Rivkin

Without seeing the nakago or boshi its a lottery.

Very low resolution. No boshi picture etc. But its Japanese of some age.

My words should not be seen as a real judgement, but the writing to me looks subpar, pressure is uneven and curved lines have pauses/changes in direction which are characteristic of someone guessing what the hell is he writing. Otherwise this is a custom shaped end of shinto or quite possibly shinshinto waki.

This guy broke two main rules of a museum curator: a. When taking an item replace it with a copy. In this case its almost impossible to prove something happened and you can always claim what was sold outside is a poor man's copy. b. Never sell the stuff yourself on ebay. Have a wife drop it off at the local antique store, sell it to collectors you know, put it in auction as a property of a deceased gentleman, but just don't place it out there for years in sight of people who know more than you do. Stealing at western museums is phenomenal in scale. One of many reasons the institutions don't hire from the "outside" crowd and have an iron code of corporate loyalty. Money-wise the greatest offenders are weird purchases at auctions - those are considered a "fair market", and as long as the board preapproved the purchase funds there is no questioning in regards of why its so expensive. In modern art its a nightmare since a piece of dirty cloth can easily cost 100mil dollars, but even in arms and armor there are purchases which raise eyebrows... 400k for a pretty but run of the mill Edo period's armor suit... Next, in large museums there is also always weird deaccesioning where an item is sold from storage funds as "19th century copy" and a year layer it becomes a star lot at Christies. Replacing with copies or simply carving out individual diamonds, unless the catalogue has a very detailed picture of how the item looks like - it does not even register on the internal rumors radar. The culprits next to never face the actual prosecution: if rumors are getting into press the curator in question simply retires. By comparison, a system practiced in Krakow and other similar places while looking medieval does yield some results. You are not just supposed to be from the "inside crowd", but a proper noble from a family connected to a museum for multiple generations. It gets a bit funny, like directors of the two major museums are husband and wife, and the husband is not a noble so everyone jokes about it, but at least they feel the pressure not to bring shame to the family and end in a nasty manner a guaranteed, respected, though poorly funded multi-generational profession. You would think the system to be anti-meritous; in actuality its complicated. For example, nobility controlled museums can easily hire a Jew for a second-line curatorial position, though he'll never become a chief curator. Compare this to western museums which remain notoriously resistant to this brand of people, unless a particular candidate has every single i crossed. Ideally, reserving main positions for nobility means the nobility is not inclined to consider lesser staff as competition, and instead is interested in the actual talent so the works produced by the department could add to the family's prestige and reputation. I've seen however also the reverse situation - nobility staffed museum sound asleep, producing the required quote of publications just like a typical "western" museum crowd - such and such sword, this long and wide, plus six paragraphs lifted from the wikipedia and finished with some complexly worded and utterly irrelevant summary. Its hard to say what's the best system - I think in the end the issue is that no social construct can regulate itself long term and needs an external evaluation... Generally, I would consider putting a nobleman with some evidence of brain and ambition in charge as a plus rather than minus. In my personal experience aside from a Russian "court" which can be quite insufferable, I had it significantly better with counts and ritters compared to a riffraff whose brain got fried from a mere fact they are a Curator sitting in what used to be a duke's chair.

If hotel is the main issue, one can arrange to borrow a museum's space though it will be much further to the east - there can be couple of good options in Krakow, smaller spaces in Warsaw etc. There is an issue things move slowly here - we were talking about running a high quality exhibit, but the results are so far disproportionate to the amount of alcohol I've consumed.

I don't know why its got into this topic, but it looks like modern-ish steel which is tempered roughly in sue-koto Bizen or Mino style, roughly but brightly polished, with a weirdly shaped nakago which looks like koto, possibly sue-koto, but is artificially patinated and has fresh sharp edges, with a writing which has many issues. I am bad at kanji, but this has vibes of Chinese calligraphy - thin, lots of strictly parallel lines, giving it a bit angled/squarish look. So my diagnosis is at best its sue-koto blade which was roughly-brightly restored and enhanced or its a modern product, though relatively well made. Yes, photographs can be deceiving and in real life it might look differently.

That's one sexy chikei blade! Yukimitsu? Or maybe even Sadamune? Edit: I just noticed its Rai Kunimitsu... wow!

Thank you very much, that's quite something.

Is this a real blade? I've seen dated oshigatas, but was not aware the dated work exists.

I don't think its possible to be precise without seeing the boshi etc, but it looks koto. Sugata is very weird and I suspect it was deformed at some point in life. Suguha hamon where not much is seen plus lots of masame - most likely something provincial related to Yamato. Kyushu, Naminohira, Houju. What's kissaki dimensions look like? Overall the nakago might say its sue koto, but its a kind of piece you really want to see better images in places. Was it purchased in the US or Japan?

Kanazawa is great, and there is a high class sword museum (Shusui) about 40minutes away in Toyama. Also a good traditional culture museum in Toyama (with a tea room) which on occasion holds sword exhibits. Both Kanazawa and Toyama castles have very average displays. No great sword shops I know of, but Toyama has a good community and I heard there was a sword club meeting now and then. Nagoya - Atsuta shrine has a good display with subpar lighting, a few good shops of which sanmei is best known. Has antique flea market which is very average, as frankly all Japanese non-spec antique markets sword-wise. There is Tokugawa Museum which is very good, again light is subpar. There is obviously the new sword museum in Nagoya, but it happened way after the time I lived in JP, so its best addressed by those who've been there.

Give us good pictures as defined many times on this forum and good chance we'll tell you the ballpark of what it is.

They are both real, unless a smartphone somehow learned to capture ghosts. Katana needs nakago picture, preferably boshi as well. Wakizashi looks like a remade naginata and sugata wise it has potential. Need good pictures.

