GLee

I was able to take some better pictures and if you look closely you can see the hamon. Devan G

No Jean there is not, I have been looking this thing over for some time. As a hobby I make knives and I have always liked the beauty of the katana and the wakizashi. So when I saw this piece I felt required to buy it, I think from all of the chatting that I have seen it may help if I just polish a section of the blade and see if I can identify the hamon. Not to mention the fact that my pictures really are pretty terrible. The blade really caught my interest mostly because of the rust under the handle and the nicks on the blade this piece looks to me like it was in one great final battle then put away as a trophy, I assume that if it were an heirloom the family would have restored it. It's almost impossible to know with advanced computerized machines how old it is but I know that from the rust under the handle and the lack there of on the blade it wasn't a replica tossed in a field. The hammered iron tsuba fits the area and the period of Sukemitsu the fuchi and the kashira are also made of iron, and the habaki is made of bronze. Devan G

No I have not dated it yet Devan G

Thank you for the feed back that was really quick, what do you think the likelyhood is of it being gimei

It has been suggested that it is bizen kuni ju sukemitsu and I would like to see if anyone can recognize it as such. Please keep in mind the tsuba appears to be hammered iron and there is some bronze attached despite the fact that most has fallen off.

Hello I was looking over a thread from back in 2007 and I saw a lot of good feed back for the identification of Mei on another wakizashi, and I am hoping I can perhaps inspire a new discussion about my most recent thrift store find.