runagmc

in the pictures it almost looks like there is newer rust over just the mei part of the nakago. does it look that way in hand?

Bishu Osafune Yasumitsu? edit: after another look I don't think that's right... I'm not sure what it is, but the forth character that should be fune船 almost looks like naga永. I think I just need to leave the translating to people with more practice

That horimono is truely bizarre. It almost looks like the fire part is inlaid with copper or something. I've never seen anything like it. It's either horribly done or unfinished or both. Very strange...

At least they are more up front about their items, and don't try to sell them as "antiques", like so many in China...

Joe, there are 2 video links to youtube in this post showing the oshigata process...viewtopic.php?f=56&t=11623

Brian, these are some composite pictures I put together from the links, so they will be here for future reference. If you don't think this is necessary feel free to delete the post... here's a pic and oshigata of one more sword,

Thanks, Daniel and Ludolf for the links and references. That katana in Tokyo museum is amazing...

that's one hell of a habaki... :D

Looks like a nice wakizashi. Here's Shigeyasu's basic info if you don't already have it... http://nihontoclub.com/smiths/SHI674

Thanks Daniel, that looks like an impressive sword. Mabey that's why Masahiro seems to be somewhat overlooked today, because of the lack of work. For a smith of that period to be so highly ranked I would think there would need to be a good number of swords to judge. Are there any known features used to differentiate Kunihiro dai saku by Masahiro from genuine Kunihiro work?

If you have a sword in hand it's easy to see past a fake hadori hamon. When direct light hits the ha buchi it should almost glow and is usually very obvious. In the case of a misty hamon that doesn't have a well defined ha buchi it can be less obvious but certainly still noticable. With this blade I can't tell for sure... hazuya can make the hamon dark and hard to see when its not reflecting light and also the hazuya would lighten the ji as the dark color from nugui wears away. If a person didn't know the right way to look at the hamon they might think it wasn't there... but if they are polishing a sword I would think they would at least know how to view a hamon... BTW, traditionally, hadori is done with a small flat piece of natural uchigamori stone(hazuya) when doing kesho polish...

This is a good place to start your research, if you haven't been there already... http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/nihonto.htm

Hey guys, I was wondering if anybody had any pictures of Osumi no jo Masahiro's work. I know he was suppose to be one of the best students of Horikawa Kunihiro and a 'sai jo saku' smith. I've only seen pictures of one of his swords. Here's the one I've seen, Has anyone seen much of his work? I've been looking for a while and never see anything from him, while alot of the other smiths from the Kunihiro school seem to be fairly numerous. Anyway, I just wanted to see if I could get some info, if anybody wants to share...

Harry, interesting article. It makes my point that it would be alot easier to take ears and noses to present to the Lord for proof of your battle field accomplishments than severing and hauling around whole heads... but I guess both were done. Like the article says, it's funny how those little details tend to be left out of modern history books...

Here's a list of province translations that will help with the first 2 kanji... http://nihontoclub.com/articles/referen ... -provinces

Jeff, the oshigata's fine, thank you. Looks like a pretty interesting blade...

I wonder if this idea has been somewhat embellished apon in stories of war. It's hard to imagine every soldier carrying a load of heads to their Lord for payment after every battle. First of all, a head is a fairly big item, and you might need a wheel barrow if you had several kills. It seems like it would be easier to take the right ear from each kill(for example) or something like that. Taking heads would be alot of work and it certainly wouldn't be something they could do while the battle was still going on around them. They could try to sort out who killed who after the battle, but even that seems somewhat doubtfull to me. I'm sure there is some element of truth to the idea, but I wonder if it was really a normal thing that was done consistently. Mabey the idea came from soldiers taking the head of an important enemy, where they needed the whole head for proof they killed a certain high ranking individual. I don't know...

You don't happen to have any pictures you could post, do you? If you don't want to, I completely understand...

Well, you can't plate a wood saya... but gold leaf and gold lacquer have been used... edit: Gold has also been used for metal fittings (tsuba, fuchi, kashira, ect.) for a long time, in many different ways...

Adrian, looking at your list of smiths got me thinking, wouldn't it be better to test several blades from a single smith so you can see if they give similar data. You could test 3 blades from smith #1, 3 blades from smith #2, 3 from smith #3 ect. It seems to me, the blades from one smith (or smiths of the same mon) would need to give somewhat consistent data for it to be a usefull database. Just a thought... and good luck with your idea...

As long as you're not pianting symbols on a quality saya ... mabey you should tell us more specifically what you're thinking of working on...

It will be interesting to see if the people owning "legendary" swords will submit them for the tests, knowing it could produce evidence contrary to the sword's "legend".

Chris is right... and it's a very specialized and time consuming craft when done right.

No problem. Glad to add my perspective... As far as school goes, I would only be able to take a stab in the dark, so I'll leave that to somebody else...

Oh, and by the way, it's not hira zukuri..