At Sundays NCJSC meeting Paul Martin brought up an interesting question,

Well interesting for me and I hope Paul doesn't mind me invoking his name. We were considering a sword which we as a group thought was Late Heian or Early Kamakura, Ko-Bizen or Yamashiro. The question concerned the quality of the utsuri and the presence of antai.

My understanding of antai is that it is what we call the ji or dark area BETWEEN the hamon and the utsuri. While Paul was saying that antai was dark spots within or under the utsuri, seen as dark thumbprints randomly placed all along the blade.

I had not heard this definition before and we didn't have time to really deal with the question at that time. So I ask, what is antai? where do you expect to see it on a blade? Have you seen it? and on what type of blades?

Any help appreciated,
-t

I had always associated antai with ko-Bizen and Yamato swords especially where jifu-utsuri is evident. Patch-like spots that could be taken for sumigane at first glance. My thoughts, so, not neccessarily correct, Tom. John

I don't know if this helps
Eric

When I was at the Ichimonji exhibition the utsuri on some of those Bizento were apparent from across the room and some required a lot of crouching and neck bending to see them. Jifu utsuri was like that. Anyway, here is an oshigata of a Muneyoshi sword that displays what I think of as jifu utsuri with antai. I may be in error, however. John

Hi John,

Was that the one we saw in Okayama? Thats OK, you can mention my name too if you want

Hi Tom , yes, it left me wondering too. I think that I have heard both explanations before. One of those things that differs from school to school I expect. Like the use of the terms uchi-uke and soto-uke in different styles of karate. Its the same in Nakahara's book too. His explanation for the difference between kanmuri-otoshi and U-no-kubi is the opposite away around to Nagayama Kokan.

Best

Hi Paul, Yes, you, Duncan and I. Fond memories of some beauties. John

Dear All,

ANTAI...

Han Bing Siong (R.I.P.) many years ago wrote an extensive article on antai in I think one of the English "Token Bijutsu" as part of his series on "Studying at the Sword Museum". I've been away from home for 3 weeks and cannot access my library but I'm sure a little digging would find it easily. I look forward to someone finding it... It may also have been reprinted in either the JSSUS "Newsletter" (Ron H??), or the To-ken Society of GB "Programme" (Clive S???)

Bestests,
BaZZa.

Hi Bazza, you're quite correct, the article can be found in TOKEN BIJUTSU 1990 No. 43 on pg. 29. It's the middle of the night here and I'm going to go get some sleep now. If no one else reports on the article by the time I'm up, I'll get back on it.

Hi Tom,

As you might be reading, according to the article titled "Studying Swords at the Japanese Sword Museum Part VI", by Han Bing Siong, TOKEN BIJUTSU 1990 No. 43 beginning on pg. 29, there are 2 kinds of antai, one of which can be described as follows and seems to be in accordance with the definition Paul gave at your meeting: "The utsuri produced by the Ukai group is characterized with irregular and dark bands appearing as if they were produced by pressing the finger tips against the ji ......., and they may be considered having close similarity to the so-called jifu utsuri which are present in Ko-Bizen works and others". For the benefit of those that don't have access to the article, the article goes on to discuss the term "Kuroi" which means dark and when used with "antai" gives additional emphasis to a particular kind of antai, one of which there are dark pronounced bands found along with the utsuri on Ukai swords.

As for the 2nd type of antai, at the moment, perhaps, like you, I'm still trying to make certain that I'm fully understanding what the article is describing as to what the differences between the variations are before commenting. It would of course be so much easier to have actual examples of each variation to study, but from reading the list of schools in which these features are found it would take a special collection of nihonto, Unsho, AOE Tsugunao, Ko-Ichimonji Muneyoshi, I think you get the idea.

BTW, thanks for bringing up this topic as it serves as a great reminder of how much wonderful information is written and can be found in the NBTHK Journals.

I do have a pic of the Ichimonji Muneyoshi for which the oshigata above was drawn, but, you can't really see these attributes which are portrayed in the oshigata very well. John

Franco -
Thanks I won't have a chance to pull it from my library till this weekend - and I agree, an excellent excuse to lose an afternoon rediscovering the TB. Seems to be pretty specific to school time and place so my definition may just be poor memory...
not the first time,
-t

PS John pics are good!

OK Tom, You can barely make out the antai in the close-up. Darcy could have lit this better to emphasise the features. John

All -
Got a chance to review the article in the Token Bijutsu and the kantei sword that had us posing the question in the first place. Han Bing Siong's explanations were a little difficult to comprehend at first but as we had a terrific Fukuoka Ichimonji Yoshimoto blade to compare them with, I feel I have acquired a much better understanding.

The dark patches like thumb prints within the utsuri running the length of the blade were evident and from the descriptions this was the antai we were looking for. What a happy coincidence it was when we found one of the swords that Mr Han Bing Siong used to illustrate his article was a work by none other than Fukuoka Yoshimoto! So we had the blade in hand, an oshigata of Mr Siong's juyo Yoshimoto and several examples from the Juyo Bijutsuhin catalog.

A terrific lesson for me and I thank you Paul for pointing it out to us...
-t

Hello All,

Picking up on an older post, does anyone have photos or oshigata that he/she is willing to share illustrating antai on a Yamashiro blade? Examples of nie-utsuri would also be appreciated. In my mind's eye, nie-utsuri appears as slightly larger, more pronounced particles of dense crystals clustered together (similar to yubashiri). I am sure there are variations, but photos are always helpful.

Thank you,
Matt U.

This is Bitchu NORITSUNE. Mabey this could be an example of antei... I can't say for sure. I can't find any good examples of Yamashiro utsuri.