Yes, in a better Mino nie can concentrate towards the upper portion of the hamon in a pleasant rather than ugly-clustered formation. Very nice. I do have high hopes for the blades with these photos in terms of being an upper class of Kanemoto lineage. Also top level polish because these things are hard to accent and often hadori obscures the finer activities in the habuchi area. Nioiguchi does not seem to be too consistent which detracts from the beauty.

Early (pre Kamakura) sword construction is rather diverse. There are many single slab, but about 25% of the overall are sanmai, and there are exotic bilayer left to right on katakiriba shaped blades and bilayer up-down like later on Yamato. Metallography on continental blades (for example, Tolmacheva) tends to be far more representative with total of about hundred blades tested and published, compared to literally few published Japanese examples. Kofun is not illustrative since it has different tendencies.

Yes, looks like Shikkake from Nanbokucho, a bit more ko nie oriented than some, with clear gunome pointing towards the school. Senjuin attribution feels weak to me. On the one hand, Senjuin is a very generic term, on the other hand its really a Kamakura period school and Nanbokucho items usually warrant another and more specific attribution.

Almost certainly not koto? Its shinto period's Kanemoto style, maybe by his lineage, maybe by one of many imitators. But it still might paper to later generation Kanemoto.

I am going to be critical. The issue with all publications on the subject is that each deals with a particular selection, makes the most general conclusions, and is conducted by a person who either understands the modern steel, or the old steel or the sword history, but never all three combined. As a result you can find opposite statements on the same subject, in each case supported by graphs and observations. First, in regards to Ohmura, I feel its a case of liberal contrarian arguing against mainstream patriotic. It has been long postulated that the transition from Chinese to Japanese steel is observable by changes in titanium and to lesser extent tungsten concentration, which distinguish continental and Japanese sources. Accordingly Kamakura period blades are seen as at least 90% Japanese sources, Kofun blades are at most 10% Japanese sourced. If the conclusions being contested, this observation (different characteristic inclusions in Japanese versus Chinese sources) needs to be addressed first. In many ways the conclusion also mirrors similar one for bronze, though in this case the argument is much stronger since its based on the ratio of Pb isotopes which are very characteristic of specific locations. Second, Kitada makes an important point that what distinguishes Japanese sword steel by period is mostly the grain size, which is related to forging practice. Accordingly in his analysis shinto swords come out on top because their grain structure is exceptionally well controlled. Accordingly his position that changes in swords have much to do with forging, like more foldings for shinto, and less with sources. Also a good example of contradictory data - in his publications P and S in Japanese swords are generally low. He makes a good point however that in European steel native presence of Mn can negate even high concentrations of P and S, therefore for Japanese steel presence of such inclusions would have been more problematic. But again his statement is that its very low, which is in contradiction with some other measurements. Third, still no definitive analysis of composition versus period. Shinto steel does look different in many aspects, but are we certain of this, and why it is different remains unanswered. Is it better selection (composition varies a lot within tatara), is it better sourcing (specific region), is it better forging, is it imported etc. etc.. In regards to hardness - european technology includes a final operation of taking a blade and heating it a bit for day/days to reduce its hardness but greatly reduce stress and dissolve large martensite. European blades do not hagire, and frankly non-Japanese blades do not hagire, though its achieved by different methods.

Its a secret, but quite a few better people who buy unpolished blades etch them first to see at least what's hamon outline is. Polishing them afterwords is no problem at all, polishing generally removes more material than etching.

Unfortunately I don't see much of clear ayasugi hada here, nor is it alike to 1450s Gassan, which is relatively early since almost all of them are from 1500+. What I see is more like endulating sunagashi/kisuji/nagare within the ha area with somewhat darker jigane, bo utsuri, rough hada with some mokume, hamon in suguha/midare/gunome which tends towards ko nie (Gassan tends to be suguha or notare). I think its Fujishima, Kaga, circa 1500. Obviously I can easily be playing fool's game here if it has NBTHK papers, but that's what I see. Unfortunately another issue is that a lot of Muromachi production from the period looks a bit alike. You see similar things sometimes in Mino and Bizen, later in Mizuta etc.

Not really a tosogu person, but I would second its likely to get ko kinko papers, but kinko ko shoami looks right.

I like it!

The main problem with valuating any kind of historical object is artificially constrained supply. In the West you have stuff going into museums but almost never coming out. Paintings and prints which 50 years ago could be bought on demand today come up once every 5 years. Because thousands of them are now locked up in museums, willed or gifted by collectors. Roughly the same thing happens with nihonto. Order of magnitude there are 10,000 Juyo and a comparable number of Jubi. Each year I would say the absolute maximum number of Juyo being sold worldwide is probably 100, and a typical number is probably more like 30. And 10 Jubi at best. Far less than 1% of the total. The cause is while an average collector keeps a high end sword for 15+ years, there are Japanese collectors with >500 high end swords who never sell. If anything seriously bad happens in Japan's economy, Juyo prices will drop from their current "baseline" price of 20-30K USD to more like 8-10.

I possibly see Enkyo, which would make it not a Meikan recorded smith. It can be a shinto rather than Muromachi nakago. In my impression shinto's Uda were a generic shinto style smiths: https://www.aoijapan...katana-uda-kunimune/ but possibly the meaning behind the papers is that some continued to imitate the Muromachi style. In which case its actually an interesting attribution.

I am bad at reading kanji, but this looks like Muneyoshi 宗榮 which can also go as Soei. The style of yasurime and patina - from Kambun to WW2 period. The problem is that yasurime and nakago generally look ok for Harima lineage, but the writing does not really match its style. Otherwise its not a common name and I don't really see any matches. On the other hand the writing itself does not scream "gimei", but its not of great quality. This is where going through books would help, there were many generations and maybe one signed like this.