Jean

Bishu Osafune ju Norimitsu

Thanks a lot Markus for your answer. You were right at 100%. There were other pctures that my friend forgot to send me and his question was far from the one I initialy planted.. you are going to see all pictures. He has been asked to make a shirasaya for this blade. He has two options, the first one is to amend the existing one (with the sayagaki) , the second is to make a new one. The existing one has been made by someone who seemed not to have been in the craft. The nakago/habaki is definitely not in the tsuka alignment. (See second picture) As the sayagaki has no value in itself, I told him to make a new one and to send back the old one to the owner so he can store it away. I very doubt that this shirasaya was original to the blade.

Don’t base your judgement on NBTHK criteria to say that a blade will pass Juyo for two reasons: - NBTHK does not necessarily follow its criteria - Juyo level is not an exam but a competition where only the best of the best pass Paul Martin from The Japanese Sword is also an excellent agent. if you are not a NBTHK member, it will cost you an extra fee.

Roger, there is even one dedicated to fishers with a tool to scale fishes and remove hooks👍

Yoshi Tsugu

The first question, George, is : what is your budget?

This matter (mei) has been discussed several times. There is one sword signed « Bishu Osafune Sukesada » which achieved Juyo.

Condolences

I saw the catalogue. Some interesting Koshirae. Add 25% fees. An interesting blade could be the Oei Morimitsu. The ito maki no tachi is interesting.

All depends on what you collect. If you are a history collector, a kazu uchimono blade may be worth 10 times the value of a made to order blade, because they are History (with a capital »H »).😃

In fact a lot of swords are papered to a school and not a smith, Enju, Naoe Shizu....

Johan, what is very interesting is that any swordsmith would concentrate on Katana, wakizashi, tanto, naginata, yari forging. To specialize in Kogatana forging is not necessary glorious (often smiths forging a kogatana would inscribed a fantasy name - and generally a big name). Here the smiths were proud of their work to such extent that they chiselled their signature in a very special way. Can we speak of a lineage of kogatana smiths or a real school? I know there is a Japanese book on kogatana. But I don’t know if this aspect is developped. Mino school seems to take the lead.

One of these kogatana was made by a Mino smith around 1680. From all these signed blades, it is seems that there was a Mino tradition in kogatana forging (a school of kogatana forging) and this based on the way to cut the mei.

Here are the pictures of the mei

I’ll try to picture the mei of the 3 tomorrow

Johan, this is a must have book/ebook written by Markus Sesko: e Index of Japanese Swordsmiths. Btw, as soon as late 17th century, there were swordsmiths in Mino specialized in kogatana forging. I have 3 kogatana like yours in shirasaya. here is a sayagaki of one of them

Christian, my old friend, this one is so bad that I take it. PM me the details😁

Thanks guys for the analysis. It shows why NMB is invaluable.👍

I knew it was going to sell in a twinkle of the eye👌👍🍺 Well done Neil.

Hi Neil, what is the price?

The main problem is as always the level of humidity to be kept in this « vault ». Lacquer saya need humidity, steel needs low humidity level. How do you cope with this problem, Jim?

19th century smith

Take someone in Japan as my friends, Robert Hughes or Paul Martin to go through shinsa process. ABOVE ALL, STOP DREAMING Japanese AUTHORITIES CONFISCATING YOUR SWORD AS NATIONAL TREASURE. IT IS WISHFUL DREAMING. BTW, all the TJ in dealers’ vaults I mentionned are for sale.

NBTHK holds shinsa only in Japan. You have to get first TH to go for Juyo and then Juyo to go for Tokubetsu Juyo. Each time it is 10% of TH blades which are good enough to try Juyo shinsa out of which 10% will pass. Same applies for going from Juyo to Tokubetsu Juyo. Japanese keeping blades is urban legend. NBTHK is an association and as an association delivers only appraisal certificates, they don’t buy or sell swords. Go to Japan and visit dealers. You’ll be surprised to see how many Tokubetsu Juyo blades are held in their vaults. It is not because a blade is published that it is a national treasure and worth million. your friend has to go through the different shinsa level to see what it is worth (as an Art object and not value) Yushu does not equal juyo because the selection criteria are not the same.