Accidental Autograph Collector Kanzan Sato

[Surfson]

i realized a while back that over the last few years I have bought a few swords that have sayagaki by the famous Kanzan Sato a leading expert on swords and cofounder of the NBTHK after the war.   I thought that I would share a few photos of the sayagaki and hopefully start a conversation about Sato sensei, who played a key role in saving Japanese swords from certain destruction at that time.    

[Surfson]

Here are closeup photos of his signature on each.  The order of the blades is Sukekane, Fuyuhiro, Shimada, Muramasa.

 

[Rivkin]

Couple more.

 

Kirill R.

[BIG]

Here is the 1968 Sato sensei sayagaki for the Naotane katana..

[BIG]

Kirill's thoughts about Kanzan sayagakis..

 

https://historyswords.com/2018/09/18/expert-opinionspapers-can-they-be-trusted/

 

Best

[BIG]

Here we have his books..

 

http://images2.bonhams.com/original?src=Images/marketing/21404Lot1199.pdf

 

Best

[Rivkin]

Thank you very much, it was kind to mention... I have to say that the reason I place so many articles on Japanese topics on my sites is because it is a current ongoing learning process, versus medieval Islamic or Caucasian, where earlier articles where already summarized in the last two books.

 

Back to subject, from my database of auctions (which has some issues), from the total number of sayagaki:

 

46% by Dr. Kanzan Sato

9% by Tanobe Michihiro

3% by Dr. Honma Junji

 

Among others Honami Nishu and Honami Koson are strongly represented.

There is correlation with paper level. 

For example, I guess there was significant recent shift in Muramasa appraisal, so significant chunk of Dr. Sato sayagaki to him has green papers.

Honami Nishu has a correlation to the smallest overall percentage of recent papers. 

 

Kirill R.

[BIG]

And here is a Hakogaki by Sato sensei..

 

http://nihonto-do.com/index.php?route=information/article/article&article_id=6

 

Best

[Gakusee]

Hi Kiril, could you please elaborate on your statistical inferences about correlation coefficients and dependencies? I am not following the statistical / mathematical logic here. Thank you.

 

My own observation is that Tanobe sensei is somewhat selective about the blades for which he writes sayagaki. He tends to write sayagaki for higher quality blades (at least Tokubetsu Hozon) or for those unpapered blades which he knows are easy Juyo bets by virtue of quality or rarity or both.

 

In contrast, Sato sensei seems to have been more prolific in his sayagaki and some of the blades for which he wrote sayagaki might not surpass the Hozon criteria today. That was the case with one of my Muramasa blades, which had his sayagaki and was able of qualifying only for Hozon. I could not get to TokuHo as it was a bit polished down and the mei was partially obscured. So, despite the importance of the smith, they said that it being a Muromachi period blade it would not qualify for TokuHo on the basis of impacted mei (and probably what remained of the blade).

Regardless, the blade was a textbook Muramasa and Sato sensei’s opinion was obviously accurate and upheld by the NBTHK.

[Peter Bleed]

A couple more Kanzan sayagaki,

A su-yari by Kunisuke  and a Shinshinto katana by Shiroishi Sadatoshi - Sato sensei wrote them for me and - unfortunately I saw him write "Shirakawa" rather than Shiroishi. But I didn't think it was my place to call him on this, ahhh, matter.

Peter

[Valric]

Kiril, 

 

What a good and nuanced writeup on your site. A pleasure to read. 

 

I second Michael's questions, and I think you're on the right track. My speculations as to the social dynamics at play in this time are as follow: 

 

Junji: Took requests and sourced elite blades for top collectors and museums, such as the Museum of Sword fittings.  

Sato: Took requests from each and everyone in a mission to popularize and 'open up to the public' the Japanese sword.

 

Tanobe came later and took the middle path - not as liberal as Sato, not as elite as Junji, and more verbose than anyone that came before. 

 

I will add that it is interesting to note that Sato's demise and subsequent power vacuum may have triggered the reveal of the scandals and misgivings in the local branch. He could have been the lid on the pot. I would be tempted to further speculate that Sato's attributions were liberal on the level of Honami Koson, who initiated the path of broadening the audience of Nihonto. 

[Rivkin]

Thank you!

Its hard for me to claim expertise on the intent and procedure that was in place, since unlike Andy Quirt and quite a few older generation's representatives I was not there.

All I can observe right now is being on the receiving end of these opinions.

