Gakusee

Thank you,.... that is very telling Many copies and fakes

Apart from the Nagoya “biggie” , his competitors are the Osaka mega-collector Sawaguchi san (http://www.brastsheave.com/custom.html) and Mori san (https://www.shusui-museum.jp/en/collection/).

Ha, the old debate ... To uchiko or not ..... Most novices, and actually even some people who believe they know what they are doing because they have “been collecting for 20 years” or whatever the number is, might not know how to use uchiko and apply it. Mistakes include: - using bad uchiko (large particles, or too many of them released via the mesh as the silk mesh is substandard) - overoiling swords and hence creating problems by setting up a toxic mix of oil, dirt and uchiko - pressing uchiko too hard or hitting the uchiko ball on the sword with too much force - and of course the micro abrasive power of uchiko, no matter what, on the lustre of the sword which has been newly polished I know myself, as I have scratched swords using uchiko..... Very few know how to apply it properly, ie removing the oil with a soft tissue or microfibre in the first instance, then spreading the very finest uchiko very very gently, then dusting off / brushing off the larger particles with tissue , and only then applying the tiniest of pressures with a soft tissue. As it is risky and an inexperienced hand can do more damage than none, it is safer and better to use microfibre. I have seen collectors with 30 years experience energetically slamming the uchiko ball on the blade and then zealously wiping it off with paper, which is guaranteed to abrade the polish. And it does not matter whether it is hadori or sashikomi, you are still inflicting micro scratches. Sashikomi vs hadori differs in the nugui being used and the technique for rendering/tracing the hamon but even a sashikomi polish could be “shiny” and could be damaged by uchiko. So yeah, some very experienced Japanese collectors and collections know how to use uchiko but that does not mean the wider majority of us can do it well.

Adam/Babu You are reasonably off.... https://blog.yuhindo.com/den/

Remember the auction. Local small auction in the U.K. We were all bewildered as it needs verification....

Correct. Exempt from customs & excise duty but still subject to 5% reduced VAT rate. Has been like this for a while.

The biggest telltale signs are: lack of active hada (quite uninteresting , uniform and tight hada) and lack of activities within the hamon (the hamon is empty within).

I did check with a lawyer back then. The grant seems to be erroneous as he is using a generic term, which means Japanese swords, to sell Japanese swords. That would not be allowed. Even Bruce’s post prior to mine corroborates the same - Apple cannot be trademarked by a business selling fruits or only apples.

As Paul said, extremely difficult to tell from these photos. I seem to discern a slim suguha hamon (or at least what looks like it) along certain different portions of the blade, which makes me think there might just be some hamon there. But I cannot be certain. The major things to look for when trying to decide on polish are: A) does it look like it has a hamon B) does it look like it has a boshi C) what is the “niku”, i.e. “meatiness” or just plain thickness of the blade , which will indicate if there is sufficient metal to polish further D) look at the hamachi - if there is a proper notch at the hamachi , then it might be that the cutting edge has not been polished that much and you might have a chance of the ha/ hamon polishing well Of course all of these need to be evaluated with a view to your financial circumstances and your intentions / liking of the sword. I think the koshirae either was or was trying to emulate Higo aesthetics.

First looks like Bishu Osafune .... to me Cut after Osafune, where the actual swordsmith name would have been

Yes, €15000 plus auctioneer fees plus taxes. Not a bargain

. Buy a Juyo blade for a couple of thousand dollars that the OP has spent on his eBay purchases? No, no chance

Jussi, with all due respect, a mumei, plain Naminohira does not deserve to be there. It is that simple. I have seen some of the swords submitted for that shinsa and believe me they are stunning. I am talking about top-grade Awataguchi, Soshu and KoBizen. That one is a massive head scratcher - literally and figuratively. It only has the length going for it, at 82cm. it might sound presumptuous, but also the mumei Yoshikage is confusing. This is and will remain a decent but sort of also-run smith whose best work is probably subsumed within Chogi and Kanemitsu. So, what we have left is good but just not that exciting in hataraki and hamon. The statements above are deliberately controversial in order to provoke some debate.

Thanks, Pete, seems like a very worthwhile session, with some great swords. I wish I could have taken a glimpse at the Jitsua, a rather rare swordsmith.

