Rivkin

Thanks! I always moved by your knowledge of non-obvious Japanese procedures whose real nature I am as I think many remain unaware of... even after using them!

I don't think such swords can be uniquely attributed. 1365? itame dominated with no clear masame(?). Can it be called Tametsugu? I have no doubt some did it recently. Can it be called Hasebe? Here is not a typical Hasebe, but still attributed as such. Yes, it can be Hasebe. Could it have been traditionally called Masamune? Quite likely. Shizu? Can be. Atypical jigane, but. There is no definitive kantei trait on the photo which points to one specific attribution. Maybe in real life there is. It is not uncommon for Soshu not to have one though. Sa school... I personally like the idea, but again nothing says it has to be one.

To me this is not so much about whether limiting oneself to the uppermost bound is (always) a good thing. The issue is whether there is a single way to collect and whether money is the best metric to go by. That depends. In a dojo sensei can try to dictate diet, habits or limit tv time of students. In Islamic or Jewish world in some communities you'll get a night bang on the door delivering a message from Sheikh he caught a glimpse of you walking pass the doorstep wrong foot first. So, yes, there is a "proper way". But Japanese sensei is well aware of myriads books/tv shows condemning the "deshi" relationship in its extreme form. He has cultural anti-bodies, which non-Japanese sensei usually does not. One of big reasons I seldom attend DTI or many other assemblies, certainly wary of talking to random people, is the many existing groups with their senseis, strict rules regarding collecting, and how one has to study. I don't care about another dealer or "John who's been doing it for fifty years" running around me in circles. In three sentences you learn whether a person is ready to talk about swords, or he is out there to bring me to the "true path". I remember how 20 years ago I was repeatedly and passionately warned and prohibited against doing photography since it corrupts one's ability to work with oshigata and not a proper way. Or fed by "senseis" the genealogies of early smiths which can't be not taken seriously by anyone who progressed even a little bit past "jutetsu", default Heian attributions and other dealer stuff. The "true path" has some merits, but its not my path. WE don't talk much about what costs what, we don't use money or number of Juyos (multiplied by kokuho in the power of five thirds) as The metric. I respect smiths with zero Juyos, those born in the wrong time or leaving behind so few blades they simply don't come up often. I respect 1000$ swords for what they are and 15,000$ Kiyomaro mumei for what it is. I seldom dictate what people are to do. I am not an almanach-registered Uradel. I do not have a Nobel prize. In my hierarchy me issuing dictats would not be proper. I simply enjoy blades, photography and solving puzzles.

Probably from 1360s (hmmm)... but there are some (TJ 16th session for example). Usually with a long history of such attribution. I don't see a lot of masame and the hamon's base tends towards ko-nie so if not Masamune I would go Sa school, distart third is Naotsuna.

Its Soshu Masamune or a very good shinshinto imitation.

Its hard for me to be sure. Sugata is late Muromachi, and typically Kanemoto we expect either Naoe or Seki work, though suguha was popular in many Mino lineages in the 15th century. This however looks like textbook Zenjo. Tight bright but maybe somewhat uneven nioiguchi, featureless hamon, tight itame jigane, and they do large mokume which encapsulates area where the hada is subdued. There is a bit more nagare than on a typical Zenjo, but the school's influence is apparent, even if it might be not Zenjo lineage.

Interesting how the world changed. Not long ago a "dreamy recollection" involved serving with Hemingway, arguing with Picasso or having a tea with Annunzio. Today its meeting dealers at a trade event.

Mumei! I feel a lot of Hasebe, Kunitoshi, Nobukuni get this additional "zaimei" bonus points at Juyo, while mumei has to work extra hard getting there. A lot of Hasebe Juyo zaimei I would not care in the least about.

And if someone says - ok, without saving at 5-10k you actually can buy a first tier shinshinto blade, but mumei, I guess you'll take a significant issue with that. What price range to strive for, when, how, is directly linked to how we perceive the financial value versus art versus collectible. Which is however different in different cultures. As I hinted in another thread, minus the diplomatic nicities, the first few times I dealt with Russian, Chinese a few other collector communities I felt "what an awful low class behavior, price point reference as the basis of all decisions and flaunting it in the open", o-la-la. Then I learned how it works in a number of situations, Surprisingly Well as long as participants agree to use this metric, and it can be vastly more efficient compared to my approach, certainly more "objective" and metric based. But I would not adapt this culture, as it is not mine, I am not very well skilled in it, and what I grew up in or adopted on my own works ok for me and my purposes. For me, second generation Sukesada is more talented and interesting smith than Kagemitsu. Buying it instead of saving up for signed Kagemitsu daito - super. Mumei Kiyomaro at 15k usd or mumei Naotane at 6 can be vastly more interesting, educational and enjoyable blades than 80% of Juyo at 30-60. Its a Rembrandt at 15k... with significant collectible-vise detriments.

