Rivkin

Basic thing to check is what are the cheapest items in the store. Price is a relative thing in collectibles, more so than in other fields. Otherwise - sue Bizen can be great. Kiyomitsu and early Sukesada in particular. I don't think it applies here. Jigane is rough. Middle one at least carries some fun.

Discussions about utsuri tend to follow the same pattern - there are few postulates and there are groups of people defending each. The basic problems are: a. There is no per se scientific analysis of utsuri which clearly demonstrates what it is. Unfortunately I am not aware of someone taking an old Bizen blade, looking at the structure and saying - within utsuri we have (a), outside we have (b). In blades without utsuri we have only (b). Repeat to confirm. Instead there are many people making conjectures about what (a) should be. Basically like wootz studies used to be around 1990-2000: there were couple of blades analyzed, but 95% of information in publications were conjectures which went like "since wootz got to be superior because otherwise why would they do it, it is probably nano-fulleren-carbon etc.". Reality is most old ironworking is about trying to adapt to very severe material/temperature/timeframe constraints. The lost knowledge of quantum-coherent-supersteel is associated with professors submitting a paper to nature. . b. Related to previous point - no clear experiment analyzing what is jifu utsuri, midare utsuri, Muromachi bo utsuri etc.. Is it the same (a)? Different? Is hardening or composition what determines jifu/midare/bo structure? c. Modern methods of making utsuri have one purpose - to make utsuri. Hopefully looking like the old one. The simplest way to do it is a fine done acid etch, but its cheating and yes, its mostly visible from the top. Still its popular in Japan. Real deal usually needs to be looked at from a side. But again - not always. So does it mean if I manage to make utsuri today I know how ko Bizen did jifu utsuri? Open question. Plus people who made really good utsuri in the past 200 years tended to be a bit silent about the details. So to summarize - in wootz only when people did the analysis of 30+ blades it became apparent what the "real wootz" is (except there are many still arguing that it is not). Studying utsuri basically means sacrificing (non-destructive testing is not used in professional iron metallurgy) a few old blades, targeting utsuri versus non-utsuri areas. I did such study with a single Muromachi Uda blade and basically it was very dirty steel with visible composition variation which even without hardening would produce some "utsuri" during polish. Is this universal? No, I don't think so. But I do suspect that considerable portion of utsuri variery is because of composition variation multiplied by hardening effect.

Sorry - I am not a title's guy, so I am still not convinced it involves multiple, beyond maybe two, quenchings. Otherwise its a matter of what's defined as thermocycling. Can easily imagine I am operating on a different terminology than knifemaking.

Ok, so what is defined as thermocycling? Multiple quenchings? Above two - would love to see an example. If its not quenchings, then we are probably in multi-stage annealing territory? Which is a big topic of its own, with often multi-days timeframe... and I don't know if it relates to utsuri or not, and how much use it saw in Japan at all.

Twice quenched - possible. Not under any circumstances, but under some, possible. More - runs into some fundamental issues. By the same token, annealing is common as part of technological process. Quenching is somewhat common. Thermocycling... No. For test purposes on couple of samples - yes, as part of production process on a shipped part I am struggling to image the circumstances. Can be micrometer scale laser-induced hardening - basically super exotic. Can be hair splitted by calling "micro-thermocycling" almost anything, anything heats and cools a little bit, but then its not a discussion about technology. There is a common thing which is multi-stage annealing where you heat the sample and then slowly cool it off - but "heat" in this case is done slowly and not to very high temperature. and cooling is done much slower. No quenching, no heating red hot, the purpose is gradually reach the ground state without much martensite or stress.

Repeated quenching? I must be missing something. There can be an argument for two separate quenching procedures under some circumstances, but that would still be not too common.

I doubt someone would use thermocycling. Especially on a "production" and not a single "test" blade. There might be sense that in a steel with drastically varied carbon content you might do double quenching with different temperature gradients since the optimal point is going to be different.

Not something I personally did but yes I've known people doing it.

