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Item No. 128 - Kozuka in shibuichi with gold and copper details Subject of the sake drinkers ? ( Can't remember their names ) signed Furukawa Genchin. Father of Jochin , he was a student of Yokoya Somin and was the founder of the Furakawa school. Edit - Above information incorrect , transposed with the next piece - this should read: Signed Jowa - nephew of Joi , Nara school. Thanks , George. Lots of fine detailing , with one of the drinkers appearing to be laughing uproariously while the other seems somewhat the worse for wear.

Have already posted pics of the mei in another thread, so am opening this one to discuss and show the piece itself. Many months ago, a South African posted pics of a collection of Japanese polearms that he had come across in SA, on a forum. I was immediately blown away, as the chances of finding Japanese polearms here, especially with the original poles, is next to zero. The length itself makes it prohibitive to import. Seems these came to SA around the 1920's or so, by a Dutchman who settled in SA and must have collected various arms. They ended up with a nice young guy called Ruhan. We spoke for months and discussed trading some items possibly, as I have some other items he was interested in. The odd thing is that these items have been sitting in a far away farming area, the equivalent of them rotting away in the barn like I hear from the USA so often. Eventually this week I met up with Ruhan. Granted, the items are in only fair condition. Time and storage has caused surface rust, but of that type that discolors and leaves micro pitting, but the surface is still smooth and will clean up 70% over time with oil and wiping and soaking and some uchiko. Anyways, he had 4 x yari and 2 x naginata. All with VERY long and original poles and in various states of disrepair, but still stable and interesting. Some may remember that my main goal for years has been to get a nice naginata, since I traded my nice one away and miss it terribly. I'm fussy with naginata. Needs to have a nice shape, flowing lines (not that straight edge with a sudden upturn at the end) and most importantly, a well cut hi with that sloped front to the front of the bo hi...some of you will know what I mean. Not the rounded end main hi. Both of Ruhan's naginata had lovely shapes, and the correct hi. But I was captivated by the fact that the one has the hi as part of a horimono. Not a very complicated one, but not one done to cover a flaw either. This starts out expertly as the base of a tree, then goes up and forms the bo-hi, with a side branch of the tree becoming the so-hi...thinner groove. Just beautifully done and planned. The other side has the bo-hi and soe-hi with a varja style horimono inside the thicker groove. Also lovely. And the fittings...? I'll let the pics tell the tale. Just really nicely done. Not sure if that is some sort of mon or whatever, looking for any feedback or opinions on that. But the well done design is on all the fittings. Lots of laquer loss on the pole, but I can live with that. Yes, the pics make the rust look bad, but it's not that bad and will easily polish off by a professional. Cannot feel the texture with a fingernail. Already I can make out a thin hamon about 5cm wide, looks like small gunome or choji. Will see more in the coming months as I wipe and oil. I love this piece. It is missing the tsuba, and will be measuring the gap between 2 seppa to see how thick it was. I also got 2 yari with long poles. One a fukuro yari that is nice, the other more conventional diamond shaped and both with original poles. Anyways, just sharing. Suffice to say, I am a very pleased naginata owner.

Late Edo aikuchi with mixed metal mounts. Blade is koto with later horimono.

With way lock set up,it can't be put upside down.

Looking better.

Just an idea of the elegant sugata, ubu nakago and nice nagasa of about 485mm.

G'day Guys, I have come across this tanto, made by Gassan Sadakatsu using steel smelted by the Japan Iron Sand Steel Industry company. It is dated on the box either 1941 or possibly 1942. What I am trying to find out is if there is anything in the writing on the box, which gives some clue as to whether these was commissioned by the company as gifts, or were they just made by Gassan Sadakatsu using this new special steel. Cheers, Bryce

