J Reid

It could be an old shinto blade with a hamon that has been lost in a fire (so no value) and fitted in appealing modern mounts and sold to a tourist who wouldn't know the difference. It happens...

Uwe, it's just the polish. The blade seems "reverse" in its current state. However,it is without doubt- nihonto.

Andras... yes there are earlier books on the topic that are quite expensive as they are out of print and/or were written by famous collectors long since gone. It was only just 7-ish years ago that these were the only books available in their respective areas of this hobby. They carry their own value as a collectable because of this. Nowadays many new books in English have been published (mostly by Markus... -thank you over and over again, Markus!) If you were to purchase all of the books by Markus sesko, and the few must haves outside of his series, you would be pretty much set. Would cost around $1000-1200. Lulu.com has coupons regularly that can save you a lot of that figure as well.. last one was 40% off! Most of the "expensive" books are in Japanese anyways and probably won't be much use to you (unless you can read Japanese).

Chris, your friend lives in this house? Wow.. what a house that is. You would never see something like that anywhere in North America. Almost looks like something out of ..Harry potter.. or something of the sort. Haha

Can't help much with the Mei aside from telling you its the artist signature and seal. Let's see the picture.. generally speaking, it's pretty easy to tell Chinese from Japanese artwork.

Hamon in nioi. I am seeing flowing waves of sunagashi and sprinkles of chikei. Hada is O-mokume and rather loose, IMO. Shinogi ji is masame.

Of course I read them. Hahaha Jesus people are all over the place *cough* "uneducated, in general".

I also think late Muromachi due to saki-zori curvature but can't rule out early edo due to patina on Nakago.. so in considering these points.. I'll take a stand at momoyama and be somewhere in the transitional period.

A bizen smith.. maybe a later generation Sukesada.

Wow Kamakura? No kidding.. very surprised. Interesting exercise, guys.

Back to topic... the Naginata that Marius posted is good for comparing to the other naginata in discussion. Funny enough they kinda look similar. The one Marius posted looks mid-late Edo (hard to tell for sure because of the lit up patina on Nakago).. Pretty short and beefy. Sugata is almost a balance in length in Nagasa X Nakago. The original posted naginata had a longer Nagasa and shorter nakago ..slightly slimmer Sugata.. Id think the OP naginata is older (earlier Edo) than Marius's and actually slightly suriage. All speculation and uneducated without seeing OP nakago. Jean, I agree, when comparing a Koto blade with "a good example of dark steel" vs a shinto or newer, it is obvious that the steel of old swords is considerably darker. Thinner and lighter blades too. Shinto steel is "generally" lighter in colour as opposed to Koto. Jean and Jacques.. exceptions to all rules right? Occasionally there is shinto blades with "darker" steel and koto with "brighter" steel. Jean is correct about the transition of steel quality from Koto to shinto and I'm sure Jacques is right too about yasutsugu .. didn't he and other shinto smiths experiment by sourcing old steel to use when making their swords? Just my Thoughts .. oh and I agree with you,Luis.. you start to develop a "sixth sword sense" haha.

Kobushigata is a good call.. This also kind of looks like Kani-no-tsume "crab claw" gunome-choji

Agree with ken. Yes no kaeri. Most likely reshaped naginata.. late muromachi-early edo.. maybe yamashiro? Hoso suguha.. Masame from what I can see.

Alex I thought it looked like a bizen wakizashi/katate-uchi from early-mid muromachi as well.. sukesada probably.. but I'm curious to know for sure. Nakago jiri was the tell for my eyes

Nice! Round 2 for Mike. Thanks for sharing Gordon.

I think he said it IS what you think it is. An Edo period pre ww2 wakizashi. ..Out of polish. Need better pics of Nakago (tang) to push forward any further.

Sword is sold offline pending payment. Thanks!

Ideally I would like to see this go sooner rather than later as I need funds to cover a new acquisition. I will do one massive price drop to encourage a quick sale.. $1300+ PayPal and I will continue to include worldwide shipping in the price. I will still entertain partial trade offers. This is a lovely sword and I'm positive the new owner will be pleased.

This hamon is probably oil quenched and so it is not an etched hamon. This sword has similar properties to traditionally made blades however some steps in the forging process were modified, skipped, and sometimes done by an inexperienced smith. The stamp indicates this. Yours seems to be in good period condition with good mounts and a tassel. WW2 swords market seem to be on a high right now so selling yours may bring good money..

I can't give you any info on school or smith because vital details are lacking .. however from what I can see I would lean on Koto and possibly Mino. The color of the steel is much darker than one would expect in a shinto blade. Fukure are never nice.. The Boshi needs close examination and I would check for hagire. The koshirae look decent. Will be hard to resell because of flaws etc.. but if you plan on keeping it, I could understand its appreciation as a nice piece of history. Hope it was on the lower end of $1000.. Cool pick up all things aside!

Bump

Bump ✊ .. if you'd like to make a fair offer please don't hesitate to pm me. I'd also like to remind all that I am open to partial trades as well.

Don't want to budge much but I'll go as far as to include worldwide shipping and PayPal fees in the price. 24 hour inspection period as well.

A 1 inch kasane would be legendary! Haha

*9mm ..thanks for pointing that out!