Rivkin

Kajikawa is a school and family. 90% of their work is from roughly 1820-1880 though earlier pieces are known. I feel like the katana stand is later than this, late Meiji or Taishi. I think they did not work after that but might be wrong.

That looks like a typical Taisho period or about work. Lacquer is datable, first and foremost because the methods of processing gold (or yellow colored alternatives) changed, the wood changed somewhat and in some cases the composition is a bit different. There is a percentage of items which are not datable beyond "Edo period".

That's post war. Yes, pre-1900 are a bit rare and expensive.

All this "stuff" by default is Meiji or early Showa. Showa and Heisei lacquer cracks more aggressively than anything old.

I think surprisingly the only way to go is by lacquer (shape of gold particles, color etc.). Otherwise even a multi-piece stand is apparently a very conservative form.

Frankly at this level the only question shinsa is going to answer is what's its default bucket for lower grade shinto works - Bungo, Echizen Seki etc. etc.

Its an interesting blade, however hamon with very fine and pronounced bluish ayasugi looks shinshinto. There is overall "freshness" in work uncommon in koto. Still most likely going to be a major smith, but its not that old as they claim. That's the reason why no papers.

Its hard for me to comment since I don't see any strong positives here. With late Mihara you want very pretty jigane, and there are many examples of such. Here its bleak, non-repeatative, disappearing in certain areas. Its still ok tanto, nothing horribly wrong with it, but its basically 700$ without koshirae and 1000$ in some old beatup mounts. That's what a collector would consider paying for it. Koshirae here is basically the cheapest you can assemble from around the shop parts and the only thing that is not awful is tsuba. I think one of the problems you are looking for a package with koshirae and those tend to be put together in Japan for beginners and often not really strong collectibles.

If its Tensho the damage is high already, multiple wares, subtantial thinning from nakago to the blade, on suriage at that etc. etc. If its Nanbokucho Soshu circa 1360, if you get tired Hasebe with ware its still ok price wise after polish. I suspect its Tensho, but based on such photographs its still a very slim evidence.

Tired and simple Muromachi piece with part modern koshirae. Extremely expensive.

O-kissaki with small sori, I think we can exclude shinshinto here (jigane etc. looks koto) so the options are Tensho and Nanbokucho. If its Nanbokucho then yes, polish is a good risk. Its mitsumune which reduces attibution options. It does not seem that shinogi is on a high side, which sort of suggests the same direction. If you can find couple of areas where activity is visible and capture them there is a chance it can be attributed as is. The best case its Nanbokucho Soshu which is almost always good return on polish, but by conservative default for now I would treat it as Tensho.

I very much appreciate the correction since I was trying to reconstruct the process based entirely on papers I've seen. The earliest police issued permit to carry an art sword to a Daimyo family in hands was dated October 1946, then I've seen plenty from 1948-1949. I probably have to look up my photographs because for some reason non-regulation NBTHK attestations (i.e. issued with a position mentioned) I've had/seen were provincial. Dates I think were 1949 or 1950.

I did not live in 1940s, but from collecting swords papered back then I think (and I could be really mistaken) the purpose of TH was actually a bit different. Allies never had strong intentions to confiscate art swords, so as early as 1946 local police departments started to issue permits made on a typewriter with magic words "art sword" "worthy of preservation". There was no unified policy however on how to deal with the situation and in some places police did confiscate a lot of blades and placed them in storage. Then came NBTHK which formed from the beginning many branches so they could issue "papers" that one could then provide to the police showing its an "art sword" or potentially have local NBTHK to go through the pile of things already brought over by the police and return the "art" ones. There was a short period when NBTHK judgements were made by local offices without any fixed format, on a typewriter and with no intention to certify the attribution, just say its a historic pre-WW2 item. I've seen those, signed personally by the local branch manager's seal. When official registration came into being this was no longer needed and the organization switched to issuing judgement papers. There was still the attitude that the first line papers are not the "real" judgement so there was now a second level paper (Mr. Green) which indicated that its not just a historic sword, but a collectible item. Yet the problem persisted that white and green papers could and were issued by local offices, so if you did not like the attribution you just kept submitting until you get the one you do like. After that even the main branch would seldom reject the local attribution. As the sword market went berserk in 1970s there was now a ton of green papers floating around with optimistic attributions/judgement. For a while a "fix" was the "blue papers" which meant that the main branch have looked at your green papers and decided to double down on both the attribution and on the fact it is indeed a collectible. Then the management changed, suddenly yakuza thingies in western Japan were being semi-openly whispered about and the system was overhauled with white becoming Hozon, green and blue remade into TH. Except now unlike the previous times Hozon by itself became the final, best and as accurate as possible judgement by NBTHK. No longer a first step at the local office just to certify its something and then you can confirm it with higher papers. This deprived TH of much of its meaning. Any signed upper grade Edo work can get it. Basically any pre-Muromachi blade, horror stories excluded, can get it.