Basic problem as I see it is the same as with wootz. There are popular smiths who claim to reproduce wootz and lecture extensively on their method. Their wootz looks... problematic. There are a few whose wootz is close to historic examples. They are not telling too much about how they do it. It is very clear that 90% recently (Edo+) steel even though its from tamahagane, it has very different thermal conduction properties compared to koto and it just does not harden similar to how koto swords did. There were always a few smiths who managed to produce hada which looked quite a bit more koto and a few who could produce reasonable utsuri. They are not too open about the secret sauce.

I don't have much to add to what already said, maybe a couple remarks. First if you show the entire blade it might be possible to tell if its early shinto or Kambun. NBTHK is generally very stingy in terms of information, saying the bare minimal. It would be also interesting to see the boshi, but I guess its sugu-boshi. I've seen works of lesser smiths while not dated but with smiths generally associated more with 1580-1590 production timeline classified as shinto if the blade is in shinto style - dense hada, sugu boshi. Its a good koshirae. Its style is more or less 19th century popular, and mother of pearl you see considerable more often in the 19th and more so early 20th century. There are earlier, Ryukyu inspired examples, but they are rare. The same and wrapping while well done appear somewhat fresher and could be 20th century. If you want you can associate the symbol on kojiri (arrows with a wheel... I am certain there is a proper name for it... dharmachakra?) with a kamon and find the one matching in one of the books - and this might be a connection.

Since once I was investigated for "Scythian Supremacism"... few realize how powerful we are. No one bans akinakes. No one has the guts to openly question why. Ninjas are just the beginning.

Its a style which unfortunately exceptionally hard to judge. Even in hands and in good polish. If you want to be super-optimistic, pursue Kamakura Rai Kunitoshi kodachi option. I don't believe that's the case, but... Otherwise its Muromachi uchi-gatana. Can be a variety of schools, we don't see jigane unfortunately and that's the main distinguishing factor... Ryokai, Fuyuhiro. Mihara would probably have longer kaeri or altogether different boshi, Enju tends to be quite different in Muromachi and also boshi, Zenjo is possible though not the most typical. At times Kaga can also be considered. Lots of options and not much difference since mumei Muromachi pieces in 80% of cases are judged with thinking "its more or less the same".

Taking pictures of nihonto during daylight does not work. Evening, confined lightsource, blade on the table, camera and light source positioned for maximum effect. As of now sugata looks like Muromachi uchigatana. With such curvature to be Kamakura you basically have to aim for kodachi... that does not look like a perfect match.

Very sorry to hear that. I did not know him but benefitted from his concise, technical posts and very fine examples of tosogu shown. I am very thankful.

Shinobi leave no names.

Finally. At least one government has the balls to do something about ninjas.

Unfortunately, it can happen that the seller honestly believes its Muromachi and its not. Is this the case? Hard to say. Its not the most typical sugata (straight), though sometimes one sees it in Muromachi, and sometimes such Muromachi blades are not in their original shape. Looks like it was untraditionally "touched up" to be more presentable rather than polished and as a result there is not much to see. Plus the light is directly from above, which flattens hada and emphasizes hadori, so it does not help. There is nothing Muromachi specific in what is shown in photos. The signature... Might be late Muromachi. Its not great calligraphy, and does not give out shinto vibes, but its not an exclusively koto soft shallow thin squarish writing. Might be late Muromachi, might be something else. Hard to say.

Ninja attacks are getting more vicious every year... Soon one will need to reinforce tsuba just to go outside.

Can't find this signature in Meikan. So as is: The nakago looks relatively fresh, shinshinto or late shinto. Sugata tends a bit towards shinshinto - uniform curvature, broad, pronounced kissaki. The signature is very confident and well written. Jigane does not try to be dense itame, which excludes much of shinto. Its trying to be koto, with mokume, some coarseness, possibly with some hue which is difficult to see in photos. That does look like Satsuma hada, which was practiced obviously in Satsuma and by very many in shinshinto. Its well done. Overall appearance is a bit Soshu like, but hamon is completely suffocated by hadori, meaning it probably lacks large, pronounced nie and the modern polish did not do it any favors. Unlisted smith [but I am not the best with books, so maybe I just did not do the due diligence], possibly authentic, most likely shinshinto, from a lineage which most likely at some point diverged from Satsuma.

