Gakusee

There is no gain in strength from cutting bohi. Full stop. All that happens is the excision lightens the weight, improves ductility/flexibility for only some types of strike/attack. But weakens the blade for lateral strikes on said blade. It is done mostly nowadays to remove ware or ugly horimono. Luis if the blade really deserves it (valuable/important/precious/whatever adjective in there) you will spend the few hundred dollars to send it to Japan. Sounds like it is borderline?

And frankly, your friend was very cheap, adding just $50 to a Kagemitsu bought at cost (if that’s THE Osafune Kagemitsu that is)

Excellent news. Rare for a dealer to do that.

Excellent, Piers. What does the maedate signify? Are these prayer slips that the Japanese tie to branches?

I actually disapprove of people splitting the blades from their koshirae. I know koshirae were interchangeable and blades often had different koshirae for different purposes such as a palace visit or military campaign, but today we have a situation of top blades having been separated from their top koshirae by people seeking profit. So the koshirae circulate alone and get papered Juyo etc and the blades are in their own solitary path also circulating and progressing individually. Sad. Piers above has just demonstrated it: clearly a top blade (Osafune Kagemitsu) housed in exquisite koshirae. It was probably a former Daimyo possession as those were the people who could afford/value/appreciate a top blade and would commission the appertaining lavish or elegant koshirae. Merchants sometimes went for ostentatious tosogu luxury but rarely were blades inside as precious as Kagemitsu or Kanemitsu as merchants did not care or need a superior blade. We have a problem in the market that sword collectors most often would not value sufficiently or pay up for the proper decent koshirae that a blade is in. And the dealer, in pursuit of profit, would separate them. That happens with owners too. I bought a Muramasa sword from a member here who separated the blade from its koshirae. It is just not right as that further rips asunder history. And then - what happens to us, sword collectors? We end up with nice-ish blades in their simple shirasaya and then try to commission koshirae, or put daisho together, or find the matching tsuba and so on and so forth. Having lost history, value, money all along. Those who have commissioned koshirae for bare blades would know that they would never recover their cost when they decide to sell on these newly-clad blades.

No. He is the submitter. Some owners prefer not to have their names on the papers and you see the dealers or their representatives on the papers. Sometimes the dealers own the blades before they have sold them and their name appears on the papers.

Well, Ken, he has clearly mentioned the name of the company in the title. http://www.japansword.co.jp/

Vermi, did you swap the labelling of the Norikatsu and Hosho swords in the first image?

Only the bottom one

??? Even I with my poor eyesight (astigmatism and myopia) can see the hada and finest detail on the Yuhindo website. Not meaning to be patronising or condescending but might it be time for new glasses or a session with some folks who can teach you what to look at?

So, let me try to add to what our esteemed friends have said above. I collect only Koto blades and I collect them as I am enthralled with their beauty, rarity and significance. The latter revolves around the founding ancestors of later smiths and people who have established the original schools. There was a question by the original poster about how to compare, via photos, modern and old swords. Firstly, let me stipulate that Darcy Brockbank’s and Ted Tenold’s technique of shooting swords is second to none. It is a combination of skilful lighting, the appropriate positioning of the blade and a lot of interplay of focus, aperture, lighting etc. Other people take great sword photos with a lot of detail and high resolution but the angled shots of DB and TT are better for feeling the hataraki and shades of Utsuri. So if you go to DB’s website, yuhindo.com, you will see how informative their photos are. You asked about old and new swords. Well, again you have everything on Darcy’s website: Heian blades (look at the Tomonari, the ko-Hoki, the Gojo), early to mid Kamakura (Mitsutada, Moriie, the Go, Shizu), late Kamakura to Nanbokucho (Kagemitsu and Nagamitsu, Y Ichimonji, Hasebe etc) and so on, all the way to the modern blades that you wanted to see (Ono Yoshimitsu, Gassan, Shibata Ke). All you need to do is open a couple of browsers and put blades side by side in the browser windows, as the method of shooting is the same. So, you can compare the Ono Yoshimitsu to the KoHoki or the Kagemitsu. Now, in my view, the jihada of the the Shinto and ShinShinto and modern blades lacks the vibrancy and beauty of the old blades. That is because the nie and konie and yubashiri and utsuri are not usually there on modern blades. Or if they are there, they look giddy, contrived and forced. Also, look at the hamon of the older blades. You will see all sorts of activities in there - sunagashi, kinsuji, tobiyaki, yo, sprinkles of nie and kaleidoscope of colours. Modern (or new) blades to me are simply not as exciting and while the Shinto and onwards hamon, prima facie, might look flamboyant, actually look below the wavy forms and close to the ha ( and also just below the nioiguchi) to check actually what activity is there. You will notice that if you strip the flamboyance, there is not much going on. Even if there is, the control will not be the same or the nie crystals will be large and crude (ara nie). So, either the mastery to achieve any hataraki was not there, or the control is not the same and the outcome is cruder.

People are getting hung up on minor things. Remember - kodachi were created throughout Koto. So, what is the issue with this being a 1300-1450 Kozori or Omiya kodachi? The mei looks well eroded, the patina looks right, the steel sort of looks right etc.

Mine is almost identical to O-Midare’s but holds 5 blades. Was not cheap at all but had been properly restored in Japan before I bought it

Well, your own English and Russian searches have produced what I mentioned already: 18c. Ryukyu. Good workmanship and good quality raden pieces.

Not Meiji I think. It reminds me of my Ryukyu katana kake which was dated to 18c. . This is probably later but probably also Ryukyu. Also in a recent auction ( Bonhams? Sotheby’s?) earlier this month in London a similar kake was on sale. Check their description for clues.

Thanks, Bella. Please wish him a swift recovery

So, Tony, the question is whether you did or did not ....

Condolences to his family and friends. He was an erudite gentleman and a great part of the NMB community.

You are right, they have disappeared from Amazon Europe

Wow, it keeps acquiring fancy stuff such as a box, stand, koshirae etc

Why would you need a hair dryer?? Wipe with a towel and oil. Repeat on a weekly basis for the first few months after polishing or wetting throughly / submerging (if you ever did that with the blade, which I highly doubt) If it is the saya you want to draw humidity out of, you have numerous choices: dessicant gel 1kg bags, rods, ZCorr VPCL bag I personally oil and keep in ZCorr gun bag locked in a safe with dessicant gel bags (which I oven dry for 2 hrs every few months)

You are doing an excellent job, Yurie! Thank you

Well, I would advise whoever is looking at this (4 people per hour!) to inspect the mei very, very carefully........

Hi Yurie May I make a suggestion / recommendation please? Would it be possible to unite the various chapters that deal with the same topic (school or same period) - eg Kamakura Bizen in one place and Yamashiro in one place etc? At the moment it is a bit confusing as you wrote the first chapters and then revisited the same topics later (in part 2) to delve deeper in the same subjects. Streamlining and simplifying the index and content will make appreciating it easier. Thank you.

Well, we need to put this into perspective. Buying an entire collection of tsuba or menuki which, say, cost $10,000 for the lot is one thing. It is a completely different thing to buy, say, a Juyo/TJ/JuBi collection worth for instance $5m. So often the smaller/cheaper things go together but the top end items tend to go separate ways (and frankly probably for the top end items competition will be most severe anyway). Also, it is difficult to find people with the exact same taste or preferences as oneself. Therefore, it is natural that things get dispersed in auctions and sales.