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Could This Blade Pass Nbthk Juyo?


Heringsdorf

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Even jo saku smiths have blades going juyo. This blade is shin shinto. This is a drawback because Juyo is a competition and not only an exam pass on criteria. Juyo is not easy to obtain for shin shinto blades.

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i would agree with Arnold. While anything is possible it has been seen by the NBTHK and Mr Tanobe, any owner would have asked about the potential and submitted if it seemed positive. Shinshinto Juyo is rare, Korekazu is a decent smith but i don't think the same level as Kiyomaru, Motohira, Munetsugu, Naotane and others. I note Tsuruta-san says "he SOMETIMES made suguha", That gives me the idea it was not his main line work style. I would check the blades that passed Juyo and see how many were suguha. 

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By the way:  Is it ok for us to be discussing this?  It is for sale and i don't want to interfere with the sale. Is the rule about discussing "For Sale" items just for things listed here or elsewhere?  I want to follow the rules and not put the NMB in any potential difficulty. 

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If the sword is in Japan, it has a sayagaki from Tanobe sensei and TH papers it would seem to make sense for a vendor to submit for Juyo as it would add considerably to the potential sales value, or at the very least make a sale easier. However there are a number of factors to consider:

1. If you submit a sword and it passes you will lose it for anything between 6 months and a year. If you need to sell it that delay may cost you more than the potential added value of obtaining the paper.

2. If the sword has never been submitted there are those who might be tempted to pay a little more than for a blade that has been submitted and failed more just because it might go higher.

The key when considering this is to know the history of submission. There is a considerable difference between a TH sword that has never been submitted and one that has and failed.

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By the way:  Is it ok for us to be discussing this?  It is for sale and i don't want to interfere with the sale. Is the rule about discussing "For Sale" items just for things listed here or elsewhere?  I want to follow the rules and not put the NMB in any potential difficulty.

 

Yes I put this on hold, and will actually purchase this blade.

Thank you all for the info.

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they look at the quality of the individual item, then compare it with others of the same maker. If 5 blades by Korekazu are submitted the best of the 5 MAY pass Juyo, the other 4 will not. Maybe the next year the 4 others would be submitted again and the next best will pass, you never know what the competition will be in a given year

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they look at the quality of the individual item, then compare it with others of the same maker. If 5 blades by Korekazu are submitted the best of the 5 MAY pass Juyo, the other 4 will not. Maybe the next year the 4 others would be submitted again and the next best will pass, you never know what the competition will be in a given year

So if you submit a very good quality blade by a not so famous smith and, from whom there are very few blades still around, does that mean that you would have a good chance of it passing Juyo?

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I think if you do a search on the board you will find numerous discussions about what may or may not pass shinsa. Trying to pre-guess it or apply what seems logic doesnt always help that much.

The overiding factors are quality, condition and rarity. 

Mark's site lists the NBTHK definitions and criteria for achieving passes at the different levels.

If the panel is more forgiving of condition on koto blades the opposite is true on Shin-shinto. To pass it would have to be in extremely good condition and without fault. That is perhaps why so few juyo shin-shinto blades are seen

If you are buying it from Tsuruta san why not ask his opinion, he knows the process as well or better than anyone here.

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No, if you look at past shinsa you will see makers who regularly pass, they have a chance, if you have a maker who has only a blade or two that have passed on 50+ years the chance a blade by him will pass is very low. The NBTHK is very tradition oriented, you can have an excellent blade, the best of a average smiths work, something that is a knock out, he had a great day but it will not pass if he has not had a blade passed before. It will pass YuShu but not Juyo

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No, if you look at past shinsa you will see makers who regularly pass, they have a chance, if you have a maker who has only a blade or two that have passed on 50+ years the chance a blade by him will pass is very low. The NBTHK is very tradition oriented, you can have an excellent blade, the best of a average smiths work, something that is a knock out, he had a great day but it will not pass if he has not had a blade passed before. It will pass YuShu but not Juyo

By that logic how did the first blade pass?

There has to be a first!

 

So if quality, condition and rarity and history are criteria for passing Juyo, then why wouldn't a very good quality blade that's in top condition, signed, dated, name of the samurai who commissioned the blade engraved on the nakago and NBTHK Tokubetsu Hozon be a good start to try Juyo? Just because there is little known about the smith or there are only a handful of his blades still in circulation?

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I'm not really collecting at Juyo level (and wont be for a long long long time), so my advice is not that viable. I'd just recommend trying to enjoy the sword as it is and after studying it and comparing to works that passed Juyo by this smith, maybe give it a go in few years if you feel like it then.

 

Getting Juyo status does not change the actual sword in any way so you can enjoy it as much collecting point of view regardless of the papers it has. Of course Juyo status will affect the monetary value. I tend to view the world with collector glasses and business with swords ain't my strong suite.

