Rivkin

Probably someone late, shinshinto or later imitating Hosho. Pure masame, high contrast, very uniform like drawn lines and absolutely no ji nie - very late work.

I now see its a light reflection. Anyway it has been considerably shortened.

My take is that if its in good nie, its usually upper grade Soshu. It can be argued that you find it on chokuto etc, but that's too exotic. If its in nioi, you see it being revived by Shimada, and afterwords being used by shinto and shinshinto people.

Thanks! If its absolutely straight, its shinto and there will be one-two possible guys.

Outline of boshi would help.

To be completely honest there was one person in shinto who tempered similarly and used yakidashi, but he is very rare and then boshi will be suguha. Assuming its not suguha (impossible to see on pictures) yakidashi I think would still point to Yokoyama Bizen. Who exactly would need to be details of the work, but I suspect its someone a bit lesser in the group, though still as good as most of them.

Yokoyama Bizen....

Hard No would be my take.

Small probability sue-Bizen circa 1530, large probability Okayama Bizen 1850.

Boshi needs to be shown. there are a few options - Muromachi Bizen Tembun jidai is somewhat problematic because we don't see crab claws and sugata is very straight. Bizen Okayama Sukekane or related school so far appears to be a good match. They did clusters of very roundish choji. Very distinctive features is that sometimes these choji on the opposite sides of the cluster point slightly in opposite directions. If you find such choji - that's Sukekane.

I don't think tracking jubi is realistic. Such papers were issued in quantity and the "missing objects" are those taken from shrines etc. by some members of occupation forces... which is limited to but a few cases of outright theft from important official institutions. Police was enforcing the new laws actively from 1946 with more or less uniform understanding that it does not concern historical swords not in gunto mounts especially so in any important collections, though there were numerous occasions when either police or occupation forces took posession of something they did not comprehend. What was always more interesting to me is a tremendous number of blades that stayed in Japan but purposefully lost connection to their Daimyo owners. Things you buy in Japan and then find in Shimazu sales catalogue or some comparable register. I would not say you discover its Jubi, in part as doing this would be quite difficult, but with a potential Daimyo property and knowing a general region, you have to search against 1000-2000 blades in published registers/catalogues and finding your blade there is realistic. So there was a substantial drive to sell the blades in 1950-1960 without confirming their origin. Most Daimyo families were quite stressed financially and while almost nothing from them went to the West, internally it was a huge market. Those can be thought of as "missing blades", yet the missing part was done on purpose.

could not help myself against stating that Jim's article is exceptionally misleading on virtually every aspect it touches.

were it simply nijimei Yukizane I would definitely vote as genuine. Plenty of unlisted smiths, and Yuki is typical for Bungo, though not like this one. But - the signature is poorly written. Its messy, with highly uneven characters, the pace is very tight in the beginning and very broad at the end. Generally Bungo no kuni only are pre-Muromachi, long Muromachi signatures are bungo no kuni Takada and later you get Fujiwara addition. There are exceptions though. This might be gimei.

Definitely not Kamakura, I don't want to check Yukizane, but it looks like Momoyama to maybe Kanei period.

Since 95% of all positions were heritable or close to it, chances of a common person being promoted into government official would be on the low side. Government official is a samurai. Merchant guildmaster, if of such standing as to congratulate Shogun with a new year, or attend to Tenno's procession, would typically be given a right to wear tachi for specific events, and not anything else. We obviously don't know what this or that o-wakizashi was made for. Some blame sumo wrestlers etc. However the permits to wear o-wakizashi that we know of are all to merchant you justified the need on the basis of long travels, or the need to constantly carry significant sums in cash. At the time when nearly all high end traders used promisory notes instead.

1. Tachi are extremely seldom suriage into wakizashi. Tachi is an expensive form, wakizashi was always less so - important sword suriage into wakizashi can be caused by hagire and an attempt to save the upper portion. They are as short as other wakizashi. Historically two shaku is the minimal size to which one would ordinary consider suriage, anything below is unusual. 2. Uchigatana can loose and inch due to machi-okure or suriage and become sub two shaku inch blade, but technically its still uchigatana and had to be legally carried as one would katana and not as waki. 3. Wakizashi legal definition in Japan changed over the years (re excellent Markus Sesko article), but an important point that realistically there was never a need or desire to have almost katana size waki, i.e. 22-23 inch blades. Those would be awkward for very many reasons, from shelves in bathrooms not fitting such items to lower classes still not being able to carry those. There are however exceptions. Lower class could be in exceptional cases granted rights to wear long swords without becoming a samurai (i.e. without being adopted with a new name, which was a typical promotion procedure). This would typically be signed by the Shogun. But quite a few people could and did issue a permit to carry a wakizashi in some excess of preset limits (they tended historically be smaller than today's definition) or in the very least close to it. This would be given to people of some standing and who carried cash on a regular basis. This includes gamble den proprietors, loan sharks and other elements... basically organized semi-crime. Typically such blades are quite heavy, have very wide mihaba and are 22+ inches. They are typically not shortened. there were a few Daimyo who also liked o-wakizashi, and they at times did use shortened premier blades, but that's a very rare exception.

One thing which I feel is poorly understood in the West is that for 99.9% of Japanese whether in 1800 or today to own Ichimonji is Unthinkable. They can own 100k car, can custom order transparent door to their garage so its seen by everyone, but Ichimonji is both unusual and above their station. A salarymen in Japan does not collect anything ever, a wealthy person might collect minor things, and then there are very few people who own a LOT. It was always like this. Big time collectors did not wait for allied bombing in Tokyo, there are plenty of mountain houses to send one's family and items to.

