Geraint

Dear Teisa. Have a look at your other post for a reply. All the best.

Dear Teisa. More in hopes of provoking someone else to reply, as you know this is signed Soten but I cannot tell you if the signature is genuine or not. The style became so popular that many workers were making them. However I think yours is well above average, the quality of the work is good. As such it is very collectable. For some more information about the school see here; http://www.shibuiswords.com/tsuba.htm#soten In your other post you ask about insurance valuation, in this country such a valuation is based on what you might have to spend to replace the tsuba and is therefore much higher than what you might get if you chose to sell it. With that in mind I would shot around the $1200 mark for insurance. I am sure others will jump in with more information and better guesses. Hope this helps a little. All the best.

Dear Dave. I think they have every right to be confident, its a blade made by their own smith, Kokaji. At least they can be sure that it isn't a Chinese copy. All the best.

Gives you a whole new level of respect for the Japanese armourer's ability to make tameshime dou! Thanks for posting. All the best.

As a kid I started collecting WWII stuff; family medals, bayonets and so forth. A low point was a collection of lumps of concrete I managed to get off the pill boxes that lined the coast here in Cornwall. (Even lower was the live cannon round I found on the beach art Arromanche but that is another story). A local antique dealer, Peter Watts, used to let me look around his shop and every once in a while I would have enough pocket money to buy a bayonet or something. Fascinated by antique guns, one day in Peter's shop I saw a wheel lock rifle, sans lock and went home raving about it, way out of my price range. My Mum went down and bought it for me for Christmas but not wanting me to find it asked Peter to hang onto it. A day later the police turned up and told him that a local collector had been robbed and the gun was part of the haul, of course he returned it and when my Mum went in to collect it told her the tale and said, "Why don't you have this instead, you can have it fir the deposit you payed on the gun." It turned out to be a katana, damaged in combat and remounted as a Burmese dha. I was fourteen at the time and there was nothing available in terms of books, the best computer was literally hand cranked and so one or two general books on sword collecting until at college I came across Stone's Glossary and the reprint of Sword and Same, did a written study on The Japanese Sword, including building a small tatara in the garden and forging some metal.. It got me my degree and I started work as a teacher in another town. Cycling past an antique shop I saw a katana in the window and had to stop for a look. Stunning! Big katana in good mounts. Pulled the blade out a little and the sticker on the blade said £30. Automatic reaction I asked what they could do on it and it came down to £28. It is still the only time I have ever gone overdrawn but I bought it and cycled home with it. I still have both swords. All the best.

Dear Jesse. Please don't take this amiss, it is meant as an encouragement. In the acquisition of skill there are often said to be four stages; unconscious incompetence, where you know nothing and don't even realise it, conscious incompetence, where you begin to realise how much there really is to this and that you know nothing, conscious competence where you start to understand if you really think about it and unconscious competence where you don't have to think, you just know. I suppose we could call that last one connoisseurship. According to your own declaration that means you are already at stage two, only two more to go! (Of course, not all stages take the same amount of time but, hey ho, progress is progress.) You are asking questions and really looking at what you have and that is the start. The feeling when you really 'get something' for the first time is worth it all! All the best.

Oh no! He doesn't ship to the UK! What a tragedy, now my collection will never be complete. All the best.

Dear Michel. Save your money, even the little bi that this would cost. Unless of course you need a letter opener? This is a reproduction. Have a look here, https://www.japaneseswordbooksandtsuba.com/store/Tsuba-&-Kodogu And also, a bit closer to home, here, https://nihonto.uk/ Take your time and give your eyes time to learn what to look for. Enjoy! All the best.

Just a word of caution regarding the idea of using any museum restoration services. For a start museums focus on conservation rather than restoration; stabilising and preventing any further damage or loss as opposed to making good any damage. This is a quite different philosophy to the one prevailing in Japanese arms and armour where it is accepted that lacing decays, polish fades and, 'moth and rust corrupt', but that skilled craftsmen can make good such damage. In the case of this particular piece I feel that this is a much more appropriate view than merely conservation work. Added to that museum conservators in smaller museums are often tasked with caring for a whole range of articles, only on the larger museums are they able to specialise in one field such as arms and armour. During lockdown a source of much interest has been the Met Museum's regular Arms and Armour updates, worth a look if you don't already. All the best

Well Paul, I bet you never thought that a learned debate about Japanese astrology and the social rank of the original owner of your habaki would ensue........... It's a nice thing and was a very nice gift, without wishing to set another cat among the pigeons, I wonder what sort of sword it came from? All the best.

Hi Bruce. Don't get too excited, I think it's a horn trim on shirasaya. All the best.

Dear John. For me this is a no brainer. Metal hilt plate are scarce but do occur, I think I have come across three or four examples in my whole collecting career. I have never come across any quite like yours and I envy you this find. You will never come across another like this. The koshirae is unusual and good quality, Soshu blade and the whole thing will be fantastic when restored. It is of course hard to tell from these photographs but there seems to be plenty of boshi left. I am curious, do you think the tsuka was originally wrapped as per usual or are there any signs of thin metal splints that might have covered the edges? I really look forward to seeing this one when you have done the work. I don't think it matters how much it costs though you may have to save up a bit to get it done in the way that it deserves. All the best.

