Rivkin

Well here it is again. Needs some scrolling down to see "utsuri". https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/v638365361 I sort of inclined to believe its Japanese in origin. Forging is not too bad, but "enhanced". Kirill R.

These are constantly for sale at yahoo auctions. Very distinctive. Kirill R.

I had one of those - these are quite well made, but they are post-Edo you can say art or you can say reproductions. Mine was actually better because the clothing was more detailed. 300$ is their going rate as far as I know. Kirill R.

Nakago looks either older than it should or maybe possibly burned... One possible guess is that straight stick with fumbari is Kambun period, and wide hamon also suggests shinto, and boshi does look like suguha. Very hard to be school specific in this condition. Kirill R.

Wakizashi probably around 1650, school is probably closely related to classical Mino. Should be possible to get the smith by looking who did this kind of 3-2 peaks sequence in hamon. But it has many issues so polish is unlikely to reveal a gem. Kirill R.

I thought basically all schools save for Bizen and to much lesser extent Shizu and maybe Uda died out in Oei for economical reasons. Simply nothing being ordered in provinces and Osafune dominating whatever little market remained. Kirill R.

The one in the book is original, authentic Hasebe for which sayagaki was originally ordered. I feel it is kind of rare situation I guess where the piece is actually copied rather than something is being created "in a general style of". I actually wanted to buy the copy as well, but it did not work out. Kirill R.

Since we seem to combe back to subject of forgeries, horrors and problematic sayagaki, here is one. Original Kunzan's sayagaki with a substituted, probably Edo copy, of Hasebe blade in hitatsura. Actually the copy is very good, except the hada is a dead giveaway, being featureless tight itame. Kirill R.

I think number one problem with trying to buy an old blade instead would be that hitatsura, even more so than other advanced Soshu techniques, prefers o-tanto, wakizashi format. About 10x times more risk that blade simply blows up compared to almost any other heat treatment pattern. A huge difficulty when making a truly long blade. In ko-waki at 1.2 there is a myriad of choices, beginning with Oei Hasebe (one can even get Nambokucho Hasebe, but the condition will be an issue) or late Nambokucho Hiromitsu line (forgot the name, Motomitsu or something). At 2 we might enter lesser Hiromitsu or Akihiro blades. On younger end, at 400-700k there will be Tsunahiros, Shimadas et al. But any quality hitatsura in daito scale is probably going to be so rare one sees them once a year. Kirill R.

Sorry, I would restate: Its a very bright blade that will impress beginner a lot. Very few smiths today work with hitatsura and there are some interesting details here. The choice of forging and tempering techniques is however quite basic and created a product that lacks depth, subtlety and long term appreciation. Kirill R.

Two big negatives: a. Dense itame without much expression - a bane of all modern production. b. Hitatsura does not have internal activity and is done sort of nioi with ko-nie boundary. The boundary is very sharp (i.e. matching the dense itame) without much activity either. Kirill R.

I feel it depends on definition of authentic. Most Ieyasu-period appraisals to this name were not and will not be publically re-evaluated. Around third of Masamunes from Ieyasu collection are not polished, very many from similar period collections are burned. There are many Masamune that look substantially different in period or craftsmanship from what one expects with circa 1330 Soshu. This includes probably the second most important Masamune - Fudo Masamune. Are many of those Edo period pieces - no. Kirill R.

Its hard to judge by these photographs. Its even hard to exactly determine which of Hizen styles is used. But the better of Hizen blades in Soshu style are first class. They are not uncommon with o-kissaki and cut down to the point of passing for Nambokucho ones. https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/q283519169 I've seen some of them with Honami papers to either Sadamune or Masamune. Personal feeling - modern attributions are reasonably solid, plus minus generation in Hizen. Same for Rai style, its relatively distinctive. Nosada can pass for genuine Rai, Hizen generally does not, too bright, too "glassy", distinctive hada. All of the opinions presented are personal and erroneous. Kirill R.

