Rivkin

You obviously have more experience with it, but I always add firearm to the guncase. It will be hand inspected in any case, with a firearm at least it will at least certainly will be hand carried and issued to me in exchange of showing ID, versus standing at the luggage point and wondering - did it make to general luggage, or somebody said "or those are dangerous weapons" and did send to special handling.

Would not count on this in the least. Shows = cash. People who know you sometimes take checks for major items. But coming from the airport, you will not have to dive through SF. Its pretty close and no significant activity around except for the show.

I am sorry to be overly critical - this photograph is both confusing and unhelpful. Boshi is not seen. Sugata is distorted. By itself this can create a false perception. It would be difficult to estimate sword's position in Nanbokucho without knowing sugata, and there is no photograph here showing it. I have no idea where did the discussion regarding whether its a stretch or not to precisely date this sword came from. From this photograph - there is no way to know, but it does not have Oei traits. This being said, with Bizen one needs/can be very specific, since different groups (Kanemitsu's students, Kozori, Omiya, Soden, three Mitsu) all had specific period-dependent shape preferences. To me this looks like 1360 or so for Omiya, but again - without clear image of the sugata its a guess. From other photographs, it appears a classic high grade Omiya blade. Lots of sunagashi, the shape of hamon is the one they liked. There is even utsuri, which Omiya sometimes misses, but when they have it tends to be wide with poorly defined upper bound. One can say that antai is seen, utsuri is subdued, but I am not good with this terminology.

My personal take is SF show stands a bit aside from Chicago and Florida ones. I had good luck picking quality unsigned fittings - you can still discover quite a few mainline+ Goto pieces in the US (same and more in Japan), but the blades can be (very) challenging. Its the only US show that has Japanese dealers, plus upper grade US dealers. Consequences - the room gets vacuumed pretty fast, what is not vacuumed people don't want to sell until it papers, and Juyo blades tend to be priced at upper Tokyo retail level, because that's what Mr. Saito has on them. But between 3 and 20k there is some decent selection and one can buy a good blade at a substantially below retail price. Haggle a bit. Bring cash. Chicago and Orlando are more about fishing in murky waters.

Not a specialist, but I personally would be very sceptical on Yoshii. Like most Bizen, Yoshii likes groupings of two, here we see clearly periodicity of three gunome-togari-choji-whatever you call them. That's Mino trait. Muromachi Yoshii, rare as it is, can have rough hada like here, but one would still hope for utsuri, and also rough hada examples would see some of this roughness going into hamon as well, you would see some nie patches etc. Earlier hada would have stronger itame flavor. The polish gives off non-traditional vibe. I personally think this is towards the end of Muromachi, something provincial like Wakasa, I don't know if one can be absolutely precise.

Very private opinions. On scythian gold: the posts and thickening of plate on items shown would make me abstain from any purchase of the kind. The richest people in Ukraine, i.e. the country where all Scythian artifacts were "mined" in the past three decades tend not to own a single all original and fully mounted akinakes. There are a few of those in really old collections, but that's about all one can find in private hands. Had opportunity to buy just a scabbard from one of those 15 years ago and regret not jumping on it. The fakes are numerous, and mostly smaller items, and usually of quite poor/obvious quality. On Masamune - TH Masamune basically means it was submitted, at which point it got Juyo Kaneuji or, more likely, worse name. Otherwise it would have Juyo papers attached at the minimum. More prominent Masamune collectors tend to argue that Masamune below TJ are problematic and probably not worth having. I handled quite a few in my hands and was NOT impressed as a rule. Many/Most museum examples do not have NBTHK attributions, but are considered "valid" of sorts, some with ministry's papers, some without. It is the most contentious/erroneous attribution in the history of nihonto and best dealt with extreme care. You want the first grade Soshu work? Buy good Sadamune tanto (tachi can be iffy). Buy good Go tachi. Norishige. The attribution in 99% of cases will not change. The valuation will not disappear. Signed ubu Sanjo Munechika is RARE. Anything that is attributed at will, in accordance to vaguely stated criteria - not really. Will never match ubu-signed-early-rare type of thing. I never understood the extreme reverence for the early papers like Honami Kochu. Of all Honami, his work was extremely often faked even in Edo period, sometimes with great skill, indistinguishable today from the originals. He was responsible for very many Masamune attributions to blades which might or might not be such. He is loved by the dealers since he produced a lot of attributions overall, the first Honami to do so. Not always spot on, but often is, very many involving early good blades. On selling collections right now - decent time. Strong inflation expectations with modest expectation that the economy will yet continue to grow. A year ago was a rush on some items, things are more calm right now, but solid demand. Aoe Art prices have one interesting consequence - for a lot of people they act as price guide. Which means you are arguing today sword is worth the same as 20 years ago. That's how many percentage points cut compared to inflation and stock market? Anyone who sells "masterpieces" and says its a great investment should probably give examples of people buying a masterpiece from him, fully papered, and selling then for more. Otherwise one is welcome to look at the prices of Compton auction. Great blades. Quite a few were re-sold in the past decade for a fraction of what they were sold at the auction, never mind the decades that passed. Antique market certainly has periods when its profitable, but those are often off-set by the decades when prices sort of stand in place. I personally will admit not being able to make money beyond certain level. I make money far more often than loose on dumpster diving (no papers is the best by far, second is modern papers to some attributions that appear weak against the blade, third is green). Buying at Tokyo Retail, worse off - from dealers who buy at Tokyo Retail prices. That's 30-50% loss of resale potential the moment you get it out the door. In good market, you might gain it back with appreciation in maybe 6-7 years, but unless you repaper to higher level....

