Marius

Nice, but not unique enough to come up with an attribution.

John, looking forward to this :-) Great stuff!

Aha! So I was right! And wrong! And now right again when it comes to menuki, I promise to keep my mouth

I bet that no foundation polish is needed on this blade. It looks very healthy and in old polish, with just speckles of rust, but of course it is always the polisher who decides what to do. And yes, the order is correct :-)

Thomas, much better, thank you I was wrong, I am happy to say :-) These menuki are real, and nice, too :-)

Let us hope Brian is right, not me

Maker, hm... ? These are cast copies, sorry.

Nathan, as Curtis has said, the mountings are "cobbled together".

Curtis, You have chosen a great specialist. We are looking forward to seeing the results of shinsa :-)

Congratulations It is a ko-Senjuin blade. The paper says "den Senjuin". And it is ubu and signed, which is absolutely great I don't think the description of the hamon is correct - there were no choji in Yamato works. I'd love to see good pics of it, especially showing hada and hamon. Enjoy it

Peter, A good candidate for shinsa (if you decide to submit, please do not forget to re-open this thread with the results). Thanks for posting - very interesting

Thanks Peter. Some running masame in the ha... I'd say Uda (please check that nakago mune), but it could be Shikkake, too (although it is hard to say by pics only and the hada seems a bit too prominent). I still see only the hada in the ha, but no nioiguchi, but I suppose it follows the masame structure to form nijuba/sanjuba? Whatever, a good tanto. Well done Oh, I forgot. It looks earlier than late Muromachi. Sorry, I got the sugata wrong, thought there was saki-zori.

Dirk, Uda is a popular grab bag for what in fact are Oshu and Hokkoku mono, so your guess is a good one. If the nakago mune is maru, that would be also a kantei point for Uda. Pity we can't see the nioiguchi.

Peter, So what are the dimensions? 32 nagasa? Even in oshirae, this sword is never 59 cm long. Please correct these data. This is not a Yamashiro blade (which means that you have go back to the books). And no, this is not a mokume hada. What I can say is that this is likely a shortened, late Muromachi wakizashi from the North of Japan. Going by provinces, the suspects would be Etchu, Mutsu, Dewa, Echigo. You can read this highly interesting article on Danny Massey's site: http://www.nihontocraft.com/Ura_Nihon_no_Toko.html And no, don't jump to the conclusion that you have a Norishige It would help a lot if you could post better pictures of the habuchi. What we see now is the hadori polish (not the best, from what I can see in the pics). I know this is very had to photograph.

Curtis, I have forgotten to say what Grey has said, but it was implied. Truly good koshirae will cost you $,$$$. And the result might be far from satifying even with that money. Plus, it will never be original.

Curtis, If I may suggest - do yourself and the sword a favour and have a shirasaya made.

Curtis, that is one beefy and healthy sword Like it has never been polished. Definitely worth a shinsa. Judging by your most recent pics and the color of the patina, plus the beefiness of the blade, I would say it is at least shinshinto if not newer. Looked like koto to me in your earlier pics, but not anymore. Well, that's judging by photographs... Hada is impossible to discern in your pics and this state of polish. The menuki looks low-grade. Oh, it is munemachi, not Muromachi The expression for thickness is kasane, oro motogasane/sakigasane. And what you described as "Kasane" is the nakago mune (I presume) :lol: Nice blade.

That's for the pics. And I think you got the terminology right, too :D

Rusty and basically worthless.

Gents, a quick (and possibly stupid) question: while I have no ambition to make good pics of a sword's sugata, I like to show its hataraki. Darcy makes the best pics I know. Of course a serious set-up is needed for this. I make pics of my hataraki with a simple LED lamp and I take them freehand. The results are (obviously) so so. I use the bog standard Canon 18-55mm lens. Attached are two of my pics. Not the worst crap, but highly unsatisfactory. What lens would you recommend for such pics? Sorry to have hijacked this thread...

Dirk is a member here, I believe.

Looking forward to seeing more, Curtis :-)

I agree, Brian. Looks like (ko)gunome.

Chris, I see it ending just above the sabi giwa, hence my thought about machi okuri. But I might be wrong, of course, with the quality of the pics...

Curtis, trying to determine a sword's age by sugata only is fraught with risk. An even, smooth patina is just good patina. Rust and dimples proove nothing. Based on the looks, I'd say: A late Muromachi/early Edo uchigata, machi okuri. I won't venture to guess the school, but based on what seems jizo-boshi, perhaps sue-Seki? Looks beefy, what is the kasane? Do I see correctly that the nakago mune is maru? That would point to Uda (if I got the period right, that is). Having said all this: I won't be suprised if this turns out to be shinshinto :-) Such is an attribution based on (sorry - low quality) pictures...