Its common for Muromachi to produce unlisted smiths so theoretically we start from features rather than name. Since its signed it does resolve a lot of uncertainty: were it mumei there would be a chance for it to be Nanbokucho, but as is its almost ubu, its Tensho period sugata. Steel matches. It has a bit of Yamato provincial look with masame, shirakke utsuri and suguha. Its not kai mihara. From this prospective its possible to consider Fuyuhiro, Naminohira, Kaifu, Kongo. With strong parallel masame next to suguha I would second the argument its not Fuyuhiro but something Kyushu related. Kongo is a very strong contender. I think what the attribution you have is very solid. The issue is that if you submit it to NBTHK chances are they'll just repeat the signature with no extra info. Or they might confirm.

Any NBTHK designation is a private organization's business and bears little influence on export permits. Juyo Bunkazai and Kokuho can be exported for exposition purposes, the permit takes about half to two years and you typically need a strong public venue for the exhibit. Juyo Bijutsuhin can theoretically be exported with no restrictions since its obsolete, but in reality its quite a bit unpredictable. Some items like Chokuto can be easily denied export permit even without Juyo Bunkazai status. Juyo is a kind of thing that once its given to X blade, similar ones have good chance to get it as well. So mumei Ichimonji in decent condition has good chances to get a Juyo. Are they particularly rare? Not too much. Are they scientifically important? Not too much. There are tons Hizen Tadayoshi's that are Juyo. Are they important? Well... On the other hand you might have dated Mogusa with just Hozon or signed Shizu Kaneuji. Absolutely incomparable rarity and value. Irregardless of paper level.

I don't think it matters much. TH does not bring much value except to pre-Muromachi mumei pieces where it is often used to confirm the item is indeed pre-Muromachi rather than Oei. Otherwise its a tool to get some extra cash for the papering agency. It is not more specific than Hozon, it involves little to no extra discussions. I will express my usual bigotry, but too many collectors say "my sword is TH" or even "Juyo" with gravitas as if its something very special. Its not.

Looks like Jumyo, possibly Kambun or shinshinto.

Looks like shinto Bungo Takada wakizashi, most likely you can find exactly who using nihonto signature search or alike. Its very much of polish.

Generally any hada related kizu is not lethal. There are plenty of blades with fukure or large ware which saw combat over and over and survived. Lethal damage is either bending, which is not common in Japanese tradition or chipping. Since objectively Nihonto is by far the hardest heat treated mass produced sword in the world and therefore its chipping issues are incomparably worse compared to any other. Irrespective of hada. There are traditions which forge in more or less pure masame, you find such things in Tibet and quite a few other places. Mokume is however very seldom observed outside Japan as well as all its relatives such as matsukawa.

Thanks, I think those are perfect. I personally convinced its Kaga, Tensho period. The blade is very straight so at first I thought Kambun but such wakizashi with low sori and no tapering I guess are encountered in Muromachi period. Patina looks more Muromachi like, as is rather faint nijimei signature. Boshi is not purely sugu. Nakago is Kaga. I am very bad at reading, Ray's guess that its Masaie sounds reasonable. This is typically Mihara name, but the style here is not Mihara; can be unrecorded smith, which is not too uncommon in Muromachi.

Can't see much. The light source typically has to on a side to see the profile.

This is Kaga work, signed something-mitsu, decipherable but there are people here who are much better at this than me. Its crucial to see the boshi; without it its 1530-1670 or more likely 1570-1620 or so.

Nakago would be good to see, but so far its early Showa for export mounts with a blade which can be interesting but can be bakumutsu-meiji. Dragon and jewell is not horribly executed, but it tends to be a very late horimono, though not exclusively.