Yes - you type the correct guess in google and the blade is right there.

Seriously, owned plenty of those. In a reasonably good case today it gets papers to something like Shizu Kaneuji... 12-17k. In a bad case - worth nothing. H, TH Masamune - starts with 60k Juyo Masamune - 400+. Sky's the limit but heavily depends on quality, who owned etc. They are just not that awfully rare, compared to say quality original Scythian gold mounts, which you see once or twice a lifetime.

I have/had a few Bungo wakizashi datable 1580-1620 with o-kissaki and active hamon. Not all of them were not fast enough adopting suguha I think, though I might be wrong. But same goes for other remote schools - there are Kaga waki for example which are 1620 but have active hamon. Or it could be argued that Kunitsuna worked as early as 1580. I don't think there is any chance here of Kamakura, the issue is this a real Bungo smith from late Muromachi/early shinto or its fake? I believe its a real smith. They used Bungo Yukuhira calling now and then.

My dai hard belief - once you don't actively collect, sell everything above what you really like to have. Zero evidence nihonto ever managed to beat stock market. At any level. All discussions about it being good investment long term are dealer speak.

It feels like pretty authentic Kunitsuna 国綱 circa 1620, matches work. While there is the Bungo Yukihira, this one is not very common shinto Bungo smith.

Second that! The rest of swords, sorry to say, not that impressive at the first glance.

Tapering is very characteristic, but I can't help myself but make a personal punt. I remember sometime ago someone stating that third generation Tadayoshi is generally accepted as superior to the first. At the moment I thought the statement to be unusual. Unless that someone owns something from the third generation.

Very interesting and unorthodox blade.

The ides comes from a dealer who has a nickname "one way ticket".

Can be Nobukuni, though very many accept his Soshu peak as somewhat later. I am not sure about Sa school, I thought their mokume is very distinctively smaller in size and isolated, you have like a pack of mokume between really fine itame. Maybe others can correct me on this one.

Wow, these pictures show quite a lot of ji nie. I would guess something like the first generation Uda Tomotsugu.

I would say my opinion, which has a high chance of coming up wrong: a) Really o-kissaki. Surprisingly uncommon choice historically, which boxes it to either 1355-1395 or 1570-1620 (very few makers) or shinshinto. b) Matsukawa-class hada. Pretty obvious which school was being copied. b) High contrast well forged hada but hamon is very smudged and does not show standing out nie or even well grouped ko nie. It barely shows anything when looking from up down. Also the mokume has very high contrast but not so much ji nie. It does not have the nie substructure one typically sees on early Etchu work. So its someone who mixed up the steels in mokume, hardened in nie and the creation literally blew up into his face. Now he tempers in nioi, maybe allowing for ara nie in couple of areas. There were some Norishige imitators in Nambokucho period who came close, Yamamura Masanobu - would have strong nie in hamon. One would see more choji-gunome in Naotsuna's school, more sunagashi in Nobukuni. Sanekage, Tametsugu - strongly nie based hamon. Uda Kunifusa - possible. He also typically makes very Yamato-like hamon without much gunome or togari, like here. So my third choice would be him. He is seldom found with o-kissaki and hamon has strong visible "belts". Either tired/did not photograph well or its not Uda. There were also good Norishige reenactors in Momoyama-Kanei and even Kambun period (Noritoshi), but I don't remember any of them doing such long kissaki. Some are a bit similar to this style though. Then, in shinshinto mixed up steel and tempering to pure nioi was a trademark of the entire Norishige rediscovery movement, though they often referenced Go rather than Norishige per se. Ikkansai Yoshihiro was likely style's founder, than it went into Naotane's remote lineage through quite a few of his "grandstudents".

High resolution version changes a lot for me... Shinshinto, Ikkansai Yoshihiro or someone close to him, like Naotane's lineage Naotsugu.

Either Kaga Sanekage or Etchu Tametsugu.

Anybody can receive sword via mail in Japan, and then register and submit it. In about two months after submission deadline I think you'll get the blade back with a judgement slip telling you what you got. In about four months you'll get papers in the mail. Juyo session I think starts like November. NTHK NPO does shinsa every month, gives you the sheet the same day with your sword and mails out the papers strictly within one month.

Its best to ask someone else, since I don't like Tadayoshi and don't collect him. But the general problem is that things are not comparable when you talk about sessions 1-20, 20-something, 31-50 and 50 and up. They all have somewhat different standards. Early on a lot of Hizen Tadayoshi were passed. Recently I think once in a while someone well recognized presents a few and they pass, but generally its difficult. It used to be every session would have dozens Ryokai, Mihara what else yamato-derived. Not by a long shot today.

Hard to tell. Shinto Juyo is a thing of its own. Ordinary Tadayoshi most likely will not pass.

Signed Shizu is automatic TJ, but there was a dozen or so later Kaneuji's which are common. I will be more direct than most - 99% chance all six blades you have are mid grade blades far removed from Juyo. Its just the way it works. Shizu Kaneuji are also relatively easy to kantei, so there should be half a dozen people in the US who can look at it and say whether its in the ball park or nowhere close to it.

Sword gifts were common for Meiji and there are plenty of examples with solid provenance in museums. Most have the mounts similar to the one shown, the blades are usually average. There are frankly almost no western collections formed in Meiji period with good blades, Boston MFA being an exception. Period collectors and dignitaries also had aversion to shirasaya, so such pieces were usually not gifted at any level.