Rivkin

Its my impression that the mail is not the issue. The issue is customs. They figured out that as long as they type in that the item was cleared by the customs, they are untouchable - the mail services have no right to investigate them and "conventional police" does not deal with mail thefts. They also butcher a lot of packages i.e. cleave off the front side altogether, with the address and everything. A lot of losses are not theft but just brutal handling by customs. The mail which is then as we recently sow is sold off by lost and found facilities.

Not much to see in the photographs, but does look like a legitimate Omiya blade, the end of Nambokucho or more likely Oei. They worked in several styles, one does have squarish chouji like this one.

It looks legit. The style is a mixture of shinto Bizen traits (yakidashi, sugu boshi, dense hada, no utsuri), lacks uniquely shinshinto bizen features and tries to imitate in places Muromachi elements, in places its more Kanemitsu-looking. The signature writing is well spaced, consistent speed and force of strikes. Sugata is ok. Nakago condition is quite a bit more modern (early Showa) nakago, but such things occasionally happen.

almost certainly not Gassan, a dense hada does not match anything of the school and the writing is also a bit too strong and fresh for the school. Shape wise... looks early but the work is not the best match. Not nearly as active as early Mino, not as periodic as Yoshii, too clustered for Kozori... they still made strong koshi zori on occasion into 1510-1540, which what I think this is. With two-three clustered gunome (as long as there are groups of three) one is tempted to say Mino... but a minor Bizen Sukesada I personally feel is also possible. I've seen similar type having green paper to Mino Seki and papering now Bizen. Does not really change much in blade's valuation.

Where the hamon stops can be smith dependent. Also, even on suriage swords polishers often drastically narrow down the hadori, so it can appear as if the hamon "intends to stop".

It has relatively thick kasane so either post 1380, or Kamakura. Kamakura does not really match the work. Its not Yamato but Soshu. It has kaeri, so it was not reworked on this end, more likely to be a waki. The nakago is finished with more care, than typical for suriage. It also has late Muromachi proportions. Its probably Mino or Shimada waki, Tenbun era. Alternative is Mino Kanenobu naginata naoshi, but personally does not feel that way.

I am just being .... as always. His system postulates that dozens of features related to sugata, nioiguchi, utsuri, nakago can only be the result of specific causes like polishing tricks, suriage, attempts to hide damage etc. etc. People who join the system are really into it, because they need to learn these 20-30 features and then can judge any sword and be very categorical about it like "It can be only early Soshu" or "it is definitely shinshinto". The problem is there are plenty of ubu signed tokuju that have features they supposedly physically can't and you have to declare all of them gimei.

Yes, but in Japan. He also has quite a few students-followers. Astute observations, but unclear why "if you see X" "its certainly Y" and not truly oriented towards understanding genealogies etc.

Avoid both the book and the author. He has a system which emphasizes catching features which he believes to be 100% proof evidence that the blade is problematic. A skilled adept of his circle always behaves like this: takes a blade, looks at it long and hard (high angle take from nakago), then starts to frown and puff. "Hm.... gm.... ghrm.... I am sorry to say but this blade is.... I think it has... KABAKURI!". You are supposed to ask what kabakuri is, and be educated that when nioi-guchi does not reflect the moon as a whole, but the reflection is "rippled", it is indeed kabakuri. Meaning the signature is gimei. If one wants to have enjoyable moment - let him handle a tokuju. You'll learn what a piece of trash it is.

The problem of nearly all non-Japanese polishers, traditionally trained or not: inconsistent level. Most are guilty of once in a while taking a blade on and for some reason not wanting to put the effort required, to an extent that its later refused papers... , taking in mind out of polish blades usually pass unless its really severe this by itself is quite an achievement. I've seen Moses work which was very good and on par (taking into account his style of polishing is rather difficult) with upper end Japanese work. I've seen lesser blades unfinished or finished in great haste with no regard for how it looks...

UPS and Fedex in Japan require special agreement with a sender. If sword is being returned, chances are it was rejected by the airline. It happens very often nowadays - many companies make a rule refusing "all weapons" and thus at any point and at any place (for example the shipment was changing places in Frankfurt) the package can be rejected and then it is immedeately shipped back (no second try) via the slowest method of shipment... Fedex uses its own planes in 99% of cases, so its not an issue. UPS is unreliable.

No, I personally heavily in the NTHK NPO camp, which is Chicago. But its a relatively simple blade (sorry for being honest), any shinsa will handle it.

Shinto, Kanemoto style, most likely suriage. Worth getting papers maybe next year in Chicago if shinsa is going to be active. otherwise its not too valuable.

Probably no earlier than Tembun, no later than Joji, I personally would argue for an earlier date - Tembun or Tensho. Mino can be a good guess. Some a bit off mainstream lineage like late Senjuin or Kanabo.

