Shugyosha

Alex, I could have made the koshirae yesterday and the Lanes Armoury would try to convince a buyer that it was Edo period and that Miyamoto Musashi had once owned it.

Sorry Jean, I'm not sure what you are saying?

Hi Grev, Have a search on the forum - there's a number of threads on this school.

Hi Charles, 山城大掾源国重 – Yamashiro daijo Minamoto Kunishige. One of these: Kunishige (国重), Shōhō (正保, 1644-1648), Bitchū Kunishige (国重), Jōkyō (貞享, 1684-1688), Bitchū Kunishige (国重), 2nd gen., Manji (万治, 1658-1661), Musashi Kunishige (国重), Tenpō (天保, 1830-1844), Settsu Edit: sorry, just saw that this is your first post - welcome to the forum!

Yep - Occam's razor is a thing.

You could post pictures of the blade, the shape may give an indication?

Hi Rawa, Is this an NTHk paper? If so, there’s normally more information on the back - it’s in columns with the shinsa panel’s seals in red. If you post that you may get a better opinion.

Hi Dale, That was fun - got any more?

Actually there aren't: I was confusing this kanji 京 with higashi and now I look at it again, I think you are right - if I blow the picture right up I can just see where the top cross stroke cuts the centre vertical stroke, so we need something to go with 束. Straining my eyes and imagination I think I can see 各 as the right part of the kanji and 洛東 Sakutou pops up in a search related to Kyoto tourism, so maybe that's the top part of this side? I've tried googling the signature as a whole but nothing popped up so I'm not overly confident...

Yes, I hesitated as I couldn’t see the top cross stroke but there are villages with that kanji in Otagi gun. I’ll have another look on a while with fresh eyes and see what leaps out.

Hi Uwe, I'm honestly struggling with the first one. Edo seems more plausible than anything I've come up with, definitely Shige, but the final kanji is a mystery to me. Back to number 6: 城州愛宕郡 – Jōshu Otagi gun 口口住保高 I think the artist's name is Yasutaka but I'm not confident about the "taka" and the first two kanji on the left have me beaten for now.

Looks like it starts with 城州 Joshu or maybe 武州 Bushu. Good Spot Piers, I couldn't sort out that first kanji. I agree with Uwe for the remainder.

Yep, already blocked Joe2.

Hi Stefano, Other than the blade was registered in Showa 60 (1985) and has three mekegu ana, it is as I've said above but it is a torokusho, a registration card for legal purposes, not an appraisal paper. As such it simply records basic sword details such as type of blade, length, curvature and signature if there is one. You might infer that, with three mekugi ana, it is likely to be suriage but it doesn't expressly say that and there is no reference to when the sword was made or who the smith was (which is completely normal for this kind of document).

Maybe an uguisu - Japanese bush warbler...it's a popular motif.

Hi Stefano, I think it has the number in Japanese on the right hand side: 弐八九九八 - 28998. Other than that, it's an unsigned katana 70.2 cm long and with a sori of 1.6cm. The torokusho was issued in Oita prefecture.

I think it perhaps looks odd because the hada is tending towards masame hada and whatever it is is following the grain of the steel but it does look like chikei or some similar activity.

Hi Dee, There's normally at least one shinsa in the USA each year - either at the Orlando show or in San Francisco (sometimes both) and there's usually a mail-in service so you don't have to attend in person if you don't want to. Forums are a microcosm of society so you get the bad with the good and the block button is very useful. I don't think that stops a person downvoting a post though and I wonder if Brian could perhaps add a feature that prevents those on a person's blocked list from commenting on their posts also? Anyway, hope you'll drop in once in a while.

I'm sure this question will have been asked and answered earlier in this thread so apologies for the repetition, however, if smelting iron was an option, why wasn't it used in weapons making? Why persist with a tatara to produce tamahagane and for smiths to make their own oroshigane when there was another process, probably less of a PIA than the tatara, that could get you an ingot of iron that could be used to make a sword? If you hadn't noticed, the Japanese in the Edo period and earlier did like swords and lots of them and, if there was some process that would have made processing the raw material easier, is it not likely that this would have displaced the other technologies available? According to another thread on here and from our own Jean Colin, even an oroshigane kiln doesn't heat iron or steel to the degree considered to be smelting, so where did the cast iron tsuba come from? Anyway, this thread is pretty much the turd that just won't flush and I don't expect any logical argument to send it down the tubes so this will be my one and only contribution to it other than to suggest to Dan that if he has proof that the technology and capability to make cast iron existed in the Edo period and has primary sources that show this the please post those references or take the absence of proof positive as the end of the argument.

Hi Alex, Happy New Year to you too. I'm going to go with "probably" - I can't see anything to make me think it isn't genuine but the photos are coming up pretty small on my screen and a full length shot of blade with the habaki off would help too if you're able post one. The fittings do look good from the photos, the tsuba is signed Bushu ju Masakata and looks quite nicely done as does the fuchi and I think those are fairly good signs. Anyway, I'm sure you'll get some comments from those with bigger screens and better eyes shortly.

There's an example here, but different in style and using a different yuki: https://picryl.com/m...k-a-867987?zoom=true

Hi Lewis, I don't think so in the west - I think Ray Singer answered a similar question recently with the conclusion that, as it is a special order sword, it would have received the smith's best efforts and superior materials and therefore be superior to his normal production. Not sure if that would be the case in Japan.

The elephant-headed creature might be a Baku: https://en.wikipedia...iki/Baku_(mythology)

Hi Michael, The mei is: 乙柳軒 - Otsuryuken 味墨鋪随 - Miboku Nobuyuki Markus Sesko's Signatures of Japanese Sword Fittings Artists says he was 3rd Hamano generation and working between 1756 and 1793.

Above my pay grade - once things start getting cursive, I'm done. I'm sure @Nobody or @SteveM will be along soon though.