Rivkin

I would say its Edo period's boshi. There are many which do not follow the lines of o-maru, ko-maru and there are also many differences between successful generations of smiths. One can assign a name to them but it will be a bit iffy because of the diversity range.

Superb, thanks to Rayhan, Brian and Bob Benson!

Sad thing is 99.9% of discussions in museum and academic community are exactly like this. Long and tedious chewing of highly abstract and inconsequential topic. The "winners" are becoming department chairs.

This is very tired and as a result the hada is exceptionally coarse. There is no chance this is Rai Kunitoshi - either the suguha or the choji style. Its amazing how post WWII scholarship towered above things considered normal in 1900-1940 and everything that came out of it. I am going to say something very controversial - ko Bizen is basically two schools, Yamato and Yamashiro influencing the local tradition. Yamashiro - choji based hamon, tends towards nioi. Yamato lineage - nie heavy hamon in midare notare. Jigane varies, but a lot of blades tend towards fine itame. You have an intersection where hamon is choji based and mostly nioi but you also have nie based kinsuji and inazuma. This blade is one of those. The problem is you see this in exactly one place - it was a fantastic blade, but now it is but a shadow.

Sounds amazing, but. I know two teams that did mass translations and in the first case a considerable sum was paid which was then turned into profit by selling membership. In the second case there was a very uneven expenditure of resources allocated with two people doing 95% of the work. I know this not from them personally. Both teams have guys on the forum. If its one of them, will team leads join the call for public release...

Thanks a lot, hope we'll get together at a show or something...

Terminology is extremely subjective and frankly I never saw arguing about it evolving into anything productive, but there is an interesting point that Honami in Edo period used somewhat different vocabulary and reference points. In a such vast field as nihonto I always fear I am missing some blade or some text and often I do, especially when "forum-speaking", so I was hoping to get corrected, but... I am not aware of Edo period Honami judgement identifying hada of Rai blade as itame. I knew plenty of people who would be very abrasive if "itame" is applied in this case. For myself I don't care either way. Rai hada needs to be seen. Important point is how it differs from Awataguchi hada, not whether its right to follow that or this lineage's vocabluary.

Sigh... sword porn people showing jifu in public...

I wonder if there is actually an Edo period's Honami letter or certificate identifying Rai blade's hada as itame and not ko mokume...

The point of literature is an interesting one. My goal was to keep the list basic and include only the most common publications. Currently I seldom open any of those because my interests are very specific, but to begin with specific would be strange. Nakayama's book is advanced because its concise. To a beginner its confusing because a beginner does not have a mental image of what these words might mean. Especially since same words mean different things depending on a period, smith, etc.. Not too many useful pictures, which as a nihonto photographer I think is the bane of most books. To an advanced collector its not that useful since there are more detailed and in depth volumes for each subject. There is a narrow timeframe when its of substantial value, but its a well known book and not putting it there would be strange. By the same token I would not have mentioned Yumoto's book if it was not still commonly recommended in the US. And it was not bad at the time, but then again Yamanaka's newsletter is at a different level and is accessible to a beginner. Every book I currently read or consult would be difficult to place within what is essentially a general document. In a chapter on Yamato they would be appropriated, but otherwise it would just confuse people. I would add Token Bijutsu though. It is underappreciated by beginners. Maybe koto and shinto taikan. Arrogantly enough I did not like Soshu Den Meisaku. Its traditional and Masamune centric.

Interesting blade which would be nice to look at in hands. Yes, the green papers basically mean it papered less, which in this case means something much later.

Thank you very much for all the kind words. Unfortunately, it moves me in the direction of publishing a newsletter since I just realized I forgot to include deciphering of NTHK and NTHK NPO scores as well as what's the difference between saiha and high end renewed quenching like Yasutsugu.

Thank you very much for all the kind words!

Thanks, sure!