Well, the ashi indeed were there as a means to prevent a longitudinal split. Also, in order to reduce the tension, mid Kamakura Bizen smiths forged the hamon in nioi when they employed larger choji. Less brittle that way. Their predecessors did it in nie and konie. Also the hada had less nie overall (“appearing soft” is often heard) but that was of course offset by the addition of Utsuri (a bit of differential hardening there with more nie). So, they were quite skilled these guys and we cannot jump to simple conclusions.

So, I mentally struggle a bit with that concept of brittleness causing the ochoji hamon to subside. Theoretically that makes sense of course, but such hamon was produced for around 30-40 years (roughly 1230-1270). If it was brittle and ineffective, it would have disappeared within 1-3 years, maximum 5-10 years. Yet, we see several decades of obusa choji, juka choji, fukuro choji, etc. People often cite the Mongol invasions (1271/84) as watershed moments after which the large choji came out of fashion. Indeed, that is evident in the work of Nagamitsu and Kagemitsu. Their progenitor, Mitsutada, started off with small hamon rendered in konie in the fashion of KoBizen smiths. Then he evolved to beautiful kawazuko and ochoji in nioi in mid 1250s. At the same time, the same happened to Fukuoka Ichimonji guys like Yoshifusa and Sukezane.

I seem to remember the price estimate was very high as it came with some provenance, if memory does not mislead me....

Francois, to your query about the blades inside..... well one could put anything they want in there..... even a gunto if it is precious to the owner. You just need to look at the residences in which these are placed to deduce the status of the owner. I have been inside some Japanese abodes, and these are not your “average” condo residences. You could also browse the gallery and see what blades are stored there... there is a Yukimitsu tanto (probably Juyo, but that is just a guess looking at the quality and solid gold habaki), Horikawa Kunihiro, something that looks like a Nanbokucho tanto etc.

Brian, if you can organise it in SA to similar or better specs, that it will be very interesting. Bear in mind that is a very niche hobby so the volumes will not be flying off the shelves, and therefore organising a mass production line on this will not be worthwhile. I guess because this chum is making so few of these cases, and materials in Japan are expensive, his prices are so high. The craftsmanship looks high to me.

Save your money, study first and then buy. I suggest you postpone buying until at least next year if not later

Kirill So on the green papers, perhaps we could sort of agree that for innocuous middling or low level smiths there is hardly much danger in having the paper, PROVIDED THAT the buyer/user is experienced enough to know what they are doing. Forgers make a lot of money from the mid to top named smiths, and not your usual chusaku smith. The green papers are disavowed, but for someone who is experienced and good at kantei, one could buy such a green papered sword , as though it was not papered, relying purely on one’s own skills and not the paper. In other words, own knowledge, skill and discerning eye lead the way. The danger comes when inexperienced collectors place reliance on the disavowed green papers and then get disappointed due to their lack of understanding of what they have bought and sole reliance put on [potentially] fake green papers. That is what we are trying to clarify and this is where the nexus of what Paul is saying (buy the sword, not the papers, provided you know what you are doing) and your long-winded response. However, I cannot at all agree that green papers are as honest as any other papers or that JuBi are more questionable than green papers. As Darcy has explained and in line with the law of diminishing returns, as people have repapered most of the legitimate green-papered swords, you are increasingly more likely left with the fakes. It is simple statistics. Also, JuBi have their bad apples in there but these swords are rarer and usually still of great quality, even where there might be an attribution overstatement. Furthermore, from one of the biggest collectors in Japan and the world, someone who owns kokuho, JuBu and JuBi , I have heard that his own estimate is that around 30% of JuBi are questionable. And when someone owns 15,000 swords, you listen to him as he has the empirical data right there in his own warehouse with swords. In my view these [30% unreliable / 70% reliable] are still better odds than the green papers. Next, you make the statement that green papered assessments today will paper a notch down from the green papered appraisal. What about Brano’s Naotsuna (see thread http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/32065-blade-attribute-den-naotsuna-genuine-koto-or-not/?do=findComment&comment=331189)? I dare say Naotsuna is several notches down from Masamune. A notch down in my book will be Go, Yukimitsu, Norishige, Kaneuji. Onto Sato Kanzan sensei. Well, we all know that: 1) his sayagaki have been forged very skilfully many times (refer to Brano’s sword again in the linked thread above); and 2) even if the sayagaki is genuine, it is not that difficult to adapt the saya to fit a different sword. So, one can have a perfectly legitimate sayagaki fitted onto a fake sword pretending to be what the sayagaki describes. Onto the Taema / Yukimitsu example on Yahoo Japan. Well, personally when I looked at the photos, to me they indicated some Yamato blade even without reading the detail. I just didn’t get the feeling of refinement that comes from Yukimitsu plus that big, unusual, un-Yukimitsu o-kissaki of a nagamaki blade construction (very, very atypical for the smith although a handful of Yukimitsu examples exist). But also, we know that some Taema blades look very much like one of the styles of Yukimitsu and vice versa. One needs to look very clearly for supremely fine hada, clear jigane and rich nie to differentiate the two. And then for subtleties like the size of kissaki, the mune etc. I have to say that example was a bit disingenuous.

