SteveM

Anybody recognize the name of the writer of the hakogaki? 拾翠　(Shūsui)? 捻翠　(Nensui)? The box is written with great confidence and beautiful penmanship (just describing the tsuba... not saying anything astonishing). Dated Spring 1968. Should be a well-known person, but I'm coming up with nothing.

The name itself is a plausible Japanese name, but I agree that the inscription looks very amateurish. Could be a real WW2 sword that someone added a name to, to make it seem more valuable. Then again, it could be something manufactured (or assembled) after the war. Without any documentation of such a smith, it is hard to have confidence that this item is an authentic war relic - even though it may well have been made in or around the middle of the last century.

None of these swords could be licensed. The licensing system is only for Japanese swords. There was some debate in the early years of the licensing system about whether or not foreign swords should be allowed to be licensed and held in private collections. If I'm not mistaken there was one collector who sued the government because he could not get his antique foreign sword licensed, with the government eventually winning the case. So the defacto position is that only Japanese swords may be licensed.

將柳軒　英随　Shōryūken Teruyuki Some more information on this smith in the post below

Hi guys, looks like Kataoka Kunihiro 片岡国廣

Far left line says it passed the army's quality inspection. 本廠檢定

Kamon are used by multiple, often unrelated families. Impossible to tell who owned a sword just by looking at the mon (unless it is an extremely unique mon, but even then you would want some corroborating provenance).

I think maybe you are confusing 堀川門, which is, as John says above, a kind of "bucket" attribution to "the school of Horikawa".

@Cola It's the same smith for both of the swords you linked to. But there is a lot of variation in the inscribing of the mei. Possibly this is due to several people making swords under Nagamitsu's supervision. Brian and Chandler both talk about this in the other thread. If the papers are important to you (and, they usually are important for most people, especially if you are ever contemplating selling your sword - or you would like to make it easy for your heirs to sell your sword), then save yourself some trouble and buy the sword that is already papered. That sword also comes with a paper receipt for the sword, dated 1978 and signed by Tsukamoto Sozan, who was an ex-military man who went on to do various activities after the war, including managing a sword museum in Chiba prefecture. So, considering it has not only an NBTHK paper, but also a little bit of provenance. I have no reason to doubt the other sword is also an authentic Nagamitsu sword, but ultimately it comes down to a question of how much friction will there be when the sword eventually gets resold. Having the NBTHK paper eliminates a lot of friction. Without the paper, the sword will eventually end up back at a site like this with the owner (or potential owner) asking, is this a real Nagamitsu?

Hopefully this is what you are looking for?

Do you know who the consignment seller is, or is it just being sold by an anonymous person on the internet? The one small tidbit I can provide is that the sword was registered in Ehime prefecture, and the Kamata family was indeed from Ehime. The Vice Admiral's son (Kamata Hideo) was an accountant who died in 2009, and the accountant's son (Kamata Toshiya) is a music producer based in Tokyo. He's got his own twitter and instagram page.

Name of the theme of the kozuka with the chrysanthemums on it is 枝菊図 (edagiku-zu), or chrysanthemum branches. I believe it is a common theme of the Gotō artists. There is an explanation of this theme at the link below, which basically says it contains various elements: elegance, nobility, strength, endurance, all present in the chrysanthemum in the field. http://katana.mane-ana.co.jp/touwa0510renjyoukiku.html Here is the theme again as part of a set https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/472635

Usually bamboo is used for mekugi on swords when they are out and in use (i.e. not in the shirasaya). Longtime NMB member Guido Schiller said that bamboo is used because bamboo doesn't make a clean break when its placed under stress, which would allow the sword to fly out of the handle. Instead, bamboo is fibrous so it might split under stress, but the strands of bamboo will retain some structural integrity, so your sword has less of a chance of flying out of the tsuka. It sounds like a very plausible explanation to me. For shirasaya, I think bamboo is actually the default material, but horn is an inexpensive, nice-looking, and long-lasting upgrade, so you see a lot of it being used. The sword in the resting (shirasaya) tsuka isn't under a lot of stress, so the mekugi doesn't need to be bamboo.

The article above was written by Tanobe-sensei. He says, (my loose translation of the salient bits) Regarding Tomoshige 1st; he is said to have been either a student of Rai Kunitoshi, or a student of Kashū Sanekage. However, by looking at the the oldest extant sword believed to have been made by Tomoshige 1st (Important Art object in the Atsuta Shrine) the former claim, while not impossible from an age standpoint, seems difficult to accept judging by the style in which the sword was made. Meanwhile, the latter claim is inconsistent with the age of the sword. Indeed, judging from the work of the jiba, and from the shape of the nakago jiri being in the style of Katayama, and from the workmanship being of the kind often seen in kanmuri-otoshi blades, it seems as if it is a continuation of the Yamato tradition, and swordsmith groups coming from Yamato, such as the Uda who settled in Etchū in the Hokuriku, and Nobunaga et. al who carried on the Taima tradition in Echizen Asago, are gaining attention.

Inside of the cup says "commendation" Outside of the cup has the date of Showa 9 (1934), and looks like these were presented to some support group for Imajō Station, in Fukui Prefecture.