Russia is a closed society. Just like Japanese scholars can have rather unusual opinions about Chinese or worse European swords and steel, Russia can cultivate bizarre ideas about anything not Russian. There is government approved institute of experts on historical items, only about 10-15% of which knows what they do, the rest have titles. Nevertheless their opinion has a stamp of being the official science, propped up by lengthy prison terms for "unscientific positions" vis-a-vis certain historical or modern events. Some "expert" identified this item as such and so it is.

Unless there is something stunning about it I would not prioritize that. There are high quality late Bizen pieces but they are rare. Anything suriage post-Nanbokucho incurs significant penalty if suriage; the signature is affected so its an issue. Unless in hand there is something really impressive.... There are better blades to restore.

Applying light from above does not work with nihonto except one specific case which requires significant skill. Safest procedure is to place light source on the side. Or take a light stick and move it around the blade until you find where it makes the nie sparkle. The problem is Chogi was not trying to work in one single Soshu (or Bizen) style. He had basic understanding of them all - Norishige's, Sadamune, Hiromitsu. So there is a lot of variation. But he also has "typical style". First and foremost there is nothing coarse. Hamon is nie based, but nie never gets above certain size, its very fine grained. sunagashi of almost exactly the same nie particles that are not ko nie, but not large either. Same about hada - very bright, filled with ji nie, but very consistent and fine grained itame, can be mixed in with mokume elements. Again, nothing really breaks out - chikei, mokume it sort of blends in. There is tobiyaki/yubashiri but it does not get to full hitatsura. Depending on polish you can more or less clearly see nioiguchi - not as bright as with Go, but better than many Soshu. The outline of hamon does not follow Mino with its togari or Hasebe, it has a certain Bizen feeling to it but at the same time is much less periodic and the shape of gunome (choji?) is much more varied along the blade but at the same time the hamon is always wide. Kencho and Chogi can be very similar and attributions sometimes go back and forth.

Different light direction can really affect hada appearance, but still I see the hada which is coarse with visible lamination in places, but otherwise has this dense, grey look... No color changes, utsuri, no ji nie, just greying itame. Nakago can be late koto, sugata can be late koto, but this very distinctive periodic choji gunome, each having exactly the same very solid and single tone, but relatively bright appearance - does not look like koto. Its a shinshinto style and something that quite a few practiced at the time. Same about hada, I don't see the variety one expects from koto, to me its more modern.

shinshinto, not the first tier smith influenced by period's Bizen school - Yokoyama and Chounsai. Poor quality jigane (100% dense).

Dewa Daijo Fujiwara Kunimichi is great. Like his work, and on occasion you can buy his suriage things which used to go as first rate Soshu pieces and now are discount mumei shinto which many will tell you one should not collect. I occasionally do, still alive, so its not that dangerous. Here ze main issue is ze fotografier has placed the light source where it should not be: perpendicular to the blade on top of it - the worst position. I bet he does it to all his blades - some standard setting that is convenient to operate... A few things you want in Kunimichi: Really standing out zanguri hada. The images here are bad and we don't see anything good here, so assume its in the very least is not great. Wonderful Soshu hamon in strong, sandy nie. Here we see... white hadori. Nothing else. There might be something, but its surely hadori suffocated. So the images are definitely bad, polish is most likely bad, nothing really great is showing and we come to the final caveat - recently some shinsa teams slap Kunimichi on any Soshu suriage shinto piece. So you have great Kunimichi sitting next to "Kunimichi" with the same paper but 10% of quality... thank you judges. Below is the blade I believe is Kunimichi. Ze papers say Naotsuna, but characteristic angled whirlpool hada... classic Kunimichi.