 

I feel that they were somewhat popular in the interwar period, since that was how the blades were judged - and most of those are kind of worthless today unless they provide a direct provenance to older collection. Basically even the most experienced people at the time had limited access to top blades and were dominated by pre-Meiji appraisals, so the opinions can be random.

 

The desire for sayagaki truly awoke again only in the late 60s, when blade market was beginning to strive, and for some reason probably more so than now it was felt that green papers are not enough, so a lot of blades were given a sayagaki.

Honami Nishu at best worked with questionable ko-mihara Juyos from 21-27th sessions, and almost half of his sayagaki will not paper today the same. Appraisals sort of close, but substantially different, for example what papers as Edo Sendai sayagakied to Yamato Hosho.

It seems he was the person to be contacted till late 80s about things that were raising eyebrows.

 

Dr. Honma Junji basically wrote sayagaki for blades like those published in the register of Daimyo treasures, which for some collectors kind of what needs to be collected. His appraisals are very seldom overturned, but they also have quite a few nuances to them. 

Dr. Sato wrote a very substantial portion of the total number of sayagaki. It might be that especially with the top names any papers were still not getting acceptance by themselves, so sayagaki was considered a must and he was the person to be asked.

I think with some specific attributions like Muramasa there is a substantial chance that today's judgement standards will not confirm his appraisal - but it is just my personal observation. He also often gave benefit of the doubt to a traditional attribution, if it already existed. It does not go outside of realm of reasonable possibility, but there are cases when you get his sayagaki and green papers to say Sadamune and today it comes out as Shizu Kaneuji.

 

Kirill R.

[Darcy]

I want to add a few things to this discussion.

 

A lot of older sayagaki have been erased, and even more recent ones, are lost and/or erased. Some of this is due to a lack of care approach and some of this was done on purpose as some collectors do not like them. A case in point is a Norishige owned by a friend of mine came to him in blank shirasaya. Through accidental googling an old sayagaki by Dr. Sato was found that gave more information on the background of the sword. Why that shirasaya and sayagaki is gone, it's not clear. The sword was Tokubetsu Juyo at the time I believe that it lost the sayagaki. 

 

Sayagaki can be faked and I have encountered fake Kanzan before. Some of these that are on green papered swords that won't depart from their green papers, you may need to look twice or three times at the sayagaki. 

 

There is some good advice given by Kirill about a blade with sayagaki but no papers. Because, it's happening right now that some people are deliberately switching swords into flattering shirasaya in order to sell some junk. It's dangerous. So be skeptical.

 

However: it is also true that Both Kanzan and Kunzan made sayagaki for blades that had no NBTHK papers and there was no desire to get them. I have seen these and I have owned them and currently own one. Kanzan and Kunzan early on were often surveying high level collections and trying to learn from them as much as assess blades in them. Some of these high level collections were comprised of many Juyo Bunkazai, Jubi and some Kokuho blades. This kind of collector sometimes never submitted a blade for NBTHK papers, or in other cases did, whatever the guiding metric was is lost with the collector's death. When a mint condition amazing blade appears in Japan and goes straight to Tokubetsu Juyo it's kind of a shock, like where could this thing have been and suddenly found... and the thing is that a lot of people knew the blade existed for 60 years in some collection but the guy never sent for papers and after his death the blade gets released into the market. These guys often have consulted with the experts of their time and sometimes got sayagaki. Those sometimes have old sayagaki from Kanzan and Kunzan. I had another one once that these two assessed together on viewing and the blade was not papered until decades after their death. And for Tanobe sensei, while he worked for the NBTHK he would not do a sayagaki unless the blade had already received papers. Now that he is retired he will do sayagaki on an unpapered blade. 

 

This is one I asked for myself:

 

https://yuhindo.com/koyama-munetsugu/

 

Another reason that so few older sayagaki from the Edo period exist (I have had one by Honami Kojo, and one done by the Ikeda daimyo clan for their own blade), is simply because people make new shirasaya at some point because the old one is old. 

 

Sometimes the old one is discarded because it's hard to read the writing (the Kojo one I had, people couldn't read the script, so unless you elevate the efforts to research it people start treating it casually). Sometimes they do it with good intent to retire the old shirasaya and sayagaki. I made a new shirasaya once for a Niji Kunitoshi that had a Honami Ringa sayagaki on the existing one. The owner who bought it, died, and when the widow sold it the old shirasaya was not included with the sale. When I found out about it years later after the sword changed hands again and I encountered it again and asked about the old shirasaya... I was told there was none. Tracing it back, after the death of the owner it got misplaced and lost.

