Rivkin

1. Sadamune. 2. Shintogo Kunimitsu and any top Awataguchi. 3. Sa and school. 4. Norishige and school. 5. Rai Kuniyuki. 6. The best of Aoe. 7. The best of Yamato Senjuin. 8. Soshu Hiromitsu and Akihiro.

Connection between Bizen and Kaga is not accepted per se, but I personally believe there was one. Not only the names like Norimitsu, Kiyomitsu etc. which might have something behind them, but Kaga (as some others) at times produced full blown Bizen imitations, with crab claws and what's not. One of the problems of Kaga appreciation is difficulty determining "Kaga style" per se - yes there is Tomoshige which are consistent with the first generation, but they are not too common. Yes, it goes back to Sanekage, but you almost never see full blown Norishige school imitation, Tomoshige tends to look a bit more Kinju then anything Norishige-based per se. They are sort of eclectic Muromachi phenomenon through and through, even during the late Nambokucho, with no solid "roots".

For what its worth: Kyushu schools have it quite often, as well as Houju. But it looks different - you have a very prominent line of masame somewhat above the hamon which does a bit of a sinusoid. Its not strictly periodic and also the sinusoid tends to be quite wide with respect to its amplitude. When sinusoid is strictly periodic, high amplitude but rather narrow I personally take this as Gassan.

Longish hirazukuri waki with large sori - Muromachi, likely 1530. The work looks classic Gassan. No comment on the signature I guess.

Still don't see it. I see hadori shaped as crab claws, but hamon remains maybe. Unfortunately the blade is improperly polished. Hadori is heavy and hada is void. It can be sue Bizen, but what comes out from behind this polish in this pictures does raise some questions. Just a personal opinion

Its really hard to say... Tight featureless itame is not Muromachi thing, sugu boshi is suspicious, hamon lacks Muromachi features like crab claws. I don't want to study the mei, sorry, but Muromachi is not something that comes to mind looking at the blade. Can be the polish though.

For some reason kissaki are often burned even if the rest of the blade looks intact. If hamon is visible, even if its close to yokote - ichimai. If its not visible at all - likely burned.

On smartphone it looks legit with no utsuri and the signature is right but it's tembun generation or about. Shinsa yes but I would do budget version on this one

thanks a lot and congrats to Jussi!

Looking at it once again I feel the nie is a bit too ill defined for Yamato... Echizen Rai?

I think its kind of those cases which turn out to be deeper than expected. In tosogu narrow specialists are common, plenty of early iron or Goto folks out there. In swords they are rare and they tend to be more experienced and quite wealthy. With hizento you'll be dealing essentially with the subject where almost everything is known and can be determined from signature alone. Plenty of information. Not too great a variety even if you include Munetsugu and sideline followers of Masahiro, both standing a bit aside from the "mainstream". Yamato on the other hand is a huge topix where much is unknown and many attributions are uncertain. They have a poor rep thanks to huge quantities supposedly churned out by Tegai around 1350s, but both Senjuin and Hosho are first rate schools. They are not 10k swords, more often than not at least. Senjuin in particular is a matter of convention, since it sort of attributed in a negative fashion - its something Yamato related that is Kamakura (except when its Nambokucho... or Muromachi but then its best to be signed) and lacks features specific to ko-hoki for example. So you get any jigane from tight itame to full masame, you get almost any hamon... There are Senjuin blades in ko choji or even weird creatures that have Ichimonji like choji with wide stripes of nie. You can have midare utsuri in Senjuin. Even excluding Ryumon who is a kind of stand alone person(s) in Senjuin, but his case is not that atypical for this school. So Senjuin alone (and the rest frankly are quite narrow and well defined kantei-wise) is a tremendous subject where not much is certain. I would argue the rest of Yamato is sort of very predictable. Shikkake can be upper grade work but is seldom first class, was active for like 40 years, a few smiths, definee as Tegai with some gunome but not Shizu... Tegai, Taima are both narrowly defined, Hosho is great but even more so presents a very consistent work by a small, determined school. So 95% of "study" per se would be Senjuin. But can one be a narrow Senjuin specialist? A tad difficult. A negative attribution presumes one has to know why its not Hoki or Hokke or Kyushu or Houju (and surprisingly it tends to be more refined! Not something one often says about Yamato).

