Guido

The answer why (besides the fact that I'm not on NMB 24/7) is pretty simple: look at your own post where it says "I am not certain from the pictures" - there isn't enough to go on to make a truly educated guess. No measurements, all I see of the Hamon and Hataraki is the Hadôri, the Hada isn't clearly visible, the only part that's more or less usable for Kantei is the Bôshi and general Sugata. Kantei with blade in hand is difficult enough, but we immediately feel the weight, see the color of the Jitetsu, and the Keijô and Kitae is plain before our eyes. If we hold it into the light correctly, the Hamon and Hataraki become clearly visible. If we do "paper Kantei", we need some information to make up for the lack of visibility of some of the above features. In Japan it's usually done by providing an Oshigata, measurements and some general remarks, e.g. "low Shinogi", "Midare-Utsuri" a.s.o. We need some guidance in order to make it the educational experience it should be. Stumbling around in the dark isn't fun. I'm certainly not trying to tell Darcy how to conduct his Kantei, but OTOH do reserve myself the right to *not* participate if I feel that I have to make wild guesses instead of clear statements.

Sure we can, no objections from me! However, your books are obviously wrong. That's why I supplied the Kanji, I always try to not make stuff up (if it isn't absolutely necceassary).

Don't feel sorry, someone has to buy the stuff I have to pass on.

Jean, please don't go down my road, we need at least a couple of forumites who are considered more or less sane ...

Thinking it over some more, I'm afraid I can't control my evil twin *all* the times; but feel free to let me know when it's time to again chain him in the basement, although he can't be held there for extended periods of time - sorry, mate.

O. k., deal. You know I love you like the sister I never had, so I won't cause trouble anymore by being "passively aggressive" as they say nowadays. Darn' date=' and I thought I had it all covered! I disagree, I think this is self-evident!

P.S.: Just in case my above post is taken the wrong way: there's not a single piece on Mike's and Cyrus' website that I would be ashamed of owning. They offer the real deal, maybe not cheap, but still very reasonable for the quality you get. Of course they can't compete with those eBay sellers from Japan that are so popular with some forumites, who sell their mediocre (and often questionable) stuff (i.e. items they can't sell in Japan for a variety of reasons) to people who still look for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If you know me, you know that I don't endorse any business light-heartedly, but I gladly make an exception in this case. If you, otoh, think that spending more than US $ 1,000 on a Tsuba is insane, stay away from http://www.tetsugendo.com.

Darn, Cyrus, and I did my best to discretely promote you by inserting a link to your website in my "NMB Gathering V" thread - just shows how short the attention span of some people is ... :x

It's Zaimei 在銘, alright, since that just means "there's an inscription on the Nakago", whereas Shôshinmei 正真銘 means "genuine signature". But besides me splitting my usual hairs, I would like to endorse the Iimura Taikans: they belong in the bookshelf of any serious collector. They are not exactly cheap, but the entire set is priced well below what one would pay for a decent addition to a decent collection, not even talking about the substantial monetary loss if falling for a Gimei because of lack of literature. Disclaimer: This, of course, doesn't apply to those of us who own a few JûTô and dozens of TokuHo, or have hundreds of high quality Tsuba and other fittings; they already know what they are doing. I also would like to stress that in no way was it my intention to slander any religion, political affiliation, race or lifestyle-minority. If I unintentionally did that, I deeply bow in apology. I also was definitely not trying to make fun of people who buy countless low end stuff instead of good books and a few quality pieces. If anybody thinks I implied something like that, I'll prostrate myself. And to the very sensible among us: if you think I got sick an tired of hearing the same old, lame jokes again and again and again, but otherwise miss any educated contributions: I seriously contemplate Seppuku, although I actually might not deserve this honorable death. And oh, I also want to make perfectly clear that no animals were hurt in writing this disclaimer. And it doesn't belong in this thread anyhow, which just proves that I'm slowly loosing it ...

Here are a few Oshigata from the Shintô Taikan; the only thing consistent about his Mei is that it's inconsistent .

Interesting therory, Jacques: according to your timetable, the Nidai (i.e. 2'nd generation) worked *after* the Sandai (i.e. third generation)? The smith usually only listed as "Echizen no Kami Nobuyoshi" is without doubt the third son of the Shodai, and calling him or his uncle Nidai is a topic for leasurely, rainy days at the fireplace; actually, a "Sandai" isn't mentioned in any of my books. But be that as it may, it's actually besides the point. The question asked was "is the signature of this Echizen no Kami Nobuyoshi genuine?" How about your opinion on that?

Hard to tell - Nidai Nobuyoshi changed the style of his signature a lot, often - like in the photos above - it looks kind of unsophisticated. Some time between Empô and Genroku did he change the way the Kanji for "Rai" is written (from 6 to 7 strokes). Again, without high resolution pictures it's very difficult to be sure; I can't see the Yasurime, but the Nakagojiri looks o.k. He occasionally squeezed his signature right under the Kiku-mon, and often his Mei isn't in a straight line, but wanders off to one side. So, well, I'm sort of leaning towards Shôshin.

Loosing count like that sounds like you have quite a collection.

