Gabriel L

Alex (edit: & Ken) hit the nail on the head. B&W (or more correctly grayscale) printing is only used because it's far, far less expensive than color, and blades are not especially colorful objects. However, they do have some color (for example, the hadori polish is often bluer than the jigane or the hamon), so if you can convey that — e.g., you are using a website — you absolutely should. Most critically, showing the nakago in color is infinitely preferable to greyscale! And obviously fittings should be in color. True black & white — i.e., pure black text printed on the page — can usually be extremely high resolution, over 600 dpi. This uses a single ink (spot color) and is perfect for rendering extreme detail, e.g. the fine curves and serifs of a roman typeface at 9.5–10.5 points (or even 7.5–9 for captions). But to create gradations, a book printer usually has to halftone the color, basically laying down a grid of dots of certain density. Thus typical printed grayscale images convey shade by sacrificing the detail of your rendering medium. When you turn to color photo printing, the typical method is four-color process (CMYK or Cyan Magenta Yellow Black). In this method each channel is halftoned and registered (aligned) to the other channels. So if your registration is good and your printer is up to spec, color printing is theoretically much more detailed than grayscale—you are using four channels to convey information rather than just one. However, color printing an image which has little to no color in it can actually sacrifice detail. If your additional channels are not adding any new information, but are all just mixing to grey anyway, poor registration can soften the final result. On the other hand, using four times as many channels can "average out" the halftone pattern, restoring detail. On the other other hand, laying color halftones over color halftones creates artificial color noise, which you can see in Alex's image, and which can give a false impression of the hada quality. So it all ends up being kind of a wash with respect to communicating detail, except it isn't a wash because it's so much more expensive. Now, it also should be noted that pure grayscale printing is NOT higher contrast than color, at least not using halftones as is typical for most books. You can achieve richer contrasts and more solid greys by mixing color channels. Pure black ink, for example, is usually not as dark as black with a little cyan printed over it. But applied to big flat areas—e.g., the black background of many nihontō images—the uneven color mixing will sometimes contribute to a muddy look and not really enhance the photo meaningfully. So again, it's problematic from a printing perspective. So you will typically see books print nihontō in grayscale. But online, or with a high enough per-book printing budget, there is no good reason to throw out the color. Again, onscreen it's using just the luminance channel, vs the three RGB channels; if there's even a hint of color variation, the color photo will convey that, whereas the B&W photo will just be losing info, never gaining any. Typical 8-bit consumer monitors can only convey 256 levels of grey, but 16.8 million colors. Artistically, some people may prefer to drop all blade photos to grayscale because their photo lighting setup is not reference-quality enough to properly capture the color variation in the blade anyway. Any color they are capturing is just an artifact of their environment and/or lights, because they aren't shooting in a black box with white-balanced lamps and a proper RAW workflow. So you switch to grayscale to eliminate the distracting color artifacts. But that's a band-aid, not something to strive for. Finally, I should note that artificial halftoning is not the only way to produce variation, for greyscale luminance or for color photos. True photo printing (not inkjet) uses chemical processes which essentially result in highly randomized tiny grains or crystals of each channel forming, eventually coupled to dyes. This is much more solid, continuous, detailed, and attractive than halftoning—assuming your grain size is small (low ISO film)—and does not have the registration issue of process color. But true photo printing is prohibitively expensive and not used in book printing. This only begins to cover everything… but the very short answer is keep your digital files in RAW, produce color jpegs for sharing on the web, if you ever make a book you'll find out very quickly whether you want to pay $$$$ for color (but classical-style nihontō photos don't benefit very much from it, except for the nakago).

Safari 7.0.2 on OS X 10.9.2, the slideshow arrows did not seem to work on first load, but worked on reload. Perhaps it needed to buffer several (or all) images first? Works in Firefox, Chrome, & Opera, all up to date. Works on the most current iOS though the nav arrows are difficult to hit; might suggest enabling clicking the image to progress to the next one. Everything else appears functional.

I like jizai okimono, but as we have seen, that kind of money is in the territory of ubu signed Rai Kuniyuki, Kiyomaro, etc. I confess I don't follow precisely why someone would choose a decorative dragon over the very top of the sword market. You can have a nice Edo-period posable statue, or you can have a weapon of rank / spiritual & national icon / relic of 1250 / alchemical artwork in steel / emblem of honor. I know which I'd pick. But I guess that's why this is the NMB and not the JOMB. :lol:

The 州 shū kanji will come up fairly often so you should commit it to memory. 濃州関 Noshū Seki, for example.

Found a blog post of this Ryōkai and had to share the hada photo. Really fine work IMHO; somehow looks more gendai than Kamakura!

