Rivkin

Nagamitsu tends to have very well defined choji, with a few exceptions. This one is notare-midare. Other things are weird as well.

There are surprisingly many Masamune TH. Some are TH because they have a lot of damage; I personally believe there were two "Masamune" - real one, early smith with a very calm work, and someone from 1330-1360, very close to Go with a crazy over the top style, but at least one fukure per blade. If you don't see fukure, it has been suriaged (yes, he could do fukure in nakago). If there are 4 fukure each 1-2cm in size (there are such blades) it does not get above TH. The second case is Masamune which becomes Shizu at Juyo (too much masame to ignore).

With me looking at the package raises questions. To be short and practical if the blade has no modern papers I would disregard the origami. If it has papers to Nagamitsu I would disregard internet opinions. In deep theory its possible its Nagamitsu and origami is original, but there are significant things I don't like about either one.

95% of "serious" nihonto crowd 70 and older believe "you should not photograph a blade". Its a waste time and a sign of being unprofessional. One is supposed instead to hold it and "read" it by reciting out loud what you see. Accordingly you kantei by "reading" the blade and then comparing the description to texts. This allows one to study potentially without ever seeing a real nihonto, you just go through oshigata and textbook descriptions. First problem, you visit different societies and people in Japan with the same blade and you realize the terminology changes considerably. Its like martial art, you have a dojo, a sensei, and he knows how to do things. Second, a single word "itame" covers about 30-40 very different hada. Third, oshigata and textbooks cover only the "classics", i.e. how Kunitoshi is supposed to look like, not how it can look like in real life. Often studying sayagaki and "papers" from 1900+ generation it feels many back then studied a lot of oshigata and very few actual blades.

Ok, it is quite likely Ikkansai Yoshihiro or his school. They wanted to replicate Norishige.

It would be along the lines of someone wanting to reproduce Matsukawa hada. These late attempts (Ikkansai Yoshihiro school is best known for those) tend to have hamon which lacks any nie to the point it can be barely visible.

Boshi would be helpful as well as overall sugata shot, overall nakago on both sides. Otherwise, the tsuba is modern, tsuka is old, blade most likely is not that old. Can be Edo period, can be later, can be even showato.

It looks a bit awkward but in theory can be earlier than that... Nagato/Oishi Sa is a rare attribution, Hirado does come up now and then. Sa with unusual features...

This got me motivated to go through my archive and set aside items where the dating is not secured, though has been theorized and leave only the items for which it has been established. Good thing about continental finds they often come with a sword, which in turn is dataable... so far to my surprise I see solid plates as early continental tsubas, though on the other hand wheel is not such a big symbol on the continent. But still, the flood of sukashi appears to coincide with late Muromachi...

"I want only the best... everything papered...". Three months later comes a photograph of the craziest spare parts assembly... with papers. "It has achieved the designation of Tokubetsu Hozon".

Most likely it is early Edo, but boshi would be helpful and hadori is so heavy one can't see the hamon unless its photographed at an angle, not from the top. Kiku mon was likely added at about the same time as when the sword was made. I don't feel its a great sword so it might be there is no perfect explanation why its just kikumon and no signature.

I would take both to be late Meiji period's work of the kind often described as hamamono: the topics are traditional, but the design is both crowded and dominated by large elements with overly grotesque execution.

Thank you for the clarification. My take would be: 1. There are transitional tsuba types having Kofun qualities but dating to Muromachi - I attached one example. They are rare, but their existence convinces me the "sukashi" pattern lived on, and even though continental-tachi type tsuba were popular, it was also a more "official" and "high class" type, while others were more associated with "ordinary work". Quite a few known examples are not in Japanese books because unfortunately Japanese society is centered around dealers, and dealers have little interest in archeology - therefore everything knowledge-wise is skewed towards what can be traded and not towards proof-of-concept singular pieces with verifiable date or history. I can upload photographs of what I believe to be Nanbokucho/early Muromachi sukashi, but all are highly symmetric "ray-like" designs. Can I prove the date? Is an interesting and long question, certainly pre-late-Muromachi there is always a conjecture at some point and some manner of unreliable interpretation, but on the other hand they do form for me a straight line all the way to Kofun (?). 2. There is an interesting disconnect between what was exported/left in 16th century Korea versus what is available today in Japanese market as late Muromachi works; Indeed nothing complicated can be found in overseas gifts or finds with verifiable dates. Lots of sukashi with central symmetry. However, its also possible that early ko-sukashi was limited to high grade items, in which case quality can become a distinguishing factor.

Common design/execution, appearing in numbers in Korea and Manchuria, associated with 16th century battlefields. They are more or less all alike, as shown in attachment. In local finds, they outnumber tosho/katchushi plates about three to one. This taking into account most plates are probably continental in origin.

I am trying to understand which "sukashi" tsuba are being considered: Complex asymmetric designs? Or the ones which have at least central, possibly greater symmetry (rays, wheel, whatevver the name one wants to assign)? They appear in Kofun?? So is the statement they disappeared and then reappeared?

Its not in hard nie, hakkikake-ish to almost ichimai in nioi - they are very hard to photograph. Its there on both sides, so its ok.

Per Bob Haynes this one is early Shonai.

It has a matching sugata for the late Kamakura period. There is significant gap between the blade's condition, which is problematic, and the signature, which is in good shape. On the writing I can only second what Dmitry's wrote. Solid description of what the signature should be.

