of "Textbook" is something usually isn't referred to lesser

generations...

I can't see the link from work, anyway and my PC is out of order again

by several days...

I agree with your comments about tastes.

What about the 4th generation Kunisuke Kun1202?

Shinto era, I haven't looked up his mei yet.

Brian,

Spot on! :-)

I have dug out the seller's description of this tanto and this is exactly whom he atrributes this tanto to:

"There were four generations of smiths who signed Kawachi No Kami Kunisuke. This signature and work style is similar to the yondai or fourth generation who worked during the Shinto period about 1711.

The fourth generation of Kunisuke is rated Chujosaku by Fujishiro. He is said to have learned from Kuniteru because of the early passing of the second generation of Kunisuke. His work is a distinctive gunome with long ashi as demonstrated in this tanto.

This tanto has a very distinctive gunome temper in nioi decki, a nice well worked mokume hada with itame mixed in. There is a very fine swept sand finish in the gunome patterns that I could not show in the photographs. The boshi is a jizo with long strands of nie and a long turn back. The nakago is ubu, one mekugi ana, file marks are o-sujikai yasuri, and the nakago is finished kuri jiri. The tang has a five character mei, and the sword is mounted in original old shirasaya. "

So said the seller. Do you think he was right?

Best regards

Hi,

So said the seller. Do you think he was right?

No, the work is too different with the earlier generations, sugata, kitae, hamon etc...

An oshigata of the yondai Kunisuke.

for better comparison...

Hi Mariusz,

As you may know, there were several generations of smiths using the professional name of Kawachi-no-Kami KUNISUKE in Osaka during Edo-period. The most famous among them was "Naka Kawachi" KUNISUKE. "Naka" meaning "middle", for he was born in between the first and the third generation KUNISUKE. First generation KUNISUKE was a student of Horikawa KUNIHIRO and the quality of his work varies quite strongly. "Naka Kawachi" was an outstanding craftsman and his work is very highly esteemed and much sought after.

Ogasawara-sensei writes: "The professional name KUNISUKE was used for several generations, but the works identified with later generations (i.e.after the nidai) have proven to be considerably inferior to those of earlier masters (i.e. the first and second generation)."

I checked the first three generations of KUNISUKE, who are well documented and your blade is definitely not by one of them. The later generations of KUNISUKE (from the 4th generation onward) aren't of any importance and there is hardly any material to be found (for obvious reasons). It is not even clear, how many of those later generations existed.

By the way, Carlo got it right: My comments are always about swords. Never about prices.

reinhard