Wakizashi Mei Translation Help

[Daddy Cool]

Wonder if one of you chaps could cast your eyes over this wakizashi... I tried to have a go translating but didn't get very far with either the date or the name....

Its at an auction local to me...

Thanks!

[Gunome]

Hello

Mei is bitchu no kami yasuhiro

[SteveM]

And hopefully these will complete the picture

 

If you have the month, its a safe bet that what precedes it is the year. The Japanese years are not nearly as daunting as they may sound. There are about 250 Japanese era names, all using two kanji. If you can pick out just one of the kanji, you can usually narrow it down drastically. In this case, both 天 (ten) and 和 (wa) are readable, so if you have the list of era years its a fairly easy task to pick out the era on your sword. The kanji for the number two (貮) is a bit tough, being the complicated variant of the number, but this too is a process of elimination. So if you've made it this far, the last kanji in this set almost has to be "year", even if it looks impossibly fancy, as it does in your sword.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_era_names

 

Its almost a given that the other side will include the kuni (region) followed by the smith's name. Like the era years, the number of kuni is limited, and so this too becomes a process of elimination until you get enough experience to read the kanji themselves. The famous sword-making region of Bizen (備前) is a very common thing to see on a sword, and your sword, which bears the place-name of Bichu (備中) is from near this region. 

 

Reading the smith name is something that only comes with a lot of practice. Kuni was a good guess, being a fairly common kanji found in names. For me, the hiro (廣) was more obvious than the yasu (康) at first glance, because the hiro is fairly well-cut and recognizable. The yasu part looks like it was made using a couple of shortcuts, so it caused me to look twice before I got it. 

 

Mind you, I still wouldn't know if the mei is legitimate or a forgery. This is another level of skill altogether. With swords on the auction sites, I would be very cautious. 

[Daddy Cool]

Thank you both, and particularly Steve for the detailed explanation. So if I'm understanding correctly, TenWa/Tenna is 1681, and the 2nd year of that period would be 1682, right?

 

The sword itself is at a local auction house (rather than online) so I may pop down and have a look, but here are the pictures from the site:

Anything that screams forgery/Chinese fake?

(someone needs to wipe off those fingerprints asap!)

[Gunome]

Hello,

 

Yes, the 2nd year of Tenna is 1682 and it is absolutely not a Chinese fake but a real and nice Japanese wakizashi.

Looks to bne quite decent and in good polish.

[Stephen]

I hope you win, that would be a very nice pick up!