It has a modern (showa) feel to the nakago. Often mei close to the mune at the time would be a bit longer with more detail, but nijimei is not unheard of. So its probably WW2 period blade.

Well, I hope Brian does not take it in a bad way, but here is how I see it: Brian is within the top three to five, and with some types he is (really) the best maker in the world. He is bad in communication, responses, or keeping up with schedule. What is less known is he is a great tosogu and lacquer maker. Its probably not well known because he is very busy and does not need to advertise, and also his style in both is very peculiar. Its not over-the-top makie work, which what a high class lacquer master would specialize in Japan. I love over the top makie, but unfortunately in part because of cost saving labor/material choices the modern ones always have a shiny-plasticky look. Shiny roiro, yellow paste-like makie, its just jumps at you how compared to old examples you don't get to enjoy the diversity of gold particle shapes. Brian makes koshirae which looks like a real Edo period work. I collect lacquer and have good understanding of lacquer, and there is almost no comparable work from Japan with authentic feel. So if you want full Higo koshirae, Brian can make it, and it will be stunning (but understated), but I don't want to think how patient one probably has to be, at times, till its finished.

Its a weak blade suitable for someone who really likes Kotetsu and wants to collect everything associated with him. Jigane is mute in places and coarse in others. Hamon has little distinction except foamy nie in its upper portion. But then again maybe it really comes out full strength when viewed at an angle.

Its an old discussion which has no clear solution. For myself, I will take the top 1% of Sue Bizen over average and below Ichimonji anytime of the day. However, unless this 1% has Juyo papers I objectively cannot resell Sue Bizen for anything comparable to Ichimonji. It is just not happening in real life. Paper level+attribution+nagasa+condition dictate the market, except for 1% of buyers who don't care about the market and 5% of dealers who have brand recognition sufficient to overcome the bias. One can also lament the arguments "Its only Hozon/NTHK/TH/Juyo and not TJ", but they are also market reality. Believing that's not how it should be does not make it so... Until Russian collectors came to market everyone accepted as a sign of professionalism quoting painters in dollars per square cm. There is a related concept "attribution is quality assessment", which I believe works for some names but not others. There is a hard ceiling for things like Taima above which it becomes Yukimitsu. There is no hard ceiling for Senjuin since its usually strictly feature based attribution, but alas again the market accounts for many people believing Yamato as a whole is a quality assessment and not the best one. And unfortunately for a beginner the belief "they called it Shimada but its a prize blade better than Sadamune" is just a good sign he is enthusiastic about the field, but probably lacks maturity in it. And personally I like rarity. I am always found by blades like unusual chokuto, unlisted smiths, custom works and weird utsushi. They are interesting, they are puzzling and that's another pleasure of collecting.

In every collecting field there are two choices. You can make it about the objects. Beauty, rarity, historical importance - whatever is more attractive to you. Or you can make it about you being the elite connoisseur who knows "how to collect" and has a unique (no doubt inherited from deep aristocracy on the mother's side) level of cultural perception unavailable to others. Yes, 99.9% of nihonto is probably of little interest to a serious collector, but one has to arrive to this feeling through experience and exploration. Its a long, beautiful and unfortunately extremely expensive path that should not be undertaken in search of "elitism". Enjoy your level, enjoy your purchases, enjoy your discoveries. Everything else is mostly irrelevant.

I would say unconventional thing, but East Asian laws should not be interpreted in a western sense as a permanent list of rules enforced by courts. More often than not those were rescripts issued to address a specific situation in a specific place; some managed to create a tradition, in other cases an existing unwritten tradition had as much or greater impact than any written law. I would believe images and surviving koshirae more so than a literal reading, and there are plenty of examples from makie world where the laws were very specific and restrictive, and its related to swords in a way: black lacquer with gold mon was allowed only for major (above 100,000 koku) daimyo clans, and anything beyond that in full gold was basically comparable to Shogun's level. Yet in 19th century nobody cared and even before it mostly affected "official" events and related items. In the same way you would expect plenty of daisho tsuba if wearing a two set would be typical for samurai's everyday function, yet they are typically late and not exceptionally common. You would expect plenty of Inoue Shinkai daisho blades simply because it would make sense to order two at the same time if you have the funds, but that's not the case. You look at images, and there are plenty of formal functions where people are dressed for duty yet have one katana and nothing else. If such was a custom at a given time, whatever was commanded 50 years ago did not matter as much. Just a personal opinion and maybe I am missing something.

Yes, daisho were actually somewhat popular for a very short time - in early-mid 1800s and possibly also in the beginning of Edo. The problem arguing about definitions is its pointless. You can call anything you want a daisho, but what's the point. There is an accepted understanding of what daisho is. The statement that it was an enduring "symbol" of samurai is false; it was a short lived fashion which possibly occurred a few times in Japanese history. The only exclusive right of a samurai was to wear daito in everyday life. Everything else was up to discretion, situation and custom. There were some classes/families that wore instead a waki or a waki and a tanto, there were many who wore a single daito, very large daito, very short daito, there were some who wore two waki or two daito. Now can one assemble two unrelated swords and call it a daisho - I have not heard this being a crime. Is this a collectible daisho - no. Its what Russians call "arguments of the poor". For a collector or proper dandy samurai it has to be a proper pair.