Geraint

Dear Steve. There were at least two generations, some sources suggest three, signing this way and working into the 1700s. The 'handwriting' of the signature is quite distinctive hence my request for that full on shot of the nakago. The tsuba looks like it might be a Soten school work and the saya looks to have been good. If you have a look here, http://www.sho-shin.com/kyoto-horikawa-den.html scroll down to the last two blades, you will notice that the very first kanji is quite distinctive and from what we can see slightly different to yours. Here's hoping that a better shot might resolve any doubts. All the best.

Dear Steve. The sword seems to be signed, "Izumo Daijo Fujiwara Yoshitake". You will find plenty of papered reference examples on the net. A straight on photograph of the nakago would help, the angled shot makes life a little difficult. Is the tsuba signed? All the best.

Might just be the chalk/talc Brian? All the best.

Dear GG. Yep, that certainly helps. When you look at the nakago of a sword a lot of things come into play, not just the signature. The nakago of your sword seems rather long and it does not taper very much, the end is rounded, what we might call kuri jiri and it has sloping file marks, sujikai yasurime. The mei is positioned quite centrally on the nakago. I'm sure you have been looking at a lot of sword by various generations of Yoshimichi, (side note; make sure you are comparing papered examples), and generally you will see that the nakago is well shaped, tapering and ends in a crisply angled nakago jiri. The mei often consists of quite large kanji but they are aligned toward the right of the nakago, often spilling over the shinogi line but not running down the centre as yours does. These features indicate that your sword is gimei, before even comparing the way in which the kanji are cut. My apologies if all this is old news to you and, as has been said above, it doesn't mean that the sword is not interesting, just that you are going to have to identify a school based on other features of the sword. Welcome to Wonderland! All the best.

Dear GG. If you can do a shot of the whole nakago, right way up that would help us here. All the best.

Hi JT. It is the cutting test that is dated, that's right. Tsuruta san's comments suggest that the blade was tested right after it was completed. I can see why you are attracted to it. All the best.

Dear Glen. Yes to all the above but the mei reads Bitchu no kami Yasuhiro. As I am sure you are aware the mei may be genuine or not but when we get those larger photographs we will be able to tell you more, hopefully. All the best.

Ah well, perhaps someone here bought it and we will find out. Commiserations, Graham! all the best.

Hi Graham. If your £250 is based on the auctioneer's pre sale estimate bear in mind that general auctioneers have little specific knowledge about Japanese swords and may be way off. All the best.

If it is your sword you can display it how you like. (Including cheap and chippy Chinese creations from Amazon!) The conventional way, which seems to suit most of us is to display katana horizontally in a rack with the edge up ward, tachi with the edge down, in other words the sword appears in the orientation that it would have when worn. This means that the koshirae is seen the right way up. Handachi would hence be displayed as worn. If you are going to the trouble of buying a tachi kake then use it for a tachi, just like the one that Christian showed us. If you don't have Japanese stands then modern ones are easily available, failing that get a local woodworker to make some to your specification. As you can probably tell I wouldn't put any sword of mine on one of those that Peter linked to, there are questions to be asked about Chinese manufacturers mass producing articles in 'Ebony' not to mention the stability of the design. Oh, and for Ray, take a good deep dive in here, https://studyingjapaneseswords.com/ All the best.

Hi Graham. As Jean says, so far it looks like a Shingunto but be careful, if you can't get to see it hands on then you need to know that fakes/reproductions are getting close and it would be hard to tell from just these photographs. For what it's worth as far as I an tell it is at least what it seems to be, what the blade is I can't tell. Let us know how it turns out. All the best.

Looks like the nakago has been reduced to a threaded rod to secure the pommel. This is a rather different case to any of the normal modified nakago that we expect to see, more extreme even than the re shaping done to some swords to fit Kyugunto koshirae. Pretty much all the comments we have made fall away, I have no idea how NBTHK would regard this but if it were mine I would be tempted to get rid of the hilt and put it in shirasaya as I really like the blade. All the best.

Dear Peter. That scabbard certainly fits with the 1796 model sabre theory, as does the blade. Is the decoration nunome zogan on the steel scabbard or lacquer? I would agree that the seppa and fuchi are made for this blade, the seppa seem rather narrower than would be the case for a normal saya but would look right with the narrow scabbard throat for this model sword. The hidden cross is a wonderful idea but in this case I think it has more to do with same economy, the four small pieces are big enough to stick and to show under the corners of the dogane. Quite often tsuka are dressed in same which is in small sections cut to fit the tsuka with joins sometimes concealed by the ito, I suspect this is the equivalent. Like you I think this is a European sabre that has found it's way to Japan and been refitted, I don't think it is a modern put together. If only we could find out the history of it. All the best.

Dear Kenny. To answer your questions, yes to both. Also the dimensions would help. Looking forward to them. All the best.

Thank you Dirk and Jean for your thoughts on this one. In hand the repair is almost invisible, the photographs expose a lot of things that are not very prominent and hide some others. From the online images I even wondered about it being a casting seeing some of the marks around the seppa dai but it has clear evidence of forging from the inside of the nakago ana and one or two other things to confirm it as a forged plate. Thanks to all who have contributed. All the best.

Dear Piers. Thank you for your thoughts. I had assumed it to be a wheel of the law design, in fact most of the zogan on the blades is present, not showing very well because it is in silver and tarnished. It is in net form, that is discrete lines of silver crossing each other. The difference in the seppa dai was one of the issues that made me pass it up on first inspection, I can't remember coming across this before. Any ideas? All the best.

Dear Charles. Yeah! It's great when you need it but evil when you don't. Sounds like you have an interesting job. I am fairly convinced that this one had a hole cut in the seppa dai to accommodate the catch on a gunto mount. Someone has patched it subsequently, not sure they did it any favours.

You are very kind Jesse, I'm sure it doesn't qualify as that but the excitement is still there when you open the parcel. All the best.

Oh, that is a beautiful kozuka! All the best.

So! You are browsing tsuba and one catches your eye, it's got a bit of a Higo vibe. It's not much money and you are thinking of taking a shot but something about the seppa dai seems off so you can it. It pops back up at half the money and on a bit of reflection you reckon the seppa dai has seen some use but for what it costs it's worth it for a look see. You place a minimum bid, sit back and wait. Lo and behold you win. The package arrives and as you take it from the postie you can hear the tsuba rattling around inside it's box. You open the package and see that it is in a deluxe tsuba box so that's a win whatever happens to the tsuba. But the sender has sealed the box with duct tape. You manage to get the duct tape off without damaging the box And the tsuba is genuine, what's more it is better in hand than the photos. I'm sure we all know the feeling but thought you might enjoy this one. All the best.

Dear Adam. You are correct, this is a casting. Age? Do you know, I have never thought to enquire but I would guess late 19th early 20th century. All the best.

Dear John. It's a little difficult to tell from these images but my first reaction to this one is that it is a casting. What do you think? All the best.

Dear Simon. Welcome and congratulations, a nice signed, papered sword, in polish and with nice koshirae. I did find one other tsuba signed this way that looks quite similar so maybe not a false signature but that really doesn't matter in this context. Enjoy! All the best.

Glad you joined the party Ian, I think you showed me that tanto while it was being photographed. And famously Field Marshall Festing had a Tadayoshi blade custom mounted in his official sabre! All the best.

Dear Peter. One here, https://collections.royalarmouries.org/object/rac-object-54908.html All the best.