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Your Thoughts About This Sword?

nagamaki - Franco

By nagamaki - Franco
in Nihonto

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paulb Grand Master

paulb

Posted
Posted

I am with Michael, I think this is beautiful sword. 1st generation tends to be overshadowed by his son. I have seen work by the second generation which is staggeringly beautiful, this may not quite be to that standard but the very tight itame hada looks very much like shinkai and I think you can see the lineage.

The hamon looks a bit "blousy" and overactive for my taste, but it looks well constructed and rich in nie, as you might expect from a good Osaka smith. Shape is again what you would expect not exceptional but not unpleasing to the eye.

Although not my main line of interest I would be happy to include it in my collection.

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Shugyosha Grand Master

Shugyosha

Posted
Posted

Hi Franco,

 

Nice is a longer than usual, juyo blade by a highly ranked smith. 

 

The detractors for me are the machiokuri, what looks like some o hada, or at least inconsistent hada, in the first third of the ura and what might be a fukure in the mono uchi area of the omote but is probably just a slight kitae ware that follows the grain in an oval shape.

 

Other than that, as Axel says, it's hard to argue with the paper, though if I were about to drop this kind of money I would probably be looking elsewhere as the blade doesn't really make me go wow!, but that's a personal thing.

 

So what am I missing?

 

Best,

John

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paulb Grand Master

paulb

Posted
Posted

To expand my original comments a little further

One of the things that struck me about the Shinkai I looked at was the incredible clarity of the ji-nie. It looked 3 dimensional, as though you were looking through the surface. I decribed it at the time as looking down into a frozen pool, a description I don't doubt that  has been used before. I dont see evidence of that effect on this sword. it may be the image or the polish or maybe it just isn't there. I think that is one of the things that distinguish the 2nd from the 1st generation.

The jigane is very like the Shinkai I saw (less the bright nie) and Osaka jigane is very beautiful.

Would I like the sword to study? Yes. Would I pay 5 million yen for it (assuming I had it)? No, there are many older works I would much rather have.

I think at his best this smith is considered amongst the better Osaka smiths, if not top tier at least fairly close and this may be one of his better works.

The fact it achieved Juyo suggests the shinsa panel regarded it as both representative of his work and of sufficient quality. I think it is one that would benefit from Hands on examination.

Having said all that I think I could get a good Rai blade or Osafune work for that amount of money and I would probably enjoy them more

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Gakusee Mentor

Gakusee

Posted
Posted

While Osaka Shinto is not my chosen area of collecting as well, I would like to insert some observations why I think it is a very good blade :

- very healthy (look at the boshi, thickness etc)

- rather long (people here on the board tend to go into overdrive over swords longer than 70cm)

- zaimei (very well executed on that) relatively famous smith

- lovely, flamboyant hamon (I know Paul prefers his Yamashiro suguha with koashi:) but that is a personal taste factor so I cannot impose my ostentatious-hamon predilections on people

- typical features (yakidoshi)

- jigane is fairly good (though not outstanding; agree on some of Paul's and John's observations) even if it is not interspersed with a plethora of konie or jinie. Jigane could be very good or attractive without too much nie in it by the way. In contradiction to some of the posts, I think I can see enough nie on the sword and Tsuruta san mentions several times it has jinie.

- rather decent hataraki to learn from

- actually priced not at 5m yen but 4.5m yen

 

On the negative sides: indeed a fukure or two, somewhat rather toppy indicated initial price (but that could be negotiated down as we all know if we cite some of the reasons mentioned in this thread), a rough patch or two on the hada (but not too many).

 

I am not sure how much of this is permitted given that this is a sword for sale and not sold yet but if the moderators feel we have breached some rules they can hopefully rectify our transgressions.

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