 

Looks to be quite nice sword and I am sure you will be happy with it. :)

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A Kamakura period blade will always be considered more 'worthy of preservation' than a shinshinto blade even if it has some minor flaws, simply due to the age, quality of forging etc. And then within shinshinto, it has to compete with blades by the likes of Masahide, Naotane, Kiyomaro etc. like this blade for example http://katananokura.jp/SHOP/1406-K02.html

 

I hope some more knowledgeable collectors of Juyo/Juyo candidate blades would chime in here, on whether this blade is worth a punt at Juyo.

 

But at the end of the day, to put things in perspective, we appreciate the beauty of swords, not necessarily their level of paper.

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Then I really question the importance of Juyo certificates, if it's not really evaluating quality and rarity.

 

The papering system is long established. While far from perfect it offers some benefit. Most notably those who benefit the most are  dealers and people buying at distance. They have taken on greater significance as the way we buy swords has developed with the use of modern technology. They offer reassurance when buying at distance and unseen.

The worrying trend as has often been mentioned here is that people are focussing on the paper rather than the sword. With respect you are sounding as though you are doing the same. Did you buy the  sword because it appealed to you and you liked what you saw?or because you hoped it was a low cost route to obtain a juyo certificate?

At the moment you have asked a question and because the answer isn't what you hoped for you are now questioning the validity of the papering system.

I promise this is not a unique reaction and many have fallen in to that trap. However I think Jussi got it right, you bought a sword that you liked. Whether it obtains higher level papers or not will not change the sword a fraction.

To quote from the Juyo definition published by the NBTHK:

1)  Blades made in a period from Heian to Edo, having Tokubetsu Kicho, Koshu Tokubetsu Kicho, Hozon or Tokubetsu Hozon papers, of extremely high quality workmanship and state of preservation, and judged as close to Juyo Bijutsuhin, may receive Juyo Token paper.

2)  Blades that meet the criteria given above and made in or before Nambokucho may receive Juyo Token paper even if they are mumei. Blades made in Muromachi and Edo periods, as a rule, have to be ubu and zaimei to receive Juyo Token paper.”

 

This has recently been modified as Tokubetsu kicho are no longer recognised and a sword must have Tokubetau Hozon before being considered. I think this was because the NBTHK were recieving rather too many speculative submissions of swords with Hozon papers only.

All of the other factors are secondary considerations but do undoubtedly play a part. A sword that has seen 800 years and is one of 5 or 6 known to exist will be viewed differently to one that is 100 years old and one of many.

Enjoy your sword learn all you can about it and then if you feel it the right thing to do submit it and see what happens. You can spend for ever speculating and questioning but the only way to find out is to submit it.

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Hello:

 This thread may be pretty well exhausted as a lot of interesting and constructive stuff was discussed, but let me try to add one other dimension. It is correct as has been mentioned that quality, condition, rarity, the track record of various smiths and schools, and even the company a blade keeps for a given year when it goes to shinsa, all matter. We have been directed to the NBTHK criteria as can be found through Mark and Danny Massey's posted material, however there is sort of a "secret sauce" that gets stirred into the final mix, and that is the art-historical assessment of a blade that sometimes, perhaps most times, becomes a consideration. If you look at the published criteria I think you will find that they tend to operationalize features that gets the outcome fairly close to being determined for most blades, but everything is not rule driven.

 Only with reference to Japan we should recognize that the NBTHK is an artifact of a museum, and it has been created and managed for many years by men who essentially were scholars, such persons as Drs. Homma and Sato, and until recently, Tanobe sensei. All three major National Museums in Tokyo, Kyoto and Nara have a historical focus on research, collection and display. The same can be said of the Sano Museum in Shizuoka, headed by Ms. Watanabe, the Hayashibara Museum in Okayama, etc. There have been many other serious scholars with a deep appreciation of the times when a blade was made in Japan, sometimes private individuals like the late Dr. Fukunaga and Yoshikawa Koen, or dealers such as Iida sensei.

 The impact of the art-historical and scholarly bent to sword study in Japan has a real impact on Juyo assessment, not so much in criteria development, but literally in the statistical distribution of schools and smiths which receive Juyo or higher designations. In individual cases such a seeking of just where a blade "fits in" to the scheme of assessment will be revealed in the long and thorough sayagaki written by Tanobe sensei: a blade might be put in a particularly important historical episode; its horimono might suggest a smith's connection with another group, for example as Kunimichi's horimono ties him in more closely with the Mishina group than other Horikawa smiths; the robust Satsuma blades might connect  with Satsuma's opposition to the Tokugawa Shogunate, etc. All such things can't be put into a rule book, but when things of significant historical interest are seen, they can influence a Juyo decision outcome. Whether a suguba Korekazu triggers a plus, perhaps for some reason determining its rarity, or a negative impact, is impossible for most of us to know.

 Arnold F.

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