Before WWII there was great Kanto earthquake. Before that there was great Ansei earthquake. Japanese cities existed in the reality of being thoroughly wiped out by fire every 100-300 years. The buildings you find with a note that this is 700 years old often have 70 years old walls. What happened during WWII is yari were summarily destroyed, since they were as a rule not considered artistic and the populace was ask to give them to the government (together with dogs etc. etc. etc.). A lot of lesser waki were smelted as well. But otherwise out of kokuho, jubi, items in the two volume Daimyo collection published register - very little was lost or damaged. No more than real Rembrandts were destroyed in Europe. The realistic maximum a discerning collector could get in the USA in better years was upper grade Yoshioka Ichimonji in gunto mounts. The top of the top either remained in Japan, a few pieces were stolen by military personnel entering police stations/dwellings, and a few sold to highest rank collectors outside starting around 1960-1980, much more so in the past 20 years. When it comes to saiha on the market, 95% are Muromachi period's items. They were mass produced, not protected, and the country burned ablaze as a whole. By comparison I am yet to see shinshinto blade which is saiha/burned. You would expect many if the damage was that significant, yet they literally don't exist. Whatever the damage was caused by Tokyo bombings or at Hiroshima, it did leave little imprint on the sword world. Regarding the so called Imperial collection, much of it was actually... sold openly. Most of what was owned by Japanese nobility was confiscated and redistributed by the occupying forces. Almost ever "palace" and nearly all agricultural land became either public property or was distributed to renters. Even today you can buy a decent Imperial china set in Japan for about 150,000 yen - stuff from many princely palaces. You can buy blades with pre-war sayagaki or documents to one of the princes.

Almost nothing from the top collections went missing. Contrary to a popular discourse, in part advertised by Dr. Honma, occupying force's intention was to secure arms against a possibility of guerilla tactics, not in the slightest to confiscate historical pieces from important collections. The missing very important pieces were frankly stolen by members of the occupation force. Otherwise, beginning with 1945 police (which was tasked with enforcing the prohibition) began to issue typed letters in very poor English, classifying specific blades and collections as those of artistic or historical value. That's part of the reason it is very hard to buy a really top notch blade outside of Japan.

I would argue the difference between the two gets over-emphasized in english language sources. Usually just the kanji for "to" or "daito" is being used. 95% of Japanese would read it as "katana" and would be surprised to hear "daito". In the collector's circles on the contrary "daito" versus "shoto" is a common reading, while I personally have not heard "tachi" being used too often.

There've been comments on mekugi materials throughout time and space. Wood is obviously the cheapest, but outside of Japan they were considered too fragile, and copper or iron was used instead. There is even a Roman source on this. The number of ana is typically one or two. Indeed, loose mekugi was seen as something extremely dangerous and thus many moved to extremely tight (like copper bolt hammered into iron ana) or even non-removable placement.

Juyo is a competition. Unsigned Kotetsu nearly always will lose to a signed one or a signed blade by any of the first class shinto smith and thus has almost no chance of becoming Juyo.

Most higher end dealers in Japan are trained polishers or in the very least have extensive training in polishing. Yes, most sub 300,000 yen blades are polished by dealers or their similarly trained partners. It typically costs around 40,000-70,000 yen for a daito to have this level of polish. The quality varies, in some cases there is so much keisho one can look at a sword only with very good light and very steep angles. Some are certainly no worse compared to trained western polishers. I don't think anyone makes a secret out of it. There is sub 70,000 basic polish, then there is 110-150,000 polish which is more "professional" and then you jump all the way to 500,000 yen. In my experience you can ask them to guarantee the blade will not be rejected from papers based on being in improper polish. Which is more than can be said for very many western properly trained polishers, unfortunately.

I have Oei or at least early Muromachi signed Kanekiyo. Itame dominated, except for nagare and some masame in shinogi-ji. Seen a dozen of Nambokucho examples, though all mumei - pretty similar. His attribution is not liked because the tempering is also not in a strong nie, it almost crosses into nioi. This being said I have seen later Tegai blades of almost any appearance getting Kanekiyo papers, including strongly masame-influenced ones. Re:Tanobe versus shinsa opinions, my observation is that they are as of now completely divorced. Unfortunately he does not issue sayagaki to most people pre-shinsa, in order to not create a lot of contradictions, but all six of his opinions that I personally solicited in the past 2 years were all opposite of shinsa. Shinsa being on a very conservative side. Hosho (close to the top of Yamato attributions) versus Kanekiyo (sorry to say - the bottom of Yamato) is an example of such. My experience outside of nihonto was always that the practice of issuing paper corrupts. One either becomes very liberal, attracting a lot of money, or very conservative, thus enjoying the reputation of someone who "really knows", after gimei-ing blades approved by others. Both NTHK groups now also changed their leading actors and my experience so far was already more negative.

I would echo Tsuruta's comments with a few add ons. It is uncommon to see really tight, uniform itame in Bizen blades past Oei. That does not mean that all or most Oei blades are in tight itame, but that just a language phrasing issue. On Kanekiyo, its often a default judgement for a post-1320 tegai blade, instead of writing something like "ko tegai". They do have a large portion of blades that don't have any prominent masame and very little hotsure. Not much Yamato frankly, boshi, high shinogi are probably the only things remaining... and there are not that many good suguha alternatives from the period. Ryokai and Echizen Rai... There are late Tegai blades papered to Kanekiyo that are pure masame, but they are not common and tend to be on the very top in terms of quality for this attribution.