Gabriel L

I am not convinced it's a date (and I definitely do not think it reads Daiji, haha). It might begin with Daijō 大掾. Or more likely it is a province, e.g. 大和 Yamato or 大隅 Ōsumi, which would work if the third kanji is 守 kami. 大和守平國？作 Yamato no Kami Taira Kuni___ saku Only things I am sure of there are the 大 and 作, though I feel reasonably good about 守平國. On the other hand I'm getting no good mei matches this way.

Could the second kanji be 守 ? And the last reminds me of 房 but I am sure that is wrong…

1795 First Edition… now that would look pretty good in any nihontō library, I think.

The owner began by posting it there and then asked for info after the fact. Reportedly he is now considering keeping and/or restoring it, and he is seeing a representative from the Northern California JS Club soon for more advice.

Trent, you may notice that the paper has two kinds of writing on it: solid black printed boilerplate, and lighter ink that was hand-done. The boilerplate you can easily find from the resources posted, and the lighter ink stuff is easy when you know the context. You have three sections that need any actual translation: the date of the paper (as Mark points out), the attribution (under the "item: katana" header Mark has labeled), and the edge length. Give it a try, it doesn't get much more straightforward than that. :-) As to the Sue Bizen attribution, that's all you get… no way to narrow down the specific smith on this blade. (EDIT: John sniped me on this one, haha.) http://www.nihonto.com/abtartsuebizen.html

Thank you Morita san!

Guido, I can't tell you how many times I've referred back to your and Dr. T's article on koshirae. I won't soon forget that chiisagatana aren't "hidden blade wakizashi" or whatever if only for that reason. :D If anyone hasn't read that article, I strongly recommend you do…

Mauro: aaaaah, that explains it well. I was wondering about what it was "eating" and what the cloth-like tassels were. A neat design, I like it. Another tsuba ft. this subject (different depiction)

Thanks Chris. Makes me wonder if the ato-mei was an honest (albeit unlikely) assessment, or an attempt to trump up the blade a bit. If the former, maybe it's good enough to warrant a polish. It's hard to make a call on that from just photos though.

Hello all, A Reddit user has posted this wakizashi asking for more info. I started with a translation assistance request here, which John Stuart, Markus Sesko, and Mike Vinehout all contributed to. Since their answers raised some more questions (that I can't answer myself), I decided to open specific threads on the blade & fittings respectively. I hope that isn't too spammy. ---- Tsuba I translated the tsuba as 武州住正房 Bushū jū Masafusa. I am not very schooled in fittings, so I am only going by some cursory research on the school, but it seems shōshin to my eyes. Can anyone comment on the quality / authenticity? Looks to be iron sukashi in some sort of dragon motif, can anyone confirm the design elements? Fuchi It's signed as 直次 (thanks John!). Seems to be shakudo nanako with a tachibana mon. Mike checked the mei against Yanagawa Naotsugu with a negative result. Anyone able to match this signature? Menuki (image 2) Some kind of waterfowl in shakudo and gold. I have no comments, just linking them for convenience. Any comments welcome! Thanks, —G

Hello all, A Reddit user has posted this wakizashi asking for more info. I started with a translation assistance request here, which John Stuart, Markus Sesko, and Mike Vinehout all contributed to. Since their answers raised some more questions (that I can't answer myself), I decided to open specific threads on the blade & fittings respectively. I hope that isn't too spammy. ---- Blade: 45 cm wakizashi, signed 備中國住人貞次 Bitchū (no) kuni jūnin Sadatsugu / 眘目包則摺揚之 "Tsutsushime Kanenori kore o suriageru" - "carefully shortened by Kanenori" (the latter translated by Markus, thanks again!). Only Bitchū smiths I can find signing Sadatsugu are Aoe school, which I am skeptical this is. The coarse ō-mokume doesn't seem right, does it? The second half of the mei is in the same hand as the first, leading me to believe that this is purporting to be ō-suriage ato-mei (i.e., shortened and then re-signed by the shortener). Is this feasible, or would you agree that it is a likely gimei? Any other thoughts or assessments are welcome. Thanks, —Gabriel

Thanks Mike. There are a few open questions here – what's going on with the blade (gimei and/or ato-mei?), the fuchi (which naotsugu?), the tsuba (shōshin?), etc. I think what I'll do is open two discussion threads, one in the nihonto and one in the tosogu subforums. Maybe a little spammy, but they'll get a little more visibility that way, and keep the topics more organized. Blade thread Fittings thread

Thank you so much Markus. That was a stumper, but your translation looks pretty good. Odd. The shinogi change had me thinking maybe another welded nakago (we've seen so many recently). But both columns seem to be in a similar hand. Is it purporting to be ō-suriage ato-mei? Hmm. Maybe I'll make a discussion thread in the nihontō subforum.

Thank you John. Do you have an idea if that would be be Yanagawa school, or something else? There is a photo of the fuchi here. Looks like a tachibana mon in shakudo. The nanako seems moderately well executed to my eyes, not masterwork but not dock stuff either.

Hello, Another Reddit user is looking for help with his wakizashi. Here is a rotated nakago photo. I've got the 備中國住人貞次 Bitchū (no) kuni jūnin Sadatsugu (though I doubt this sword is Aoe school as all the genuine Bitchū Sadatsugu seem to be). But what does the left column say? So far all I have is ?目包???之. Also, the fuchi is signed here. Looks like ?次 plus a kao, but I don't know tosogu very well and am having trouble finding the first character, though it is well-inscribed. Tsuba is 武州住正房 Bushū jū Masafusa btw. Thanks in advance for any help. That first character of the left nakago column seems pretty clear but I'm just not getting it.