Mixing steels to produce broad patterns is a well known shinshinto technique which has some but limited connection to koto works. However when used with modernish steels this often results in a pattern that looks plasticky and artificial. Broad pattern (o mokume etc.) can still be produced from a "single sourced" steel. If its a modern steel, the result will look rather bleak. Yes, most crucible steels even from the same processing batch will be chemically and structurally different. Carbon diffusion plays a limited role in historical metallurgy. Its not a topic where there is one single definitive process which is the source of all things. Steel does not have a well defined chemical composition nor does it have a single crystalline structure, nor is it properties are completely homogeneous even when one really wants them to be. There are about 6-8 different types of structures often present in a single blade, to which one should add grain distribution, admixture of layers and other "topological" factors. In a non-Japanese steel for example much depends on how and S and P interact with a lattice; two blades with the same 0.1% of S one will be absolutely ok, another will fail. There is plenty of specialized literature on the subject. It is important to note none was cited this far, instead it seems to concentrate on youtube video and anecdotes related by smiths. However, even within the actual "steel related" industrial community there are only a handful of people who have more or less good understanding of the physical processes involved.

I personally lost the sense of what is being argued awhile ago. Is traditional Japanese steel inhomogeneous? Yes, and it was sufficiently studied. There are many sources of inhomogeneous properties in any bloomery process, one of them is indeed the size, since the heat loss occurs mostly at the surface, and thus large bloomeries or "blast furnaces" tend to be produce better material... There are blades made from modern and reasonably homogeneous steel (from Battleship Mikasa to gun barrels and anchors) and admittedly the hada is poor, but it is present. Yes older, more non-uniform and less thermally conductive steel offers greater options for pattern creation and manipulation. No matter how one forges, unless one has the right steel a very active blade cannot be created. It will either crack, or will look plasticky. Ikkansai Yoshihiro with all possible respect to his school, demonstrated well what happens when one takes essentially couple of different modern, homogeneous steels and tries to evolve them into the basis for traditional craft. The steel always attracts a lot of claims that should not be. From Academic people not understanding traditional metallurgy and thus assigning to wootz some magic properties nobody ever observed (i.e. high carbon "steel" kind of behaves like pig iron doped with phosphorus and sulfur) to smiths whose understanding of metallurgy as a discipline is near non-existent in the first place.

Another one I think shows Bizen style forging.

I pesonally like Nambokucho sugata the best, both tanto and daito. The very end of Kamakura and Nambokucho are probably also the most imitated examples. Classic Kamakura... aside from early Muromachi I fail to come up with a list of imitators.

The author asserts that the steels cannot be mistaken for one another since one of the blades is processed in Norishige style. I would disagree. The Norishige style is of Ikkansai Yoshihiro's school type - mostly nioi, as if painted by ink, somewhat artificial looking as if wielded from plastic stripes, typical shinshinto and later appearance. In the other piece the hada is simply much denser, so it was folded a few more times, but it still has shinshinto appearance. They "escaped" the tight itame for the sake of something "Norishige like" by manner of forging and heat treatment, but still the steel places hard limit on how far they can go. You can force it into any pattern, but the result will lack both depth and variety.

The nakago looks like it was cleaned at some point, but the work is a very close match to one of the styles, the signature looks ok. Nakago is a bit off, but maybe its because its shobuzukuri waki. I think it is highly likely to paper. Muromachi, Tembun and later.

There is two volume oshigata collection (koto/oshigata) by the local Kanazawa club, but its not that useful.

I have to admit to not knowing of any major changes in daito sugata in late Kamakura, it seems continuous to me. Its unclear when Nambokucho sugata came to be, since almost all signed and dated blades aside from Bizen, Aoe and Yamashiro are tanto. Noting that they (wide mihaba, thin kasane, o kissaki) are a small minority of Norishige's, the late date (1330-1340) appears to be more plausible. Kamakura period violence was mostly in terms of raids on neighboring estates with the purpose of adjudicating tax and border disputes. They seldom involved killing (which would immideately escalate the conflict) but more burning villages and intimidation... though reports of such akuto activities, admittedly written as a cliche, near always insist children were raped... War used to be fun. The problem of nihonto is not sugata, its chipping and scratching like crazy with any contact. I once split and air conditioner (don't ask) with an 18th century middle eastern sword and the only noticably impact was the respective area on the blade looked a bit fresh. I can wack a yataghan into my table with no effect. A month ago I photographed a Kamakura blade and literally touched a lens when picking it up from the table... About a mm sized chip. Frankly its a single big battle weapon.

I am probably going to have business meetings scheduled so might not attend, but its a well known show and I heard only good things about it.

The earliest signed and dated Shintogo is 1293. Regarding sugata, "Den Masamune" and "Den Yukimitsu" have plenty of thin kasane/o kissaki blades, Norishige has a few, which do tend to be den Norishige, Go has some.

Always an issue whether oshigata can be taken seriously. There are Norishige 1308 and 1314. For Shintogo there is oshigata as late as 1328 and a blade with 1324. There is a position there might have been two or three generations.