Yep, both the site and the app have been discussed. Some great high-res images.

Thanks to Dr. Stein for creating what is not only an early (maybe the earliest?) significant website on nihontō, but one which remains perpetually useful for both beginners and long-time students of the subject. And thanks to Brian for hosting it so that we never again have to see that bandwidth exceeded notice. :-)

I read John's comment before your original question, Chris… after that, and based on another clue, I cheated… really amazing.

So to review, Eric is not a pathological liar :lol: and the "obviously gimei" blade received Tokubetsu Hozon . This is funnier stuff than most sitcoms.

You're welcome. I was helping S. over on SFI. He showed a willingness to do some digging on his own so I was happy to give my 2c. You can view that thread for my full comments, but in short, I concluded that it was probably a lower-quality gimei antique that was remounted for WWII, but he should take more/better photos, bring it to a club/show, and get a window polish before making any decisions. Nagasa (edge length) is measured from the munemachi (spine notch for the habaki) to the point in a straight line. From the ruler pic you posted, it looks to be about 54 cm or 21", which would classify it academically as a long wakizashi. If it had been shortened then it would have originally been a katana, but I do not think it was shortened, judging from what we can see. Judging the age by the shape requires looking at everything – width, taper, curvature, nakago, kissaki, etc. And a solid conclusion cannot always be had from the shape alone. However, this shape is more reminiscent of Shintō or Shinshintō period swords than Kotō (i.e., it is more likely 1600–1876 than anything earlier). It was I who advised S. to post more/better photos based on this guide I wrote. The emphasis in that guide is, of course, the many different blade photos required, but to be fair to S., I did write "take closeups of each individual fitting" at the end. Though I meant just one closeup of each, and that advice was geared more towards potentially-interesting antique fittings, my opinion is that it is better to be overly thorough than to be wanting for images. Thanks to Grey for some good points; lots of good observations and advice here S. A good thing if true (and Jacques is a born skeptic S., so take it as a good sign). I am inclined to agree though my opinion is not very valuable. I am of a like mind. I wouldn't ever spend real money to buy something like this, but I think if a sword "finds you" (inherited, gifted, bought for a song at a pawn shop, etc.) then even if it doesn't seem promising it is worth going the extra mile to be sure. I hope S. will get that window polish and report back. Despite my own optimism above, I do suspect it is gimei as you do. And though I prefer to see even gimei blades repolished if the workmanship is not terrible, you are of course correct that in all likelihood it financially would not even break even. S. should be aware of these considerations before making any decision to spend ~$2000+ restoring it. Cheers, —G.

Jacques, as I explicitly stated in my post, I wasn't questioning your conclusion—only your (complete lack of) explanation, which didn't allow readers any hint as to what you were trying to show. I am aware of how to compare mei; my comment wasn't based on any such comparison. Indeed, as I indicated I didn't even try to compare them. So for you to write "you don't know what you must be looking at" is (very mildly) offensive whether you meant it to be so or not. My laziness last night in not trying to assess the mei or deliver my own conclusion/theory is not anything to be proud of, but neither is criticizing my capability (amateur though it may be) baselessly. I'd like to think that there may be a linguistic issue here and you are simply not aware of how strongly negative the expression "you don't know what you are looking at" is in English… It's only one step shy of "you are an idiot who has overstepped his bounds." A more diplomatic phrase would have been "you may not be aware of some of these kantei points" or similar. Thank you for adding specific commentary to help people understand where you are coming from. This is all I wanted. Much appreciated.

You're rejecting this thread's Meiji gannen (1) mei based on a single Meiji 33 mei? Why would you use a sword dated 32 years later (or rather, why would you only cite that example)? I'm not arguing it IS shōshin, just questioning your methodology (edit: or at least your scant explanation) for a smith with plenty of variation in his signature. People may want to refer back to this thread, more examples to consider, and the gimei chapter in the Nihontō Koza. If I had nothing better to do I'd create a big photoshop mei comparison like I have often done previously, but I don't have the time… perhaps someone else wants to try. And yes, Dan, you need to post a single overall shot of the nakago… it is very difficult to properly assess and compare piecemeal like this, although the detail is appreciated.

I wasn't there so I don't know what you are talking about exactly, but surely such a thing would be easy and enjoyable to make yourself? EDIT: or even ask a local carpenter…

That's nuts! Can I ask who it was? I have my own list of people I trust, but if he's a professional I want to be sure I never take a chance on him unwittingly…

Pablo has posted here before. He is a friendly person, I haven't ever bought anything from him so I can't make any kind of testimonial but he's been around for a while. Certainly knows the importance of good website production values and photography.