Would love to see nakago and definitely boshi on this one. Suspect its shinto but can be a decent piece. Yes, a lot of Tokugawa mon are very late creations, yet it was also one of the most common mons in Edo period. Matsudaira used it and also Tokugawa did send their children for adoption to other Daimyo, and you then see this adopting lineage at times using some manner of Aoi mon as well. There are some arcane methods to determining aoi's age and attribution, like whether the rays are parallel or converging, whether the stems are completely separated as here (which I think tend to be Matsudaira) or not etc.. Hell knows where my book on Aoi versions is though.... but yes this can be a much later creation as well hard to guess without full resolution photo of the mon and makie around it. Makie in most products did change noticably towards the later years of Meiji.

Yep, I would bet on Muromachi Mino. The nakago seems cleaned.

Ugh! I wanted to say right away a Nambokucho Yamato off-shoot Tegai/Mihara type but the hamon is a bit too intricate... Sue Sa?

Agh, I see what you mean. No its not Mishina boshi for certain with the new pictures, I don't remember at the top of my head who specifically changed to sugu-boshi like that - it is unusual I agree.

I don't think it follows the line exactly like that, but yes. Typically - Shinto. One can even try calling it Mishina boshi, but its not too reliable. Just a thought.

Could be real. Hamon seems to be suguha. Can be Yamato Shizu, can be lesser northern name like Kashu Fujishima (small gunome expected) or Uda... With such sugata shinshinto is always a risk, but the work does have this feeling. However there were some people like Kaifu Ujiyoshi who being Yamato trained (Naminohira lineage) did very convincing suguha-Yamato-Soshu in Momoyama times with Nambokucho sugata. P.S. I own Hosho (Hozon) with o-kissaki Nambokucho. They are just even more rare than their tanto.

Well somebody was trying to cook up a ko-bizen kissaki with a fake Ichimonji signature. Also sugata suggests Muromachi period.

Regarding the pedigree, I think its not too encouraging. I've seen dozens of blades owned by US ambassadors, admirals etc., and well, very often those were gifts, and people don't have a tendency of giving gifts equivalent to 100K USD in modern money unless its a bribe. Condition is usually unusually good and fittings are very late but very much upper grade, but I did not see a single blade at the Ichimonji level. I am sure they exist, but these are exceptions. Honestly the most promising provenance would be along the lines "from the estate of a convicted burglar who pulled occupation duty in Nara's shrine park".

Unfortunately I am at a loss re the hammer price is this one. There is a lot of niku in the blade, no strong evidence of midare utsuri, there are no defects... Yes, there are Kamakura blades with no defects - they are TJ as a rule. It is not in polish, but there is very little here suggesting Kamakura attribution.

The greatest issue I have with a modern society is its commitment to morals being a preset of unchangeable postulates. Philosophy worthy of Bronze Age fundamentalists but a wholesome rejection of historical realities. My mother grew up in camps. Cannibalism was rampant. As were very late term abortions. Infanticide. Was this evil? I would not say. Very little in prisons or war qualifies as "good", whichever side one was part of. The problem of modern morals is limited experience our journalists and professors have with life outside their career path. Air conditioning does mellow once's spirit. Makes life a bit more boring also.

I think the most honest statement is - I personally can't see anything in any of these pictures. These are probably good blades. The kitchen counter appears solidly build and well cleaned.

Wow! thanks. I will readily say Yoshikage would be zero chance for me on this one.

That's a first for me. Realizing as noted how much more difficult it is compared to conventional blades. It feels like many things boshi etc. simply do not apply.

I think you might be right here - for some reason I was hasty with Hizen guess, it does look koto. Damn, should not kantei on a smartphone. I would through a bit tangential thought though - Ryokai-Muromachi. But suspect Bizen is the correct answer. unfortunately that is one of the things where I can't distinguish well between Uda, Bizen, Fuyuhiro, Bungo and Ryokai.