Rivkin

Late Kamakura blades do not have a reputation for being confused with other periods. There are some Rai or Yamato works that were quite well replicated or imitated in early Muromachi sugata included, but that's about it. The danger zone is something like Soshu from 1360-1380s. There is like a stack of papers oscillating between "Shimada" and far more seldom "Uda" and Nobukuni, Etchu Tametsugu and first generation Soshu Masahiro.

There is two order magnitude difference between the commonality of late kamakura blades (i.e. post-Mongol): Tegai, Rai Kunitoshi etc. and early Kamakura blades (ko Bizen, Rai Kuniyuki etc.). Late Kamakura does have a hard reset at 1330x when sugata changed.

I am definitely the last person to be relied upon for proper understanding of the terminology and rules, but: the blade is Ayanokoji, Kamakura. In most tables this is dozen to things like Munechika and maybe something like Rai Kuniyuki. With Enju I had to look up the tables, and (I hope I got this one correctly) some books like Conneusiers... placed Enju as tori yoku for Ayanakoji. Rai would be dozen for Enju.

With a different, i.e. Kamakura shape here. Hoping not to sound too professorial, but that's what the earliest pieces look like - Yamato, Soshu, Bizen (ko choji) all in one piece.

Since it was up for sometime, let me steal the knowledge from the internet. The school's founder, whose style is basically retained in this piece - this is how its portrayed in oshigata.

There might be a connection, but different period and island.

There are definitely areas with much kinsuji and tobiyaki lining up on masame. But negative on Yamato Shikkake.

Forgot the most revealing shot, obviously.

That's what happens when you post Bungo swords - people make assumptions about the future material Enju is tori yoku according to some books.

Two shaku, three sun. Work is typical for the school.

I have a feeling I saw it somewhere, but can't find anything in my library... Help is appreciated.

Its more or less certain that the blade is from 1550-1650 period. The boshi is not distinctive. Too common in my opinion. It widens a bit per Muromachi trait I guess, but not exclusively so. There is bo utsuri, maybe shirakke or dan utsuri. The hada is not well seen. It looks to me quite well forged and lacking mokume of the kind typical for Muromachi Bizen or Mihara. I don't see a lot of masame except some nagare around the ha, but if its substantial, then its still Mihara. If its not dominant, but the hada is more along the lines of well defined individual itame strikes, then its Hizen. The forging is also quite dense, not common in late Muromachi, but more along the lines of shinto. Could also be Bungo Yukinaga, but in their work the hada comes out less wet and more sharp.

Does it mean nobody got dozen and above? Typically kantei ends there.

If it has a lot of masame can be sue mihara from the very end of muromachi.

Maybe 2nd generation Hizen Tadahiro...

Wait a second, the certificate says its early shinto, Horikawa's school. Makes sense, somebody like Dewa Daijo Kunimichi worked like this. I would treat such attribution as (likely) believable.

5 years ago and before JASMK I thought were ok. He papered mostly mid-ranking blades, with reasonable plausability. Today you see a lot of Rai Kunitoshi and such level stuff with his certificates, and in person it feels that the blades were assessed rather optimistically.

Hizen Tadayoshi?

Rather wide sugu boshi and the fact that the curvature is nearly identical to your Takada. Kambun Yukinaga I would argue was a significant smith, your Takada maybe a bit earlier, and it is Yamato styled (no mokume, masame), which is the least quality version of Yukinaga's work (their best are Rai-styled or very seldom Soshu imitations). This one I would guess shinto, Joji (1640). Its acid etched. The style of work is very common nie Mino-ish inspired shinto work. In this polish I don't think its possible to go further.

17th century publications, from which considerable portion of this detailed genealogical information is derived, for some reason are quite inaccurate when it comes to 10th, 11th, 12th, and sometimes even 13th century. Nobody knows why. Its one of the great mysteries of this world. I mean if it says the smith was active 1173-1196, you would expect him to wait for the first day of 1173, pick up his tools, and then as any decent person would - put them away in 1196, making sure his name not to be used as signature ever since. But there is a crazy theory out there, which I personally don't believe in. It might be they did not read Meikan.

Asking dealer's opinion on another dealer is redundant. What you'll get is: The papers are fake. The sword is fake. The polish is fake. The images are fake. The store is also fake. ..... but on the other hand I might just have what you are interested in. The worst thing - sometimes such advice is true. On this blade - its within a typical price range for TJ early Bizen work. 150-225 or so. Its not the earliest, in my (very personal and erroneous opinion) its more along the lines of Ichimonji (Fukuoka?), but it could be that in some 17th century publication Tochika is marked as ko-Bizen and all thus signed work is now labeled as such. Its Japan. Which does not detract from it being very active, passionate and interesting work, in good polish and decent condition, not too often seen and quite early. If you like the style - go for it. Its a great blade.

Unfortunately nihonto community has only two skills: a. Reading papers. b. Finding smith's name in a database.

Why gimei? 90% of Muromachi Bizen signatures are done in thin script, with pronounced thinning in the middle of most strikes, typically with vertical strikes aligning parallel to the edge, with more or less constant distance towards it. Here the writing is as broad as a typical shinto style, the angling of strikes is random, the distance is poorly maintained. Sugata of late Muromachi wakizashi can be a tad straight, but one would hope for more graceful curvature. Maybe photography distorted it. Maybe I am used to somewhat upper grade Muromachi Bizen, and this one is a really dustbin example, but I doubt that. Just a personal opinion.

From the shape its Kambun shinto. The mei is cut in shinto rather than koto Bizen style. There was shinto Bizen Sukesada, but besides him Bizen signatures in shinto are extremely uncommon. The mei cut by uneven, shaky hand, which is uncommon for Bizen shinto or koto for that matter. Its most likely gimei.

As I have problems reading kanji, I've been a "victim" of this a dozen times. In the mild form its me picking up a blade at a store, showing off my skill by naming the smith, the seller nods and congratulates me... and later I discover the sayagaki states a later generation, with somewhat lesser financial expectation. Another mild case is choosing in the sales description the earliest possible date in Fujishiro, Meikan or whatever text even when it does not make any sense. This one is very common, but at least one can look at the blade and judge if that's of the period claimed. But there many Japanese dealers, especially on auction sites, who will write the entire description pointing to the school's founder or the most prominent name, while the sayagaki Explicitly hints towards a lesser name. Some will even include papers to another blade, by the famous smith - and then you recieve you purchase without this paper - it was just an "example" of what a paper would look like, no it does not come with the blade! Dumpster diving in Japan is ripe with dangers.