jesup

How do you remove verdigris? (I have some on a naval koshirae) And should you?

Another intriguing note from the pdf: "Suetsugu SHIGEMITSU established and headed a tanrenjo (“Chikushi”) at Sasebo Naval Arsenal at Nagasaki engaging young swordsmiths from Fukuoka." Also "On some blades he uses 筑紫 Tsukushi an old name of Fukuoka province." So *maybe* a student of Shigemitsu??

Aha, from the pdf linked above: "Sometimes the old term Tsukushi (筑紫)(also read Chikushi ) is used for the whole prefecture; that term has also been used for the island of Kyushu. " So close to what I had: Chikushi Norimasa (I had 'ko' inbetween them). So likely not a personal name, though that's not proven, given they're unrecorded

@marcus thanks! Tsukushi Norimasa - Interesting! I presume Tsukushi would be a personal name? (I see references to modern Japanese using that name) (and yes, tachi-mei and no date to the previous comment). I also see this: So there may still be a link to Fukuoka..

My assumption has been it's the province name, but that's only a guess. We do have two listed smiths from chikuzen/Fukuoka (Nobufusa NOB151and Nobumitsu NOB357) who signed Chikushu, and one more listed in nihontoclub - Hiromitsu HIR287, so there was an active gendaito forge there. There was one Showa smith in Chikugo in nihontoclub: Takekazu (TAK240). Nihontoclub lists a bunch (~20) from Fukuoka in Showa.

I have a gendaito signed Chiku Uji? Shi? Norimasa (or Chikushi? ko? Norimasa). I haven't found anything about him, and Chris Bowen also says Norimasa is unlisted. Has anyone seen anything that might help? Somewhat active hamon, more nioi than nie; tight forging. I can only find 2 smiths in Showa who used Chikushu (not chikushi/etc): Nobufusa and Nobumitsu. https://photos.app.goo.gl/Wsk4bTsWAPCfh3sT9

That was one thing I liked about NTHK (at least under Yoshikawa-sensei before his passing; I haven't had anything shinsa'd since 1997 Long Island) -- you got some details with the results often, even for rejections (I had a hitatsura wakizashi that had a gimei Yasumitsu, and I was told it was Echizen shimosaka in the rejection slip)

Many years ago I recovered a set of swords and fittings that were stolen after being put on the wrong airplane, and an airline manager and local deputy x-rayed it, saw it had swords and pulled all of the tags. After 60? days anyone could claim it. (I can repeat the details later.) When I was sending some blades to Chris Bowen, usps tracking showed it out for delivery in the wrong town. They had misrouted it, they had to ship it back to the right city, then try again. I went to the person at the local post office who had taken it; they were pretty helpful

suriage katana - cut down in length. Probably late koto/muromachi - roughly 1500-1600. Needs a polish ($$$$), but not in bad shape.

Regardless of all the discussion about what this should be called... even being mother-of-pearl in lacquer it's amazing.

Fun video. That abalone tsuba is insane

Any update as to what he's up to? Rates? How many years backlog?

I realize this is obvious... but perhaps "lacquer thinner"?

Ironically I literally just bought a Mishina school blade with kicho papers to tanba no kami yoshimichi (papers from 1950, so perhaps more reliable than later ones). It's mumei, though, so it can't be gimei, and it's clearly sudareba hamon, so it almost has to be some smith in the Mishina school (I already have a Tango no kami Naomichi (5th? generation)). We'll see what happens at shinsa; it will need a polish for sure, but most of the blade is in viewable polish.

Note: I'm no expert. A Shinsa committee is a group of people. They can be wrong. And they have considerable reason to err on the side of "no"; when they say something is shoshin they're putting their reputation and that of the organization behind that. If there's any question, they pass - and that may not mean it's gimei, it may mean simply they can't say it's shoshin (right?). Back when I was more directly involved (I worked the submission desk at the '97 Long Island NTHK Shinsa with Yoshikawa-sensei), my understanding at the time that NTHK was both more forthcoming with details (pass and fail), and also they were putting their personal guarantee on the result. I had several items pass with good results there, and a couple come back as gimei, but with details about what they actually were (one just as 'shinshinto' (gimei higashiyama ju yoshihira, absolutely no surprise), one as a specific mino school in early edo, one as unknown smith and (I forget the term - mass-produced war item, for a yoridoshi with a notare hamon). Another possibility is that it was a mumei blade by another smith in the school, and was made gimei to the bigger name. Perhaps even the same name - mumei by a later (lesser) generation. IIRC there was a story from back then about a sword being submitted and failing as gimei; the mei being removed and it passing as the original smith. Which could be the committee screwing up -- or it could have been mumei, and someone put the right name on it (similar to the first scenario). Imho, if you're confident, I'd consider resubmitting. The lack of feedback from NBTHK is to me pretty ... annoying. Not even on a shoshin saying what generation it is often (though they may give a era). Clearly if they're saying shoshin and given a smith's name they know which smith/generation they're referring to; why not put it in the papers? (If I'm wrong about this, great - as I said, I'm no expert, and my direct experience was with the (original) NTHK).