 

Sometimes an opinion is conservative on an older sayagaki and when the attribution is changed the old shirasaya with sayagaki is discarded. I saw one from Kanzan that this happened to. 

 

Because of all of this losing and erasing and deliberate discarding, it's hard to make a lot of conclusions about older period sayagaki. 

 

From the little I've experienced that have really old shirasaya, daimyo did put sayagaki on as part of just knowing what is in the shirasaya (inventory management) and sometimes you got Honami sayagaki. In the case of the daimyo stuff, with no signature, if the blade becomes separated from its history people will begin to look poorly on the sayagaki for being a judgment with no signature on it and will deliberately discard or erase them. When really the daimyo probably had paperwork separate (sometimes on the sayagaki they will add that there is or was origami). 

 

Another thing to throw out there is that Kunzan was probably a better judge than Kanzan, so more of Kanzan's sayagaki get reversed. One Tokubetsu Juyo Awataguchi blade has Kunzan's sayagaki to Hisakuni on it (yes I mean Kunzan here, I'm saying his sayagaki may not even universally hold up, it's his opinion and others may disagree). The NBTHK though would not confirm so far as that. So this sayagaki predates the papers on the blade as well, and it is by no means alone. There are many more blades out there with Kunzan sayagaki and no papers, just that the ones that are good, you are not likely to get an easy chance to see. Or if the blade is on display and you see the blade you may not ever know what the deal is with the sayagaki because that's not on display. Behind closed doors if you get a chance to see the blade then you will see then. 

 

For that Kunzan Hisakuni sayagaki, at some point some collector will say it disagrees with the papers and will erase it. That will be a shame. Because the blade from the context needs to be understood as early Awataguchi work and while the NBTHK judges couldn't come to a conclusion, Dr. Honma did and that should be enough for the owner. But this is what will happen.

 

I know a non-Japanese collector who once even threw out a box of papers because he couldn't read them, early in his career. 

 

People do these things. Maybe before they learn better, but once the stuff is in their hands you need to trust them to make the right decisions and often times they don't.

 

Lastly for old sayagaki the NBTHK tends to photograph them now and put them on the back of Tokubetsu Juyo papers now. 

 

Anyway with this subject just keep your ears up and don't get carried away with sweeping conclusions.

[Brian]

Great info in this thread, thanks.

[PNSSHOGUN]

Darcy, I'm glad your self imposed ban does not preclude such informative and fascinating posts.

[Rivkin]

Since we seem to combe back to subject of forgeries, horrors and problematic sayagaki, here is one.

 

Original Kunzan's sayagaki with a substituted, probably Edo copy, of Hasebe blade in hitatsura. Actually the copy is very good, except the hada is a dead giveaway, being featureless tight itame.

 

Kirill R.

[Surfson]

Kirill, I'm curious.  That blade is pictured in the attached book page.  Is it stated to be shoshin in the book or does the book use it as an example of gimei? 

[Surfson]

Thanks for the information on sayagaki Darcy.  

 

I have saved all of the old shirasaya with sayagaki from my blades.  One of them has what looks like a traditional honami sayagaki with price listed in gold pieces but which isn't signed by honami.  Can you comment on these?  Is the script of the honami identical and can it be worked out or if it lacks a signature does it mean that it was done by someone other than a honami, such as a merchant or other appraiser that wants to connect a price to a blade?  

[Rivkin]

Kirill, I'm curious.  That blade is pictured in the attached book page.  Is it stated to be shoshin in the book or does the book use it as an example of gimei? 

 

The one in the book is original, authentic Hasebe for which sayagaki was originally ordered.

I feel it is kind of rare situation I guess where the piece is actually copied rather than something is being created "in a general style of".

I actually wanted to buy the copy as well, but it did not work out.

 

Kirill R.

[BIG]

Nice exples..

 

https://mheber.de/sayagaki.htm

 

Best

[Surfson]

Does anybody have examples of hakogaki made by Kunzan?  

 

[SteveM]

Here are a few

The one in the last link is about midway down the page

https://kako.nippont.../swords/KT125576.htm
http://kajiyahiroshi.../token-ka118042.html
https://www.meihaku....word-basic/sayagaki/

 

oops, I just reread the question. You are looking for hakogaki specifically (rather than sayagaki)?