I really like XenForo, it's very modern and full-featured, but it ain't cheap. Some nice themes for it.

Funny, lots of interest in the Tsuguhiro comparison. That was my operating assumption (emphasis on assumption); in fact if you visit the index linked in the image you will see I stated so explicitly. However as it was neither papered (that I know of) nor obviously gimei (that I could tell), I filed it as you see: in the unpapered/unknown group, with no "gimei?" notation. When I group them by papered/unpapered it is not to say they are necessarily shōshinmei/gimei. In fact in doing these comparisons I have usually come across at least one papered example that is very suspect and a good number of unpapered blades that may well be shōshin. But the point of these comparison images is not to label them as real or not based solely on the individual source that provides them, but rather to create a spread that allows convenient examination for patterns (and deviations) based primarily on facts. This is especially true if you visit the link embedded in the image, which contains an index of links to all the actual sword listings (not just the nakago/mei), usually with some additional comments on each. I try to restrict my "gimei?" annotations to swords which I think demand increased skepticism for whatever reason. But it is a suggestion to look closer, not a declaration. In short my point is that these exercises are not an attempt at creating an airtight guide or delivering a conclusion, they were personal projects to investigate available information on a given smith. They may be useful to others, but only if people pay attention to the contextual information. This is a problem I have come across often. There is sometimes no clear information that I can find to distinguish generations. In the case of Tsuguhiro, he did not inscribe nenki, and (almost) none of the sources made any attempt to identify shodai or nidai. I did just notice that P8 was attributed to nidai, but the mei was so hard to see I didn't include it in the image; also, the REI magazine example was gassaku with Nobusada nidai, and dated, so was attributed to second gen. When there is no obvious differentiation between generations (either listed or clear from the workmanship/mei), I don't pollute or bias the available information by trying to exclude examples or wildly guess which is which; I just include everything and make a note. In some of the other comparisons you will see that I explicitly stated this, for the Tsuguhiro image I went over this in the thread that it came from (the URL listed on the image). Again… not intended to do all the work or make decisions for other people, but rather to make it a lot easier for them to make the same kind of examination and investigation. I had to search, compile, list, link, examine (for info e.g. paper level or generation etc.), rotate, crop, annotate… all you have to do is look at the images and follow the links.

Thanks. In the original thread I embarrassed myself with the assumption that this was yet another "Kamikaze Knife."

Thanks. The user posted two new galleries: http://imgur.com/a/ZygjY/layout/blog http://imgur.com/a/EeB91/layout/blog He also has a 1984 appraisal: I have translated the omote mei 小川外藤作 to Ogawa Tofuji saku (Seki smith, real name 小川藤一) and the ura mei includes the column 新見政一. Still working on the rest of the ura mei, help would be accepted. EDIT: I think I got it, 南支艦隊 | 司令長官 | 新見政一 (Nanshi Kantai Shirei Chōkan | Niimi Masaichi): Niimi Masaichi, Admiral of the South Expeditionary Fleet. Much better than I thought on first glance. Can't quite tell for sure if it's traditionally-forged or oil-quenched and I see no hada (though of course the polish doesn't help). Looks like the seal script was engraved with a dremel or something?

Hello, A Reddit user posted a WWII tantō here. Anyone able to decipher the seal script? I tried some basic searches but I don't have a very good strategy in place for handling these kinds of characters, since they don't really figure in traditional nihontō. Thanks, —G.

A nice find by an excellent smith, Gilles, I am jealous. I hope you can share a photo showing the workmanship. Based on the specific mei (Sappan-shi), the NBTHK paper, a cursory read through my library, and fast comparison of oshigata/nakago both printed and online, I would assume this is the shodai (though I am not discounting the possibility that it could be a later generation). This is just an quick impression however and not worth much.

On Dr. Stein's site there is an address and phone number for the Vancouver Japanese Sword Appreciation Society. However, from http://www.geocities.jp/tdkoshi/ : Daniel Koshi http://www.geocities.jp/tdkoshi/contact.html I would suggest emailing Mr. Koshi (address in the site above).

Good point. Something like 200 smiths registered in the All Japan Swordsmith Association, and only ~30 making a living? But if they could sell more than 2 long / 3 short a month, could they not also reduce prices, increasing the market? I was under the impression that the restriction on quantity had artificially raised the prices at least somewhat. I guess you'd need an economist to get the best prediction of what would really happen.

Yep. Good eye. :lol: BTW on that particular image I had them split into papered swords (P#) and unpapered/unknown (U#). Purely out of curiosity / for comparison's sake, is yours papered? No rudeness or doubt intended. Hear hear!

So if the ju-tō-ho was (finally) revised, smiths would have a field day… interesting.