SteveM

My guess is Okada Takeshi "Kaneyoshi". Here is another one from this smith. Looks similar to me. https://www.nipponto...swords7/KY334011.htm

I think its trying to be 政守 Masamori.

Hi Ian, can we get a look at the sword? It should be a very nice sword. I've never seen an Inoue Kihō sword.

Its a surname - Shinozuka 篠塚. The ヨ (Yo) would be the first part of the given name. Yosuke or Yoichi, etc.

This is also very educational.

紀伊国康綱 Kii no kuni Yasutsuna Yasutsuna from Kii Province made this

Last bit must be 山内家 (Yamauchi family)

Usually its considered a forgery if a smith puts another smith's name on it. There are exceptions, but in this case I would consider the signature to be a forgery.

Signature says 三條小鍛冶 Sanjō Kokaji　 It's the name of a very famous swordsmith. Best to think of this particular signature as inauthentic.

Outside of the box says "Copper Rabbits" Inside says "Bequest from Matsuo Two copper rabbit ornaments, made by Ryōzan, handed down from from Yanagiwara Tenji (Taishō Emperor's mother). " Can't get the very last two words of the description. And I can't get the name of the person who wrote the description. Yamauchi something? Edit: I guess the last two kanji in the description are 拝啓 (Sincerely or Respectfully) Correction: the last two kanji in the description say 拝領 (hairyō - to receive something from a person of high status)

I recommend Markus Sesko's Index of Swordsmiths for basic (and sometimes not-so-basic) information on swordsmiths. Bear in mind that many of these guys only left us their names and their approximate dates of activity. There isn't always a complete biography on the vast majority of smiths. Regarding your guy: Real name is Sugai Usaku from Aizu domain (present-day Fukushima Prefecture). As a swordsmith he used a few other names. Kaneshige Shigefusa Shitetoshi

会津住重寿 Aizu-jū Shigetoshi Mid 1800s. Aizu is the location (north of Tokyo). Shigetoshi is the smith's name.

酒向兼茂　Sakō Kaneshige

Yes, you got it. Chōkarō Sennin　（aka Zhang Guolao) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Guolao

I think its trying to say 寛文九年九月九日　Kanbun 9 (1669) but, yes, all these characters are horribly cut.

Yes the odds are that its traditionally made. But I'd love to see the nakago - it might make it easier. The pictures above look like the blade has some hada, so that almost precludes a Showa-tō. And of course the NBTHK papers should tell us what we are looking at - so a shot of that would be a great shortcut to the answer.

The NBTHK requires the sword to first be registered before submitting to shinsa. Edit: Also, the registering authorities weren't supposed to be registering Shōwa blades, but there have been instances where Shōwa blades have been both registered AND submitted for shinsa. This seems to be happening with more frequency. My contention is that the post-war definition of "art swords" is becoming more malleable, as the distance grows between this generation and the immediate post-war generation.

That paper was copied from this site below https://www.nipponto...swords8/NT332147.htm The paper and the sayagaki both say the sword is a Muramasa. The sayagaki gives the dimensions (2 shaku, 2 sun, 6 bu, 1 rin). Its "signed" by Kunzan (Junji Honma) a famous person in the sword world. The paper is signed by Hon'ami Kōryō, a sword appraiser from the 1950s. As everyone says, forget about the dodgy attributions, and focus on the sword.

@Bruce Pennington This one is also Takamasa. Shōwa 18, May.

I wouldn't read anything too deep into it. The thing is; even Japanese people can get confused and frustrated with the era continually resetting all the time. And in the feudal days, when the era names were changing every few years without any consistency, the one constant thing was the order of the zodiac cycle. You didn't know when the current era would end - you couldn't predict it. The court might decide to change the era name, and the numerical year would reset to Year 1. But the zodiac cycle is unchanging. So I think adding the zodiac year is just a way of further confirming the year when an event happens, or when something special is made/commemorated.

Yes, Nagatsugu is the tester's name (Also noted in the comments on that page, "two cutting tests performed with this blade by Utsuki Hachizaemon no Jō Nagatsugu") No date given for the cutting test.

No date on this one.

Cutter's name is Shibazaki Denzaemon Masatsugu 柴崎傳左衛門正次 Your arrow is pointing to the last two kanji in the name: 正次 (Masatsugu) Date is 寛文九歳酉四月十一日 Kanbun 9 (1669) Year of the bird, April 11th.

I think you are safe with Jū-mokkō-gata (十木瓜形). My bias would have been towards Kikka-gata (菊花形), but having looked in Iimura's "Tōken Yōran" which is a little almanac on swords first published in the 60s, I see he uses Jū-mokkō-gata for this kind of 10-lobed tsuba. And having double-checked with some papered tsuba, I see that NBTHK also uses "mokkō-gata" for tsuba with scalloped edges (8 or 10 or 12 lobes), always including the number of lobes when there are more than the default 4 lobes. But I don't expect these terms to be used with any consistency nowadays. You could call it Kikka-gata and get very little argument from anyone. Adding the entry from Iimura just for reference. I'm sure we could find examples where other authorities use other terms (as Dale has shown above).

I asked the All Japan Swordsmith Association about this some time ago, and they replied that there was no legal requirement to put the date on the sword.