"What is a great blade" and "does it match the valuation" is yet another big question, and I would be in the camp "often it does not". I've seen a few Awataguchi Kuniyasu which were as rough as many Muromachi blades. Kanemitsu in MFA is one of the most boring blades I've ever seen. Many zaimei Rai Kunitoshi which have neither the famously consistent tight jigane, nor is nioiguchi particularly stable, nor are frankly very impressive overall. There are quite a few shinto smiths who produced very impressive work, but shinto valuation is very black and white, like 10 people being the top and bottom is the "rest". There were people in 1710s who never had a chance to make a lot of blades because of the economics, I look at their blades and its absolutely top tier - but there are literally a handful of blades to their name and a single line in meikan. Zaimei inferior work by Naotane, which we can justify on the basis that he needed a lot of experimentation, and a lot of it was... experimentation quality, will not come even close. But shinto blade will be 4k and Naotane 30k. There is a dozen of Muromachi smiths whom I would value significantly but their names and blade valuations remain semi-obscured. I had to check the records now myself, but Bungo Munekage produced some impressive stuff. Heianjo smiths, of whom Yoshihiro's hitatsura probably the only thing which will have decent level valuation. By comparison there are tons of Juyo which are Juyo because other similar blades have been Juyo before. Aoe is a great school, but late Kamakura Aoe Juyo with rough chirimen, not particularly accented hamon can look rather humble next to TH Oei Bizen. Subjectively to me 90% of TJ are great blades, and it goes down to probably 30% at Juyo, but if it comes down to artistry there are very poor valued schools which are impressive. Usually people just don't discern quality when they say this, so it is not a respected statement, but there are quite a few smiths who made relatively few blades, are very obscure, but are high level.

I don't think within first 1.5-2 years collectors should buy High end blades. Cheaper blades allow you to experiment, experience loss, study without having a lot at stake, not only in financial but also artefact preservation terms. I for example have very poor motorics, inferior manners and need to maintain attention just to avoid damage. Even then I had two(!) memorable near misses when photographing important unique blades... At some point I made a decision not to collect blades with very high level papers. First, there were just two periods in my life when I could afford them. Second, my understanding of commercial side of nihonto is insufficient. In order not to waste considerable sum when reselling I need to be confident in 10-30% valuation increase, which with many names is not trivial nor expected. Third, I enjoy dumpster diving and working with blades without attributions. Forth, I realized for a considerable time I was an encyclopedic collector going through as many schools as possible to understand what they are and to know how to photograph them. My high end purchase ended up a financial and otherwise disaster. I probably bought it for the name and paper level, as it was not a stellar piece looks-wise. It gave me a few fun moments, like coming to a club always presented a perfect opportunity to give it to a sensei and enjoy him stating "oh, you bought a REAL samurai blade! Good start! Muromachi, yes, samurai-fighting-yes. Very small kissaki, probably reshaped, which for Japanese sword is not a good thing, yes.". Nakago comes out... Poor Sensei-san. Thing is, appraising blades is difficult and when a new person walks in nobody expects him to carry something of value. Conversely when a respected collector in a club brings a blade you don't expect it to be a Mihara. Even the best Mihara in existence, he'll not bring something that makes people remember "and John brought Mihara". Suguha? Rai Kunitoshi! atari.

In objective commercial terms the absolutely worst purchase I ever made had a very high ranking paper. For obvious reasons.

I have seen plenty of collections with dozens of 500-1000$ swords and nothing else. Reminds me of Ukrainian army - one General, six mistresses, and every single one bears two inch red lips with certain other physical features. But there is a fun story, sort of the other side. I am standing in line at DTI and there is an American collector right after me. We are talking about what are we are looking for and I say - maybe I'll find a nice koshirae. How much do you have on you, says the guy. 10,000$. The guy starts to shake and taps me on the shoulder "you should not be doing this... you should not be doing this... Nice koshirae is 100k USD. You should buy books, study, and then with 100k you can buy a nice piece". Everytime he saw me walking between stands later same day he kept shaking his head in disapproval. I am pretty confident when this dude dies, for a year somewhere in Kansas couple of friends at the local club will sigh "John was such a massive figure in our field". And then comes.. nothing. There is not going to be a groundbreaking collection for sale. Nobody will state "Before John we believed in two Rai Kunitoshi but he proved there was three".

