What Is Your Opinion?

[Jean]

https://www.aoijapan.com/katana-moritsugu-ko-aoe-nbthk-62th-juyo-paper

[paulb]

well it's another example of thinking you are getting a handle on something and then prove you know absolutely nothng!

As said in earlier posts I have had the chance to look in considerable detail at a chu-Aoi blade over now nearly 10 years. It is decribed as having classic chirimen hada of the Aoe school. It looks nothing like this swords jigane.

Also according to the NBTHK dan utsuri appeared in the late Kamakura/nambokucho as did saka choji with backward slanting ashi.

All the Ko-Aoe swords (and most chu-Aoe) I have seen first hand have much tighter hada than this and jifu.

So what conclusion can de draw. The authenticating bodies are inconsistant/ We (me) are interpretting their descriptions too literally and not allowing for variation

Or as I fear I am wasting my time trying to understand this subject!

 

Images of Chirimen hada from Aoe Tsunetsugu from late kamakura

 

 

[Darcy]

Jussi illustrated well what I am talking about. I think in this case even more dramatic. 

 

Aoi has the blade up now and says that it has only part of the boshi. I think the entire boshi was so compromised that someone moved the yokote back pretty far and kind of did a "suriage at the top" on this one. Because half a boshi is better than none and you can get something back by doing this. 

 

It's done all the time in small ways to balance out damage. But these old blades sometimes the boshi was made so thin to begin with that they don't handle damage too well and immediately you get a compromised situation, or it just polishes away without even being damaged. 

 

In context it's important to know because the kissaki shape influences attribution. So you need to know if the kissaki has been rebuilt and how it will affect your call.

 

Ko-Aoe Moritsugu is the son of the founder Yasutsugu and is a big name in Aoe. So about parallel to Ko-Aoe Masatsune. I had pointed out that this level of maker you can pass Juyo even with a fatal flaw like the boshi in this case, so it's something to bear in mind always. Always.

 

Rai Kunitoshi is not enough age and a no-boshi Rai Kunitoshi won't pass. Heian it is a bit more flexible, Heian and a master smith and it will go but it won't go Tokuju. 

[Darcy]

well it's another example of thinking you are getting a handle on something and then prove you know absolutely nothng!

As said in earlier posts I have had the chance to look in considerable detail at a chu-Aoi blade over now nearly 10 years. It is decribed as having classic chirimen hada of the Aoe school. It looks nothing like this swords jigane.

Also according to the NBTHK dan utsuri appeared in the late Kamakura/nambokucho as did saka choji with backward slanting ashi.

All the Ko-Aoe swords (and most chu-Aoe) I have seen first hand have much tighter hada than this and jifu.

So what conclusion can de draw. The authenticating bodies are inconsistant/ We (me) are interpretting their descriptions too literally and not allowing for variation

Or as I fear I am wasting my time trying to understand this subject!

 

Images of Chirimen hada from Aoe Tsunetsugu from late kamakura

 

aoejp1.jpg

Aoe4.jpg

 

 

I remember going through this when I read books and the books told me that Yamato swords were masame, Soshu swords were itame, and Bizen swords were mokume. Then when I looked at real world examples they all were somewhat interchangeable. 

 

That's when I realized that the books talk about archetypes. If you see a pure masame you have a Yamato Hosho most likely and it's like 1 in 50 Yamato blades. Most Bizen swords come out as itame as well with pure mokume being fairly rare.

 

I don't think you need to throw out what you think you know, it's just that whatever is written you need to take with a grain of salt for a few reasons:

 

1. if they don't generalize then there is almost nothing to talk about ... you can see utsuri on almost any type of sword... but if you want to generalize then THE utsuri is a Bizen feature (and already we get into trouble because of Bitchu blades having it just as much, and is Bitchu part of Bizen and so on)

 

2. different authors say different things because of different opinions

 

3. different authors say different things because of different subjective interpretations of what they are seeing with their eyes

 

4. the state of the art at the time it was written is not the state of the art now 

 

The best example I have of #3 is owning a Rai Kunitoshi tanto with an earlier date than written about in any book. If we find a sword that doesn't match the book then the tendency is to think the sword is wrong. However, many examples of swords are things that should be used to update the book, as in the case of this tanto.

 

So the stuff with Dan utsuri you can probably mix in all four. It's why I try not to seize on any particular thing I am seeing plus a fact in a book and make a conclusion. And I rarely feel surprised anymore. Kurokawa san once showed me a Juyo Bunkazai Ko-Bizen blade... Motozane? I can't remember the maker now, but if you would have cut the nakago off it would have gone to Fukuoka Ichimonji. These mumei pieces then have a way of reinforcing the books, when the books may be generalizing. 

 

"Of course Ko-Bizen did not make a sword like Fukuoka Ichimonji, so this must be Fukuoka Ichimonji!"

 

Until you find a signed one and go uh oh... Ko-Bizen was able to do it. Now you look at the 660 Juyo Ichimonji and have to think about them a little bit harder. Unless you simultaneously hold the position that Ichimonji is also a classification of style and quality. Without significant evidence that anything particularly Fukuoka Ichimonji-like is not Fukuoka Ichimonji then it is Fukuoka Ichimonji and we have to accept that because there is no way of getting a better answer.

 

An advanced and experienced student will look at that and remember that some Ko-Bizen can indeed look like this and just hold it in his mind as a small but non-ignorable possibility and not get too worked up about it.

 

If you have more and more chances to see Heian blades you will discover that they covered a very wide repertoire of styles and techniques, more than you would assume otherwise. Knowing that most are lost means that we are only seeing a small slice of the reality. It is entirely possible that the Kamakura smiths invented almost nothing, that everything they did came before in some way, that they were only replicating the antique blades of their time and making some style changes to sugata and size and kissaki. 

 

So if some Heian smith whipped out dan utsuri on a blade, can't let it drag you too far away from the big picture. 

 

Quality is always the key, and age will show itself in ways separate from just sugata. Bad swords don't get attributed to good smiths, and good smiths don't go down in history for making bad blades. 

[Jean]

Talking about Kurokawa san, thanks to Robert H., I had a special treat and was able to study 12 ko Bizen blades side by side, half of them signed. Interesting as the hada was not the same from a sword to the other, but the hamon was consistent.