Max, I hope I don't sound offensive, but the NBTHK shinsa isn't a lottery. If you're focusing on TokuHo and higher, you should by now know the quality associated with those rankings. Just compare it to your other Tokubetsu Hozon and Jûyô swords ...

Ford, this time not a trick of the eye: another Tsuba from Ginza Choshuya, signed Saotome Ietada. The decoration technique is called Shino-yasuri - I proudly present the famous corduroy textured Tsuba!

I *knew* it ... Actually I wrote a kind of disclaimer after my lighter story, but then decided to erase those lines because it sounded kind of silly. Obviously one can't be silly enough in praying to the almighty God of political correctness .

Looks like "Yasu-Tsuna".

Koichi, you are right, of course - pauwlonia would be Kiri . Aoi is usually translated as hollyhock.

Just a piece of trivia: it's called IchiyŠAoi-Mon 一葉葵紋, one leaf pauwlonia crest.

In the late nineties a Chinese colleague in Beijing showed me his new lighter in the shape of a mermaid, made of bronze with a coat of clear lacquer. When you pulled back her head, a flame came out of the throat, the nipples (made of red LED's) started blinking, and the communist song "The East Is Red" was played. While I was at a loss of words - looking for a comment that wasn't outright insulting - a German colleague joined us and said: "Well, whatever you might think of the Chinese, they got great taste!", turned around, and left me to deal with laughter that was trying to get out of me like the cork from a champagne bottle. This Tsuba is even worse, but not half as funny.

LOL, that's the result of re-sizing the scan, something the software is responsible for; the original Tsuba lacks this special feature ...

Here's an example of the crosshatching Ford mention with the silver still (more or less) intact; sold by Ginza Choshuya in May of 2005 for reasonable 450,000 Yen:

He really had a funny bone in him, didn't he? And I guess a lot of people took this joke at face value ... :D

FWIW, I've seen Japanese lacquerwork like that before (needless to say, usually not associated with high class Koshirae ). It also looks to me like the Kojiri is missing, not the Nakago protuding. My two Euro Cents (which are worth considerably more than Milt's US $ Cents :D): probably of Japanese origin, but miss-(mix)-matched and in a condition that doesn't make it exactly collectable.

Not only a "tad", would I think ... OTOH, you're starting to put words in my mouth .... :? The vast majority of swords made in the ShÅwa era are mass produced, non-traditional weapons of no artistic merit. We therefore use the term "Showa-tÅ" to distinguish them from GendaitÅ, of which quite a few fine examples are around from the same period of time. ShÅwa-tÅ are of course of interest to militaria collectors - nothing wrong with that field of collecting - but they don't show any of the qualities we're looking for in a true NihontÅ (with the possible exception of shape). I think most of us are here on this board to study and understand why NihontÅ are such a unique art form. Reading, discussing, examining, and studying are an essential though happy regimen for graduation to connoisseurship. We only can achieve this if we look at blades above the "weapon's grade" level. Unfortunately a big part of Western collections are blades produced by unimportant smiths, showing lots of forging faults, nondescript in form, Hada and Hamon, or just boring, because "weapons of Japanese origin" were collected instead of "art swords". All the swords of this lowest level are of course not to be classified accordingly, since the marks of schools, times, provinces or even masters can only be suspected. Certainly many of these blades show a kind of "quality"; it is even possible when looking at and examining the blade intensively that certain few details can be called beautiful or perfect, but nevertheless one should be advised against being occupied with blades of such a low level since bad swords spoil the eyes. I beg to differ. Europe has probably the highest density of important NihontÅ outside Japan. Many fine examples can be studied at the regular meetings of the European branch of the NBTHK. And the US has a NBTHK branch, too. And not a few local sword clubs. And a couple of sword shows a year, where one can attend lectures and study close up swords of JÅ«yÅ Bijutsuhin rank. But rather than spending relatively little money and time on attending these meetings/shows, and buying good books on the subject, people spend double or triple that amount on buying "non-NihontÅ" off eBay just because they are available and/or affordable, and then they come to this forum asking "what is it?" If I'm into race cars but can't (or don't want to) afford one, do I buy three rusty Honda Civics without wheels instead, and then "study" them to find out what makes a high-performance car, and how a turbo loader works? Quite frankly, saying that one can't study quality NihontÅ in Europe is an insult to our host Brian and others like him who live in a NihontÅ vacuum. That didn't stop him, and others in remote locations, to travel to Japan and look at as many swords and fittings as their time permitted. I wouldn't call any of those I met so far "rich" (except, of course, Rich Turner ) (sorry, guys, I hope I didn't offend anybody), so I guess they had to sacrifice other desires in order to do this. No pain, no gain. That is probably true, and I hope I don't appear like I was rubbing it in, that certainly isn't my intention. But then again, no angel appeared in the middle of the night, carrying me in his arms to the Motherland of NihontÅ, and gave me all the sword knowledge I could ask for. I pity people whose dream is fly-fishing, but live in a desert. If they're not able to travel to where the trout are found, it would be cruel to tell them to put some gold fish in their bath tub because that's almost as good. And they would be incredibly stupid if they actually did just that. Some things are not meant to be, and *yes*, life sucks. No, what I'm saying is "don't bother studying fine art by looking at paint-by-numbers".