There are questions about collecting that come up (or worse do not come up but are present) which are, unfortunately, not covered in any of the books. So I wrote a guide which answers at least some of them: papers, polish, etc.. It is a directly phrased document which I am planning to put it in my signature since unfortunately I don't have time anymore to manage my website. cert.pdf

For an experienced collector - none.

Should not be an issue... except for the ware, but its in shinogi ji so maybe ok. But why?

I feel this is "last ditch" item where a shirasaya is re-interpreted as koshirae with extra canvas (?) protector. The nakago looks Edo period and more shinto than shinshinto. Sugata is not very common with o kissaki. There is some sori and uniform width, which likely excludes kambun. I would vote this is early shinto piece. Unfortunately it is very uncommon for a top quality period waki to be unsigned so I would not expect a treasure.

In the Soviet realm there is/was a law that museums have absolute right to all images of everything they have (in the west there is a similar law but covering artists) and a third party cannot first publish any museum item - it has to first appear in a museum's own publication and after that everyone has to copy the museum description one to one. How it defacto came down: someone in Kremlin museum decided sophistique means years in descriptions should always stick to Roman numerals. You would think L or D might confuse some... except the fun already began at VI and IX. By C the only appropriate reaction was wtf.

The problem is that she(?) is a great photographer. Her angled photos have such well positioned light source that any faint nioi hamon and utsuri pop up. But... what you see in hands will be more like her "view from the top" image, unless one really puts an effort into finding just the right angle. Its tired. There is one blob (though wide one) on one side in the center where the original utsuri and hamon are fully seen. The rest are mostly gone. Jigane is mostly gone. Otherwise this would be TJ.

Ballast is how more or less officially Indian and related steel was imported by western merchants during late Muromachi to Edo. It is a well known and confirmed case. I am not aware of any pre-1500 record talking about this. Sulfur, wood, copper, silk, silver are common commodities, not a word about iron. My gut feeling: there was some big change between late Muromachi and Edo, which for some reason no one can track in detail (why??). I would vote for Japanese origin of koto steel. It has region-specific look which is retained over centuries.

It can, but then afaik Kimura would use related argument (Ti presence) to say koto steel is Japanese in contrast to Kofun steel and he also states that from his analysis you can find identical composition in shinto and Muromachi and the difference he argues is purely due to different forging and the resultant grain size. For trade the first issue is that the nature of trade goods was generally recorded. There are also shipwrecks and items described as Chinese when sold in Japan. There is no evidence of iron imported until late Muromachi. Second issue there was a number of pauses which either collapsed the trade or shifted it to high price/low volume items: Mongol prohibition, Ming prohibition, pause in tributary missions and high tariffs during early Heian, etc. etc.. As a supply of iron international trade until late Muromachi should have been a fickle enterprise. For utsuri study the issue is that it introduces a fully modern method to obtain utsuri instead of researching old blades. It might be very relevant, but it also might not be. As parallel, there were dozens of studies "reproducing" wootz and it turned out nearly all were just producing some manner of dark pattern, not related to historical steel.

More or less same method as Kimura, different to opposite results. Not enough blades destroyed for testing, especially Kamakura-Nanbokucho ones. There were periods when Japan had near zero international trade and it would exceptionally strange it would continue somehow to receive tons of iron without anyone noticing.

Original question before editing was - is certificate believable? My personal opinion - no, and NBTHK is unlikely to repaper it. BTW, I think with NTHK there is better chance. They use different standards and what I see as a problem for NBTHK will be less of an issue for others. A guess, but its after all a split issue. Then was a question - what is it then? I should have said more generally "late Muromachi" because objectively the seller's photographs are not the best. Also, assuming such questions are asked pre-purchase I am trying to emphasize the blade's quality - which is far from outstanding, at least in terms of nihonto aesthetic. Why? Its a long story which I am not motivated to explain given the manner of inquiry. Good luck on your first blade and have fun studying it and researching other similar examples. Its a nice weapon and I am sure it will lead to many discoveries.

Yes, nakago does look Showa.