I would pass. It would be 1550s generation, but I personally don't like the nakago.

Unless you are already at a (very) high level, swords are basically commodity. Question is whether you enjoy it, whether it has (some) resale potential, whether you gain something from a sword (knowledge, understanding). In this sense it is difficult to talk about "good" versus "bad" first sword - it is more about a person rather than a sword. There is nothing per se wrong with your original two choices. The only thing I would recommend is looking first at 50 swords in real life and then buying the one you liked the most in your budget area. With papers. That's all. You are not going to make a horrible mistake, nor are you going to discover a treasure. `Don't overthink it.

Challenge accepted. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15953967?fbclid=IwY2xjawMBQs5leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFtRWMyUnI4aUtydkx3bThTAR6_1HOeBSs_1GYItQgwobxwYDyJHcLvs_zP9zpNKQ592IUXpMo9DkbyCLTIvQ_aem_3NhTCRC0hdK_5BvUwFo71Q No exception for blades. In year we'll have American utsuri, full of ji nie.

No, boshi is fine but everything needs a photograph with the light from the side. What we see know is hadori.

Both of these blades have a bit of "beginner" friendly characteristics. They are forged in a way which is very forgiving to viewing angles, conditions, light etc.. Powerful, vivid imagery. I personally would go for o-kissaki blade - I like its forging a bit more and overall its unusual shape which can be quite attractive by itself. But echoing Ray I do not like the horimono, its a bit too much frankly. Judging by these blades I suspect you'll like Okayama Bizen, Munetsugu/Sokan or Soshu hitatsura works. They can turn out to be better investments, but moneywise, probably your first purchase will not be great in any case.

There are few swords made in Genroku as Japanese economy started to drain and interestingly enough sword market collapsed long before the lacquer and inro market. It has fumbari but is not straight, this is usually seen as 1640-1650 sugata. But its basically a guess.

In general its a very rare school with some connection to other early Kyushu works, especially Bungo Yukihira. Is it desirable - its neither high nor low attribution, you have to look at the blade. But high end Miike will be desirable.

Thank you very much for a nice exercise!

This is a strongly nie deki blade which shows much more at an angle than from above. This means its either tired or hadori is quite bad. Because from above you can see hamon in places and in places you can't (i.e. nie is too small), its tired. Same for jigane. It is likely was a high tier blade but it aged. It is also not the most classical Yamato Shizu. There is a lot of very periodic gunome, rough jigane. Someone else (say NTHK NPO) can possibly attribute it as Mino Kanenobu, or even Shikkake (though NPO seldom attributes to Shikkake), it does not look like it has darker jigane, otherwise even Fujishima Tomoshige would be possible. But take in mind it is a custom to criticize Japanese dealers and their stock considerably more openly than other dealers.

Really jealous to see this tanto! What a piece. My personal take, in regards to the school itself, I did not have the opportunity to study any, but books do list a few Shikkake smiths with known signed blades, most prominently Muromachi "Suke" smiths but also earlier examples like Norikuni[?]. Still if it is not Muromachi there is almost nothing which is not Norinaga and by default all pieces till Oei should be Norinaga. In regards to popularity of attributions, I feel that there are not too many other options for the classic style. With small gunome it can go Nio, and indeed there is some interplay between the schools. If gunome is wide and irregular I've seen alternative opinions going Mino. What else is there - Houju? It would have to be very aperiodic hamon and dark jigane. Similar direction for Uda. If its very prominent gunome, there are other options like Tomoshige, but then again its unlikely to be attributed as Shikkake in the first place. If its notare or pure suguha, then indeed other options are plentiful but also it is not a classic Shikkake and not very often attributed as such. Overall the school's attributions are dwarfed by those to Tegai, which is reasonable. In regards to generations, this could be like Nobukuni or Kaneuji a reasonable large family shop working under the same signature name, in case of Shikkake a clean cut separation between the first and second generation is more so a matter of convention.

Positive: it has chikei, which usually points to an upper grade item. Chikei, yubashiri are not especially common in Shikkake, so it can be a stronger nie work overall with well controlled, bright jigane. Also nioguchi reference is something expected of Juyo but again not always accented in Yamato, since Tegai for example is not known for great nioiguchi execution. Negative: Sayagaki makes no assertion of quality, does not particularly praise the sword, it is also a rather short text. Setsumei is also scarce on wording, but this is often the case.

I can't see the yasurime in details, but for example, Echizen Seki. One of a few more or less generic possibilities.