Rivkin

Apologies for honesty - this is average. Its genuine in a sense of school, but its late and rather run of the mill piece.

This is usually followed by a purchase of end Kamakura Senjuin or Naminohira with a long discussion on how the experts in Japan affirmed its to be Heian... Or if funds are present, than its Ko Hoki. Reality is, if you are not buying Sanjo Munechika there is very little difference between the earliest Kamakura and Heian. One has to accept the uncertainty.

I like it. Houju?

1) Yes, generally the blades which "had no historical value", especially yari and naginata had to be surrendered for smelting. Long blades were not targeted as much since they were seen as potentially important; one could donate them to be mounted as officer swords or held in reserves. There were volunteer groups which could appraise the blades and decide what could potentially be done with them, but generally they did not bother with yari which were by default considered "peasant stock" and smelted. 2. There is a connection between naginata and women in Japanese tradition and also between naginata and sohei, but actual historical documents tend to be sceptical on both. Female bushi were not too uncommon until the Mongol invasion, during which it was realized they generally just held the land rights while sending male relatives to fight in their stand, so the practice of female bushi head of the clan was severely restricted afterwards. There was still a notion of a female bushi being the last defender, for which purpose they did practice with naginata but such hard distinction as seen today in Japanese schools, i.e. females practice with naginata instead of katana, did not exist. Woman could practice with a sword and not all women had naginata skills.

It looks like lower grade shinshinto in mino style.

There is a guy there who takes shinshinto blades, uses some interesting chemical to make very dark utsuri and sometimes he puts a signature with a gold marker or chisels ichi if he passes it as ichimonji. P.S. No, you are not going to buy a quality blade for 50$ that others missed. You'll save yourself and us a lot of time if you stop trying. Yes, we all made our share of mistakes, and many were worse than this one or certainly more expensive.

Tosa Yoshimitsu was a very long lineage with many Muromachi generations, the first one was probably the very end of Kamakura though. Its hard to judge but the blade does seem to have strong masame, and Yoshimitsu's work do tend towards strong masame. Thickness of kasane (back ridge) is a strong kantei point for Yoshimitsu and can also help with understanding which generation it is. So far everything looks good.

The curvature change in nakago is not pronounced, I think its a different class of shapes.

I think its classic Echizen seki. An attractive one, with good jigane (almost makes me think shitahara as an alternative), good though not very strong on nie hamon. The issue with shinto sorry to say but there is not much to research. In koto its like crazy world with attributions, in shinto there is just not much to say.

.... and the forum turned into 10 messages a day asking - hey, I have this 50$ sword I want to buy, tell me about it. Not gonna provide the link though, cause don't wanna you scooping my treasure. 100x100 pixels pics will suffice.

Masahiro generally did not make periodic gunome, its more Mino/Jumyo kind of thing.

It gets difficult to comment since there is a competing interest, but frankly it just does not look exciting as a blade. Nakago can be tolerated in something old, this is likely early Muromachi, but overall there is just not much.

I can't contain myself... The thing is that there is Nobuhide horimono's kantei feature connected to how his hamon became at some point softer than the rest of the school. The funny thing is whether its seen or not here is debatable.

This seller specialized in Problematic blades with many kizu. You can get a good one, but you have to know what to look for. Its can be shinshinto/meiji blade and not really much of a collectible in all likeness.

In theory they can put school (province), period, even generation in papers. Often there will be hints allowing to pinpoint such data, even if its not stated directly... sometimes its what missing that counts, like the Masamune will simply go by his name, but something like "Shitahara Masamune" will include school's name. Its rather cryptic and requires significant experience to understand. With a rather basic signed blade 90% chance they will copy the signature as they see it, ... in places they can't read, and say its authentic. Is it worth it is a question to someone willing to spend... I would just use the same money and buy a second blade.

Its basically the same school.. 950,000 is sort of ok retail wise, for me its a bit high, but this is the territory where a conflict of interests appears - we are all collectors and we all sell stuff, so we might be unfair to other offers.

A fancy ko Mihara. Tend to be rather consistent quality wise. Price is the question, they are not particularly rare.

I don't know by whom its specifically attributed but it looks like ko Mihara.

Explanations begin at Juyo level. Till then the paper says sort of "its signed ... Its genuine". ... can be incomplete signature. were it really old they would maybe also say like "Muromachi".

Some people call it "Daimyo's habaki" - believing those were in Daimyo storage, too many blades not seeing the light of day and thus fitted with integrated wooden habaki by shirasaya specialists.

I guess shinsa's response - they won't care. Its a shinto blade by an unlisted (or not) smith of minor standing. Ok. They'll issue the papers, whether with or without the full name but certainly without much specifics. They do it all the time.

.... when you don't have the funds to buy ubu signed pieces. Blades were shortened or altered even in 20th century to fit the military koshirae.

For me its much harder to judge signatures compared to blades. On the one hand it does not look badly written and does look like a koto signature. On the other hand Sagami signatures tend to be bolder, with larger kanji, somewhat lower and at least with a bit more towards the center placement. They are also often faked. The work is not the most typical Masahiro but within roughly the same style. I think the possibility it papers is 50/50.

Ok that clarifies things a bit. Very straight bo utsuri, very weak hamon but high contrast jigane, this is circa 1510-1550.

Unlikely. There are some similarly styled Nobukuni's and Yamamura's from this period, but there are many differences... There was one generation of Masahiro who did similar things, but again I don't get the feeling for this period's steel. In theory - can be, but the shape is a bit off (too long, too large sori), hamon is bit too nioi etc. etc.. But like I said I have issues understanding this work. Stylewise very close to Nobukuni, but the nakago is not a typical one then. Otherwise it sort of Masahiro, but then kaeri is off. I guess no papers? It always helps being given the original link. A lot of beginners feel like they managed to get a super deal and they don't want to burn their secret supplier, but its usually not true.