EDIT: NM, I found the right smith! Somehow I overlooked the Ukai Moritsugu in my first literature pass. D'oh! Still seems to be little info on this Moritsugu. Honma Junji mentions "Incidentally, I have seen two tachi with the inscription of ‘Bizen no Kuni Ju Moritsugu’ and they appear to belong to the Ukai school inferring from their workmanships and chiselling styles. ‘Haya Midashi’ says that they were active in The Rekio Era as was the 1st Unji." ----- I was admiring this fantastic Moritsugu. However, I was a little confused by the (Japanese) description, especially since I don't know Japanese. It seems that they are drawing some kind of connection to the Ukai school 宇甘派, but as far as I can tell this Moritsugu is Aoe 青江. Can anyone give a summary of Katana no Kura's blurb? In any case it's a gorgeous example. Cheers, —G.

Guntō nakarishimei are often very sloppy and chippy like this, many older mei are actually easier than these b/c they were inscribed with more care. Of course, some are harder because they're more "script" and sometimes more archaic, but my point is simply that it would be fallacious to assume "modern = clearer." With practice you also quickly learn to anticipate / recognize commonalities. So it becomes much easier. For example, you look for things like 州, 國, 住, 作, etc. and that helps frame your translation; you don't have to compare every kanji one at a time. Eventually you recognize standard name kanji like 兼, 光, 元, 久, 義, 吉, etc. Make an exercise out of attempting every mei that is posted here. Even if you only try the "easiest" stuff you will quickly pick up on enough to progress.

Can you post a 100% crop so we can see what you mean? Lots of good tips already. Learn what aperture gives the sharpest results for each lens. Usually that's at least two stops down from wide open (e.g. f/5.6 on your f/2.8 lenses). http://photozone.de is good for this. Your 100mm IS has the best MTF around f/5.6–8, for example. But your 50mm set to f/5.6 should have even better sharpness, if their tests hold for your lenses. But test them, as Ken says! Mirror up is worth a try if you are getting vibration on the extended arm of the tripod. "Why not." I use a focusing rail and manual focus with my macro lenses, plus zoomed-in Live View mode. Much better than relying on AF. But a good rail + bracket + plate is going to cost a pretty penny. Exposure and white balance should all be full manual of course. Use a grey card. Full RAW naturally. I wouldn't use Photoshop Elements. Use Lightroom (or Aperture if you're weird like me). I would set ISO to 160, which on the 5DII is actually a digital "pull" from the 200 = native multiple of 100; this will minimize noise, even better than shooting at ISO 100. Tests have shown that ISO 160 is the cleanest possible image you can get from that model. This is a tiny tiny optimization though. Basically just keep trying stuff… there's lots of ways to seek that bleeding-edge extra bit of resolution. But it shouldn't matter unless you intend to print using very good hardware, or to blow up details.

Seems to be another example: http://katananokura.jp/SHOP/1203-T03.html

I can't speak, or read a "normal" sentence… all I know is enough about mei to translate standard examples. I want to learn the language proper but I have a whole lot of other things on my plate. :-/ I guess the takeaway should be "don't give up" for both of us!

These are very fundamental kanji for mei, you will see shū especially often on WWII blades (濃州関 Noshū Seki)… not trying to make you feel bad Curtis, it wasn't long ago that I was in the same place, just emphasizing that these should be committed to memory ASAP. I do have to ask though, you are aware of this site, right? Would have taken all of 3 seconds to find the 川 radical in the 3-stroke list, click on it, and see both 川 and 州.

Rotated image. The mei appears to read as follows: 濃州関前川助房作 Noshū Seki Maegawa Sukefusa saku (made by Sukefusa Maegawa in Seki, Mino Province) However, I think I have made a mistake somewhere, because that doesn't quite work; I can find no matches for such a smith. I am possibly mis-ID'ing one or more of the four 前川助房 kanji, though I can't imagine which one; they seem right to me. Alternatively, I have the mei right, but the smith is poorly documented. Or something else is going on… if I do a google search I find a few Chinese sword discussion forums, which raises an eyebrow. I hope another NMB member will be along to help, but in the meantime, please post more photos of the sword. EDIT: How interesting, this Yahoo Japan page seems to have a similar nakago and the mei is transcribed the same way. Might this be an undocumented guntō smith?

I agree with removal possibility (though obviously we don't know for sure). All I can think, having studied the G.I. system recently, is that it looks like bowels… or their contents. Cannot imagine anyone choosing this as a "design." I do think that kiriha-zukuri on both sides is unusual but not quite at the level of "weird." If anything, it's funny how popular kata-kiriha-zukuri is as an asymmetric design is not exactly optimal from a functional standpoint—it would theoretically make a long blade torque through a cut due to uneven drag. This actually makes more sense to me as a sword design (if not quite as interesting as an artistic choice). I don't follow your comment about the fukura. To me fukura means the degree of roundness to the edge in the kissaki, but perhaps it more literally just means the kissaki edge? From the image the profile looks normal. And cross-sectionally, there is no reason I can think of that the edge wouldn't be fine… it worked for chokutō. From Usagiya: vs. (or)

Haha Brian, it seems I ninja edited my post before you replied. I used bit.ly to shorten the URL and it let it through. Thanks though!

Welcome Paul. This is indeed a genuine antique nakago (tang) for a Japanese sword. Though you've posted it upside-down, it reads 國宗 Kunimune. There were a number of Kunimune smiths in history, some quite famous; however, gimei (false signatures) are very common. Please read this Owner's Guide I put together for Reddit, especially the care & handling tips. It will be difficult to say much more about this particular blade until we have the proper photos — see here for instructions. Regards, —G.