Heavily depends on date/polishing. Gendai and shinshinto tend to be reliant on larger nie crystals in which case modern LED works well and halogen might get better results than incandescent. With older swords LED is still an option, but requires a lot of fine tuning. By default incandescent is the best. They still sell them in photo-stores or for photo needs online. Moonlight can also work well if one wants something "natural". Also gendai-shinshinto can be viewed well with the blade between the light source and the observer. Older swords tend to be viewed at large angle from the nakago, while pointing kissaki towards and slightly below the light source. Kirill R.

Involved question! I think for pre-Tembun blades there could be just a note made that the signature requires further study in Juyo zufu without the blade being rejected - meaing the writing is old, but can be not contemporary to the blade. If they feel that the signature is actually from Edo period, they will reject it even if correct. Daimei can be applied for Edo period works, but I thought only to the cases where such collaboration is well established (for example, between 1st and 2nd generation). Possibly Kiyomaro-Kiyondo can be one of them, but I don't have any experience... What I do know is that tosogu where signature is 100% of the actual maker's name, but is quite unusual - it is typically rejected. I had encountered quite a few pieces with signatures or writings that were added later, and the shinsa does not want to create any future misreadings vis-a-vis what it considers the authentic signature, and rejects in case of doubt. P.S. However I had shumei and kimpenmei blades papering with a note that the attribution is not correct, but also heard many more stories about similar cases being rejected. Kirill R.

Georg, it looks about right in a sense that wide and nie-spotty variation (but a very loose one) on Chogi-soden-bizen topic is one of the possible expected outcomes if it is Kiyomaro. And what you show is (sort of) consistent with that. Another likely possibility would have been something more "Masamune"-like. The problem is that similar things were done before and after by many others and the early works by Kiyomaro can be, well, not that distinctive by themselves to an untrained eye like mine, and possibly not only mine, and it might come down to whether the signature is within the accepted ballpark. There is a high profile Kiyomaro collectors club in Japan and they also can be of significant help in getting this answered. But yes, the style shown in this sword is (sort of) one of the expected possibilities. Just a personal, and likely erroneous take. Kirill R.

Hi Bob, much appreciate it! The website is going through quiet renovations so not much new there, but I hope to get up soon a neat article on Japanese tsubas dug out on the Continent. I am stuck in CA and do constantly travel now for work without a permanent living space, so will not be able to be in Chicago, unfortunately. Same reason, with most library in storage can only say that there are published lists of Daimyo collections, of which 大名家, 著名家刀剣目録 is probably the cheapest and one of the thicker ones. It only has attribution and length, but there are quite a few sayagaki that come with a paperslip that the sword is in this or other published list for such and such family. But that's about 15% of swords with sayagaki stating that this is from a specific Daimyo collection (kaho, denrai etc.). My question was whether there is a clear understanding for the reason - I mean it makes sense in addition to sayagaki to have a clear reference and starting point in case if someone would want to trace the sword's path through archival records, like its possible in principle for Shimazu clan. Sayagaki says this sword was given by xxx to yyy - but where one finds details without the reference? Is it a contemporary record, or somebody in the 19th century wrote a letter to this extent, when giving it is a dowry - which is unfortunately often the case. But I guess the lists might be very incomplete, so sellers simply do not want to waste time trying to find a reference for their daimyo-sayagakied sword. Not that I would really doubt sayagi itself, since big name Daimyo ones are not that common. P.S. Watched 嘘八百 on a flight over. Poorly filmed, but nice and fresh in the way it shows how other communities are a little bit more open about their "shinsa issues". I think it gets even worse in paintings. Kirill

One thing that puzzles me is how few blades with sayagaki to Daimyo collections have actual reference to the list in 著名家刀剣目録 単行本 or similar two volume publication. Is it because sellers are sort of "lazy" to find the actual reference for their sayagaki/"Daimyo torokusho", or its basically a vain attempt because the list itself is very much incomplete? Thank you! Kirill R.