Dear JP. I have heard it said that a polish should last about 100 years but that, of course, depends on what you are doing with it. By that reckoning my Shinshinto katana, forged in about 1860, is about 60 years overdue but needs nothing doing to it yet. A sword lovingly tended by a collector in shirasaya will have quite a different life to one made in, say 1500. A polish which needs to correct some combat damage will result in much more metal needing to be removed than a light touch up for the sake of art. All the best.

Dear Eric. If I am seeing what you refer to then are we looking at the delamination in the mune near the kissaki? If so then the marks on the kissaki do appear to relate to that. It looks like a forging flaw, a part of the blade where the weld between layers was not completed well. It's a little ugly but not what would usually be called fatal in that it does not significantly impair the blades functionality. It may be that this flaw was not visible on the blade originally but has become exposed by subsequent polishes. It is probably part of the reason that the blade did not cost much. All the best.

Dear Max. (Sorry, Christian posted as I was writing but at least we are saying the same things, ) Welcome to NMB! You already know that you have two, mumei or unsigned wakizashi. Usual advice is to avoid these but as you start to read in detail about swords you will be able to see some of the features you are learning about and that will help. For the best opportunity for someone to tell you about these then photographs of the bare blades, rather like your last two shots but without the tsuka and habaki will be useful. We would also like to have some dimensions, length from the kissaki to the machi, or nagasa, width at the machi and at the start of the kissaki, thickness of the blade at the machi would all help. If you look at the nakago of the first blade you can see two mekugi ana and a change in the yasurime which suggest that the blade has at least had the machi moved up to shorten it a little. The other appears to be ubu or unaltered. Enjoy looking and learning, look at them closely in different lights and at different angles, see what you can see and compare that with what is described in your books. All the best.

Dear Chris. A short while ago there was a thread discussing a tsuba that was for sale online. The tsuba was papered but stated that the decoration on the tsuba was added later. In that case the addition was quite evident. I would imagine that a similar outcome would happen for your tsuba but it might not. For what it's worth I don't think you have very much to gain from papering this one. Enjoy! All the best.

Hi Mark. Well, have a look here, https://www.nihonto.com/the-yasutsugu-school-康継系/ This is a case where the normal order of the signature does not apply. Would love to be able to say that this is is genuine but............. This mark is not a stamp like the WWII ones but a carving. Can we see the whole blade? All the best.

Dear Mark. What characteristics of Hizen to did your friend suggest were present in this sword? From what we can see in these images the sword appears to be quite wide with narrow shinogi and extended kissaki. It certainly appears suriage. What can you see of the boshi? Given what we can see here most people would suggest an earlier date than 1600 but you have the advantage of having the sword in hand. What do you see? All the best.

Dear All. Just one more to add to the record. I have seen one other of this design. (Sorry about the photographs.) I have often wondered about other fittings produced in Nagoya, the tanto that Chris posted seems to suggest that quite a lot of the fairly clunky fuchi kashira and kozuka that we see around might be from the same source. From what I have seen there is a variation in quality which is no surprise. All the best.

Dear Bert Everyone is waiting with bated breath to see what emerges on the nakago. The screw is just possibly original as they were sometimes used. Have a look in the hole on the tsuka and check which way the threads go then a pair of flat nosed pliers and some gentle manoeuvring should see it come free unless someone has peined over the other end of course. It is possible that the glue is just there to keep the fuchi in place, we can only hope. Don't try to clean anything, just a little light oil on the blade at this stage. When you do succeed in getting the tsuka off then a nice shot of the tsuba and the whole blade would be good. Whatever you find this is a genuine Japanese katana with some age to it and not any sort of tourist piece. Looking forward to seeing it. All the best.

Hi Mark. Well I like it. Looking at the sword from the back edge what do you see? On one side of the nakago there is the remains of a hi which runs out, this suggest quite a few polishes and would usuallyy be associated with Koto work. He re is one which usefully has oshigata from both generations to compare. http://www.nihonto.us/YASUHIRO WAKIZASHI.htm Unusual long habaki. If you are anywhere near the South West then fell free to get in touch when this is all over. All the best.

Dear Dale. The auction listing states that these are a pair of modern seppa and the thickness is 2mms so I can't imagine any confusion here. I do not think I have ever seen a tsuba with that castellated mimi but hamidashi tsuba have open hitsu ana for kogai and kozuka. All the best.

Looks like someone applied the Yagyu test! All the best.

Dear Robert. I think Piers' advice is good, you just need to weed out some of those. As a fellow collector I would be happy to ease your burden and take some of the less significant pieces away from you, provided that you will accept my advice on which ones to let go. Seriously a lovely selection and I would find it difficult to let any of them get away. To borrow a cycling aphorism, "The correct number of bikes you should own is the number you have now plus one." Enjoy! All the best.

Dear Jesse. Shakudo should have a deep black colour, look at the seppa dai and you will see a brownish colour. This is often seen in Nagoya mono. The surface is nanako or fish roe, the quality of this is an indicator of the quality of the tsuba. When you start to look at Nagoya mono you will se repeated designs, often thin and worn gilding on the mimi and distinctive punch marks around the nakago ana. All the best.