Determining Age Of Yari

[Ken-Hawaii]

I have a friend who is trying to insure his Nihonto collection, & he asked me how to determine the age of his yari blade subcollection, which includes polearms. I had to admit that I've never seen anything that ties yari characteristics to jidai, & I couldn't find anything with a quick search of the board.

 

Does anyone have an answer? Thanks!

 

Ken

 

[b.hennick]

How about tang patina, hada and hataraki? That should at least get one to Koto vs Shinto/Shinshinto....

[Ray Singer]

Aside from evaluating the nakago, my understanding is that a long kerakubi is an indicator of a Muromachi-period date.

[Frank B]

I would say a good place to start would be the nakago.

[Valric]

Unless he's been hoarding extremely fine and rare yari (which he should know...) I would just go on Aoiart.net, and take the median price of say, 40 yari. I'd remove 25% from the price and multiply that by the number of pieces I own. 

[Ken-Hawaii]

Nakago is a normal start point, but I've seen very few yari with anything resembling an untouched tang - it seems that someone always wants to "clean them up." This is based on my own 6 yari, & my friend's dozen or so.

[Ken-Hawaii]

Ray, I've also read that a long kerakubi indicates Muromachi, but do we know why? It seems odd that a long juncture between blade & nakago would be constructed during the warring period, when every ounce of tamahagane was precious. And is there no other differentiator for yari made in, say, Kamakura, as compared to Shinshinto? Everything else in weapon technology changed over the centuries, so why not these shorter blades?

 

Chris, I've taken your advice, & pointed him at Tsuruta's site, but now I'm interested. I picked one yari at random from Aoi, & it says this:

 

Era : Late Muromachi period.
Shape : It is long Kerakubi yari from early period. It is shapae of late Muromachi.
Special feature : If you find the long Kerakubi, the blade was made before Muromachi period.

 

So it seems that even the "expert" doesn't really know the jidai, or something was lost in translation. And if there's a definitive source for any of these attributions, I have yet to find it. Markus? Randy? Anything you can add?

[Frank B]

Ken, I searched this description and it looks to be my yari. I am certain it is muromachi, however aside from that I do not have any idea whether early mid or late. The nakago seems to be original and not cut as the mekugi is at the very end. 

[Geraint]

Dear Ken.

 

I think Aoi Art might better be translated as, "If you find long kerakubi the blade was made before the end of the Muromachi period."   

 

This would be consistent with the majority of the write ups for yari over the last few years.

 

All the best.

[Frank B]

What determines a "long kerakubi"? Is there a certain cutoff, is it is just relative?

[Ray Singer]

I think it is simply a mistake and they meant 'during the Muromachi period' rather than 'before'. For example. this is a Sue-koto blade.

https://www.aoijapan.net/yari-mumei-attributed-as-monjyu-school/

 

It is unusual (but not impossible) to find a yari from before Muromachi.

 

This page shows a nice Muromachi period yari by Heianjo Nagayoshi with long kerakubi which is owned by a friend.

http://www.sho-shin.com/heianjo.htm

[Frank B]

Both are very nice! For the time being, I will continue to think my yari is late Muromachi, unless proven otherwise.

[Ken-Hawaii]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. As suspected, there's not a whole lot of reference material for determining the age - no surprise.

[Bugyotsuji]

Re: before Muromachi.

 

Japanese language has some peculiarities, one of which is that the word for 'before' includes the dividing line, and means 'not after', in this case Muromachi. I have not seen the original site, but I would suggest here that as others have pointed out above, a literal translation into English can sometimes produce weird results.

[Bugyotsuji]

PS Many yari have Mei which should help with dating, in much the same way as on Nihonto, except that I suspect there are far fewer Gimei on yari. The Nakago is narrow and often badly corroded, so it may need extra sharp eyes to read those Mei. 頑張って下さい！

 

One problem with valuations based on Japanese prices (suggested above) is that the difficulty of shipping creates two separate worlds. Yari in Japan seem to be fetching lower prices, even for good examples that should be worth a lot more in the west.

[Ken-Hawaii]

Thanks, Piers. I had, of course, been looking at mei as the very last factor, rather than as a possible means of dating a blade. Time to go check out my own yari, & then back to my friend's blades.

 

Thanks!

 

Ken