If a request is for me to go to someone's website, find a namban tsuba there and begin to argue its Japanese, why would I do that? I am sorry for repeating myself, but I am not aware of any work which would take the subject "Namban tsuba", separate it into types based on geometry, worksmanship etc., then crossreference with signed examples, then with provenanced (origin, date, something else) examples, then determine which appear on Chinese (Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean) swords and for which such instances are (currently) unknown. What is the first time this type of tsuba appears in images? Referenced in books? Described in texts? 200 images detailing signatures and provenanced pieces... does sound about right. Without such admittedly monumental contribution I don't know what I can be arguing against. "This tsuba was done in Beijing where around 10th of November workers started to cut corners and steal copper, with their very un-Japanese behavior, which confirms it was never Japanese in the first place". Ok. Must be getting really old and missing something. Maybe every single part of every single statement like that has been proven over and over again. A short summary suffices. More point for me not to argue. One is tempted to add to the list the analysis based on similarities in style to other objects in my experience those do not work. It was common in 2000s to compare sword decoration with say tombstones or jewelry and then draw conclusions regarding when and when those were manufactured. Failure, but we learned that sword makers could suddenly copy style which died out a few centuries earlier, and tombstone engravers could simply lag artistic development in other, more dynamic fields by couple of centuries. I personally question how useful this method is for dating. Finally, I don't want to point to particular cases, names, prices. Those willing can google search for tsuba with "Muromachi", "Ming", "Chinese", "Korean", "Vietnam", "Sino-Tibetian". I've seen them at shows and at meetings. What I don't see is... well don't want to repeat myself for like the fifth time.

I did not live in 18th century Japan or China, so unfortunately - I don't really know which are Japanese and which are Chinese. There are types which I have not seen shown on Chinese swords and for other reasons I believe to be Japanese "copies". Maybe tomorrow there will be a signed example showing its Chinese and I will believe then this type is Chinese or at least most of it. I have not been to 18th century Canton nor have I seen these tsubas with Cantonese signatures, nor have I seen them with provenance being trade items to Japan, so I really can't be 100% sure. When one deals with a generic subject which was copied over and over, and was understood as imitation subject with a very conservative form, its very difficult to separate them into well defined piles - Chinese, Canton, Vietnam, Japan. There are some provenanced examples which can serve as guidance, but they are generally late, and sparse covering maybe 20%, maybe 30% of these types. And even then it can be counter-argued - well its not Vietnamese provenance, its Japanese export tsuba on a Vietnamese sword. Its mounted on a Japanese styled weapon, has design elements not really suitable to Vietnamese etc. etc. etc. It ends up basically unproveable. And btw its usually really the same five-six blades that were published and I personally know dozens more that somehow "scholars" on the subject never refer to. If you could direct me to a book which demonstrates clearly 200 provenanced examples, separates provenanced types from those for which we have no signatures, no provenances, then identifies distinctive features, I would be very happy to read it. I am not aware of such text. What I awlays heard instead - there is 18th century sword in such collection, and I really believe the tsuba there is 16th century, and its not exactly like this, yes this one has Japanese anas, and its not egg shaped, but it sort of like it. It can be a good argument, but ... I don't believe in generic arguments like "There is a Ming image like that and this tsuba is also like that" are sufficient to date things to Ming period. When deals with real life objects it simply does not work. I've seen made thousands of times only to be rolled back a decade later - no its 19th century, well, they just did it this way. I would not have a problem with thousands of dollars price if the description would say look it might be early, it might be Chinese and here is my argument for it. But that's not the dealer's speak. Dealer's speak is "Ming Dynasty, Beijing Imperial workshop" and its not something I feel comfortable even, possibly more so if it comes with "international scholars consensus". Yes, it does tick me off. And it ticks me off exactly as when I deal with Japanese and they show me an absolutely Indian work and say - no, this is kin zogan, and that's the Japanese school that made it, and it must be therefore Christian Daimyo from 16th century who ordered it made in Namban style. And well you show them Indian items and they keep saying - no, Japanese work is very specific, this is how the line goes, and this is how that goes. No, its still 19th century Indian. Yes its very similar, if we would not have tons of signed examples I might have even believed you.