I finally found the time to get some photos of my latest acquistion, a wakizashi by Mutsu no Kami Kaneshige with NBTHK Hozon papers. I would be happy if some of you have additional information about the smith. What I have so far is from the seller and from Markus Sesko's books. Blade type Wakizashi Suguta Shinogi-zukuri Nagasa 58.5 cm / 23.03 ” Nagako-nagasa 16.7 cm / 6.65 ” Moto-haba 2.9 cm / 1.14 ” Saki-haba 2.0 cm / 0.8 ” Moto-kasane 0.7 cm / 0.28 ” Saki-kasane 0.5 cm / 0.2 “ Sori 0.6 cm / 0.24 “ Mune: Ihori Jihada Ko-Itame Hamon Hako-midare (series of box shaped elements) Boshi Ko-maru Kissaki O-Kissaki Activity Nie, Ara nie, Kinsuji, Sunagashi Nakago condition Ubu Mekugi-ana 1 Nakago-jiri Kuri-jiri Yasurime Katta-Agari Mei Omote Mutsu-no-Kami Kaneshige (陸奥守 包重 ) Ura Period Kanbun Shinto Koshirae Shirasaya with horn hato-mei Habaki Copper habaki with silver foil wrapping Comments This is the work of Mutsu no Kami KANESHIGE 陸奥守包重 who later became Mutsu no Kami Kaneyasu (包 保), 2nd gen., Enpō (延 宝, 1673-1681), Settsu He signed "Sesshū Ōsaka-jū Mutsu no Kami Kaneyasu" (摂 州 大 坂 住 陸 奥 守 包 保), "Mutsu no Kami Kaneyasu" (陸 奥 守 包 保), "Mutsu no Kami Kaneshige" (陸 奥 守 包 重), "Mutsu no Daijō Kaneyasu" (陸 奥 大 掾 包 保), His real name was "Dan Kyūdayū" (団 九 太 夫), he originally came from Tango Province, but went to Osaka in the apprenticeship with the 1st Gen. Kaneyasu. Later he was adopted by him and determined as his successor. During his time as “Kaneshige” (包 重) he signed in mirror writing like his master, with the final change to “Mutsu no Kami Kaneyasu“. He is known as "Migi-Mutsu "(右 陸 奥, lit."Right-handed Mutsu"). He also worked for the Mizuno family (水 野) in their lands in Matsumoto (松本) in the Shinano province. Some of his blades are known by him between the fifth year Enpō (1677) and the second year Genroku (元 禄, 1689) His blades feature a dense ko-itame, sometimes with ō-hada, gunomechōji, suguha-chō mixed with gunome, suguha-notare mixed with gunome-ashi, occasionally tobiyaki and/or muneyaki In his early Kaneshige period he added gyaku-sujikai yasurime, later as 2nd gen. Kaneyasu by default sujikai-yasurime, both file variants run to the base, i.e. in the polished area under the machi, as kiri

The joy of collecting nihonto transcends the cost for the most part. I remember the thrill of buying my second blade, a signed out of polish wakizashi, that cost me less than $200. As your collecting advances and your taste and understanding improve, the thrill is still there, whether your budget can take you to pricier and fancier items or not. If your budget is not large, then the game is to go out and find swords that are priced way under their value. If you must, you can then sell them and have a larger budget for your collection. As we see on this board all the time, it is still possible to buy blades for a couple hundred bucks that turn out to be worth thousands. (does anybody remember Georg (?) who picked up a cheap blade at a police auction that turned out to be a world class Kiyomaro, likely worth several hundreds of thousands of dollars? The best tool to unlock this is to study, study, study.

Just a short update: I have received the blade meanwhile. As I said before it is in a rough state with pitting but healthy otherwise. Hamon is very nice. I sent it off for polishing and Shirasaya restoration. The Shirasaya has been split since it was coming apart anyways and will be cleaned and properly reglued so the blade can be kept in it. Unofrtunately it has been refitted with a non matching Tsuka but taht is still better than if the Saya with the Sayagaki had been lost / replaced.

Love that Umetada-style piece from Ford. I also really like that he filled the cracks with silver to accentuate them... good call

It's not the script (all the kanji on this tag are still in use today). It's more likely the condition of the tag and the folds and shadows and smudges making it difficult to read. One often hears the "its ancient script" excuse as a way of avoiding the embarassment of not being able to read sword tags - or maybe its a way of saying "this tag is too smudged to read clearly", but they don't want to cause you embarassment. Anyway: One Guntō sword Length: 2 shaku, 2 sun Unsigned (spelled wrong, but understandable) This sword belongs to: Chiba Prefecture, Chōsei-gun, Yatsumi-mura the name is too badly smudged for me to read it, but maybe someone here can decipher it.

Another humiliating attempt at photographing a Japanese blade. And I like this one. It’s a good blade. I almost feel like I should apologize to it! I wish I knew more about it and am hoping someone here can help. It’s a Yaroi Doshi. Here are the dimensions: Nagasa: 18.8 cm Nakago: 10.5 cm Sori: 1 mm Motohaba: 2.1 cm Motokasane: 1 cm No papers, but you have to take the training wheels off sometime. The seller thought it dates to ca. 1715 and the signature that of Kanehiro Saku ( 兼廣作 ). No exact matches on the sword smith index site, but two potential hits: https://nihontoclub.com/view/smiths/list?id_op=%3D&id=KAN928&name_op=word&name=&kanji_op=%3D&kanji=&province=All&start_era=All&school_nid=All and https://nihontoclub.com/view/smiths/list?id_op=%3D&id=KAN950&name_op=word&name=&kanji_op=%3D&kanji=&province=All&start_era=All&school_nid=All Anything info anyone else can provide will be appreciated. TIA! Harry

Ref.

Agreed, a great find, which must have been waiting for you. Can’t wait to see the other pieces! (The rounded petals may indicate Umé rather than Sakura which tend to have a notch in the tip. Umé is Japanese apricot, but most dictionaries just say ‘plum’.)

Brian, well done, the whole thing looks great. And the Sakura horimono is interesting and you have nice koshirae. Great

Another site to be wary of https://www.teritive.top/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=62_123 Same sort of format with ebay pictures used.

It is indeed handmade and recently polished, mumei

Mounts with great sword of my dreams.