Thank you! Its hard for me to claim expertise on the intent and procedure that was in place, since unlike Andy Quirt and quite a few older generation's representatives I was not there. All I can observe right now is being on the receiving end of these opinions. I feel that they were somewhat popular in the interwar period, since that was how the blades were judged - and most of those are kind of worthless today unless they provide a direct provenance to older collection. Basically even the most experienced people at the time had limited access to top blades and were dominated by pre-Meiji appraisals, so the opinions can be random. The desire for sayagaki truly awoke again only in the late 60s, when blade market was beginning to strive, and for some reason probably more so than now it was felt that green papers are not enough, so a lot of blades were given a sayagaki. Honami Nishu at best worked with questionable ko-mihara Juyos from 21-27th sessions, and almost half of his sayagaki will not paper today the same. Appraisals sort of close, but substantially different, for example what papers as Edo Sendai sayagakied to Yamato Hosho. It seems he was the person to be contacted till late 80s about things that were raising eyebrows. Dr. Honma Junji basically wrote sayagaki for blades like those published in the register of Daimyo treasures, which for some collectors kind of what needs to be collected. His appraisals are very seldom overturned, but they also have quite a few nuances to them. Dr. Sato wrote a very substantial portion of the total number of sayagaki. It might be that especially with the top names any papers were still not getting acceptance by themselves, so sayagaki was considered a must and he was the person to be asked. I think with some specific attributions like Muramasa there is a substantial chance that today's judgement standards will not confirm his appraisal - but it is just my personal observation. He also often gave benefit of the doubt to a traditional attribution, if it already existed. It does not go outside of realm of reasonable possibility, but there are cases when you get his sayagaki and green papers to say Sadamune and today it comes out as Shizu Kaneuji. Kirill R.

Thank you very much, it was kind to mention... I have to say that the reason I place so many articles on Japanese topics on my sites is because it is a current ongoing learning process, versus medieval Islamic or Caucasian, where earlier articles where already summarized in the last two books. Back to subject, from my database of auctions (which has some issues), from the total number of sayagaki: 46% by Dr. Kanzan Sato 9% by Tanobe Michihiro 3% by Dr. Honma Junji Among others Honami Nishu and Honami Koson are strongly represented. There is correlation with paper level. For example, I guess there was significant recent shift in Muramasa appraisal, so significant chunk of Dr. Sato sayagaki to him has green papers. Honami Nishu has a correlation to the smallest overall percentage of recent papers. Kirill R.

Couple more. Kirill R.

It is a very strange blade in many aspects. The condition of nakago is not a good fit for Muromachi, it looks later. The shape which is quite straight and has pronounced fumbari almost looks Keian to Manji, but it lacks typical shinto suguha in boshi. The signature is a decent match but the writing is somewhat weak, though hard to say with just these photos. Personal opinion it is gimei. Kirill R.

The signature is strange indeed as Ray mentioned in the way Bishu ju is omitted; also my personal feeling would be that Tadamitsu tend to fall into slightly earlier sugata - either long blades with long nakago and slight saki-zori or dating to 1500-1520 uchi-gatana with short-wide nakago. A personal feeling - this one seems slightly later. It certainly falls into uchi-gatana dimension size-wise, but the proportions are different. This being said, with multi-generation smiths from Sengaku deviations in signatures and work style, but seldom both simultaneously, are often accepted. I had little known smith with work sort of typical for the school, but the signature included names he was never known to have - and it papered, no one will argue that among the many generations there was not one who did not have these names, even if they are not in the books and even look very strange (wrong clan name). Slightly different story than here though. Kirill R.

Possible, but a few things: Very few swords were made beginning with 1700 due to economic collapse. Nakago condition and the lack of well defined filing more consistent with earlier date Lots of ware and other issues is also not that common in Kambun and later swords. I personally would not discard 1550 as possiblity. Kirill R.

Without looking at the signature, it kind of feels early Edo or maybe Momoyama. Kirill R.