Bob, Paul Let us not get bogged into semantics. Both NBTHK and NTHK certificates are the opinions of very learned people about swords and represent consensual views as to who might have made them. The NBTHK is said/believed to ascribe heavier weight on historic provenance, heritage and artistic aspects whilst the NTHK is believed to weigh more heavily indeed the state of preservation. Both institutions’ certificates are taken by collectors to indicate [a degree of] authenticity (in a rather broad sense I am afraid to say) and indeed if the sword has a counterfeit signature (gimei) it will not paper with it unless in very specific and rare circumstances (eg Muramasa does come to mind). However, we need to note the consensual nature of the annotation by the appraisal panel and if there is some disagreement, then the word “den” might get inserted to indicate the smith’s proximate circle/students or even the smith himself (with small deviations from stereotype) , or a school attribution could be given or one of several, equally plausible answers. If by “authentic” you mean genuinely Japanese and made in the traditional way, well yes, that could be said of the certificates. If you mean “made by that specific smith”, well that is also subject to interpretation as there are still arguments about how many generations of a smith existed, or even whether a smith made that given work or it was one of his best students (happens a lot in Rai, Bizen esp in Osafune and Hizen). So, we need to be careful how we use the word “authentic” and what is meant by it. It might simply mean “the most plausible, consensually attained view agreed upon by the panel” rather than “made by that specific smith”. I also have noticed, as Guido might be implying, that historical significance and importance of the blade starts to weigh more towards the upper tiers of appraisal (not so much TokuHo). But again, this is a dangerous ground to tread, since historic blades or those owned by important historic figures were owned by such due to their high quality in the first place. No one would give a daimyo a sword with an ugly fukure or cracked etc. So, perhaps these blades ended up with the daimyo because of their supreme quality to start with (and of course, made by the top smiths of the day and before). Well known are the stories of shogun retainers traversing the land and inspecting daimyo collections for appropriate gifts for next time the shogun decided to pay them a visit. Therefore, one cannot just conclude that a TJ is such simply because it had daimyo provenance - perhaps it had daimyo provenance because it was a superb blade made by a top smith. However, I have also noticed that all things being equal in terms of quality (well, approximately), daimyo provenance gives an edge in J/TJ, and so does the presence of a mei (contributes to the degree of preservation factor of assessment). Perhaps what Piers was trying to say was that a turning point in the career of the smith, eg signified by how he signed or where he moved, indicated a certain level of quality. For instance, Kiyomaro blades, ceteris paribus, would in the eyes of experienced collectors be more valuable than Masayuki blades, since Kiyomaro was more skilled when he signed with that mei, whilst a Masayuki mei was placed on a blade when he was younger, less experienced and not at the peak of his skill. One could go on with similar examples, smiths gaining titles etc. On Bob’s question about NBSK certificates, yes I have seen them and they look very good. Given out for contemporary smith’s oeuvre. See here: https://nbsk-jp.org/syoumeisho_top/syoumeisho_haikei/

Jigane comprises the jihada but also the hataraki and colour. Hence, you hear of darker jigane... Kitae is indeed the forging output of lamination but I also thought of tempering, as forging is not only laminating but also the heat treatment.

Dwayne, the second photo are actual asteroids and celestial bodies. It was out there for comparison only to the first picture, which shows are nie

For Chris: Norishige student or school. Could be Tametsugu For Paul: various elements make it sound more Mino to me (hakikake, a lot of nie that I can see, sunagashi, various togari), even though from a distance the hamon looks Bizen and some of the midare utsuri and hamon and choji and you mention nioi actually point to Muromachi Bizen. On balance, your description is more Bizen but I would need to look at it in hand