Howdy I'm Tim from Melbourne Aus. I'm new to the world of Nihonto but fairly familiar with the world of swords having done HEMA( historical European Martial Arts) a little while ago. I just ordered my first few books on swords to pour over, and I'm excited to try and glean as much knowledge as I can from all of you before dipping my toe in the deep end and acquiring my first sword!. Apart from Nihonto I also have a passion for beer ( in particular the science and production of it) I also love old Volkswagens , which makes Nihonto collecting seem relatively cheap by comparisons Cheers Tim N

Your uncle, or whoever brought it back, was smart enough to cover it in cosmoline or some other form of grease. If you take a soft cloth with some acetone, you might be able to clean that off pretty easily and you may be surprised to find that the blade is in pretty good shape, having been protected by the grease.

Keine Ursache

That is very nice with a great shape and lucky you could get this in your homeland - double bonus

And here's the mon..

Sharp eyes you have there! copper-handle NCO sword questions

It is not unusual to see two logos on naval swords regardless of age. What is unusual is that one of the logos is a constant, the cherry blossom with anchor inside. I have kicked around the idea that it could be the mark of a reseller and not that of a manufacturer. The reason for this is that the older army swords are marked just as often as the naval swords yet have only one logo or sometimes the same logo repeated twice, side by side. I have also seen the same company logos appear on both army and naval swords. Yet the naval swords have the additional cherry blossom & anchor logo. It really is a bit of a mystery.

This was a really nice auction. Did anybody of you buy anything? I had considered bidding on 24, 29 and 36 but did not win anything in the end. 29 was straight forward with nice Guribori mounts. 24 they got wrong and it wanted to be a Rai blade. The signature was not a good match in my oppinion and the condition remained questionable. Looking at the filemarks I would not think that it was earlier than Murmoachi but still it seems to have seen many polishes. What are your oppinions? The mounts were solid late Edo. I feel somebody got a reasonable lottery ticket 36 was interesting to me. I wonder which smith it could have been good for. Overall I feel that the prices were reasonable since those blades mostly all needed some TLC but then there we good quality mounts on most of them. The 30% premium however is a real pain in the ass. Congratulations to anybody who participated and ended up with a new toy

Hi Frank, Here is a link to a care and cleaning brochure you should read twice: https://nbthk-ab2.org/sword-characteristics/ Don't be in a hurry for a new polish; they are expensive and very easily damaged in the hands of someone without experience in handling the sword. The polish doesn't protect the sword; clean off the old cosmoline with some alcohol and a soft cloth and then apply a very light coat of machine oil to the surface (except for the tang) and all will be fine. Take some time to learn a lot more before you start throwing money at your sword. The more you know the happier you'll be with the results when you do have the work done. If you'd like someone you can ask a dozen questions at once with feel free to call. Grey 218-726-0395 central time

Hi Bill, your right, thats all that matters. Searching within what you can afford or what you want to spend can be a challenge but is always good fun and for me has been the best part of the hobby. Truth is, most folk cannot afford the swords they wish they could so there are always compromises. The tanto i mentioned above is something that may have been attractive to me on one of my sword hunts in the past but some would describe it as junk, its all relative. Well made, signed, old, authentic and i like the fact it is with its old fittings and probably been sat like that for quite some time. If you cant afford the top stuff then you have to find ways of enjoying stuff at the lower end, though this i must say can become futile and probably would make an interesting topic. There will always be good swords for lower prices. Sometimes best keeping purchases to yourself, forums are great as a whole but alas there are always one or two elitist (fake elitist) ******** that feel the need to rain on a parade Anyways, happy hunting.

Other side: Awataguchi Settsu no kami Minamoto Tadayuki (shortened this)

Have been keeping my eyes peeled for Sukehira swords and for some reason this only now came up. My mom’s side is Japanese they are Sukehiras. My grandma told me we used to be sword makers. Very cool to see the photos you posted. Hope this message makes it to you!

Dear Bob, Item 125 shows Karako Asobi (Chinese Children at Play) which came from the ancient tradition of Chinese art of depicting children playing at four pursuits (painting, chess, harp & calligraphy). This is called kinki shoga in Japanese and was adopted into Japan around the 1400's and became popular in many different types of Japanese art - netsuke, woodblock prints, painting and tosogu. Here's your Kashira with a popular woodblock print (from the 1700's) - you can see that the composition is identical (hat, hair pulling, grabbing the wrist, etc.). As you said, the fuchi has the aftermath with two of the children chasing the other whose chonmage (topknot) has been pulled loose.

as promised here are some pics of "blue frost" by sukehira.. it has TB Hozon papers by NBTHK.

Yes and yes.

Exactly. It is sometimes just a pain in the ass with vendors all oiver the world as they think that a sword is a dangerous weapon and thus can not be put on a plane ...

Coincidenatlly I have a whitebread passport while my command of French is embarrasing .... basically you only need a 3rd party ship to pick it up and send to you via any shipping service of your choice. Usually DHL I would think.I can assist you - as long as you promise not to outbid me case I should participate myself .... however I think that is one for the big boys with the deep pockjets and I am just a watcher on the side line.