SteveM

How long are you visiting? If you are going for around 2 weeks, I wouldn't bother with Nagoya. Apologies to all the Nagoya fans out there, but for me Nagoya is a speed bump on the way to Kyoto. The Nagoya castle is a post-war, concrete and steel reconstruction, so slightly disappointing. Nagano is quite a trek for not much payoff, unless you like mountain climbing and skiing. The exception might be Matsumoto, which is a 2-3 hour train ride from Shinjuku Station. Matsumoto has one of the few remaining original castles in Japan, and it is a very grand castle. So, consider it if you have a lot of time to kill, or are a castle buff. Tokyo: Japanese Sword Museum near Ryogoku Station. Also close to the Edo Tokyo Museum, which is closed for renovations until 2025. Also the area where Tokyo Sumo arena is located. In Ginza, you can hit Ginza Choshuya (high-end sword shop) and Token Shibata (mid-range sword shop) and Ginza Seiyudo (mid-range sword shop). They are near the center of Ginza, and within walking distance of each other as long as the weather is nice and you've got good walking shoes. The walking around Ginza can be an enjoyable event in itself. Also there should be some swords on display at the Tokyo National Museum near Ueno. Ueno can also be an enjoyable destination, especially around the Ameyoko-cho shopping arcade. Nikko is an excellent day-trip from Tokyo, and in addition to the shrine, which is one of the finest in Japan (if not the finest), there is the Nikko Toshogu Museum, which houses a lot of artifacts from the Tokugawa family (including some swords if my memory serves me well). Nikko is also a quaint city, and there are a couple of antique shops on the high street. Lots of walking and stair-climbing. Kanazawa - a lovely city with a nice castle. Not quite the grand towering castle that Matsumoto has, but rather a low-lying fortress kind of castle. Two nice geisha districts. Well, they were once "tea houses", but now they are converted into shops, but they still retain the old atmosphere. There is also a famous temple, associated with ninja (Myoryu-ji). Normally one would stay in Kanazawa and maybe make a side trip to the Noto Peninsula, which I would recommend without reservation, but obviously the earthquake has done serious damage to the Noto area, so you would have to watch for updates to see when Noto is ready to accommodate visitors again. Some are saying Noto wants visitors right away, because they need the revenue to get back on their feet, but...check the internet for updates. Noto is famous for lacquerware (Wajima city, specifically). Kyoto - what can be said about Kyoto? A beautiful city with so many cultural landmarks per square mile, it is difficult to summarize. Nijo castle would be a must. Again, not a towering castle, but more of a low-lying estate. Kiyomizu-dera, Kinkaku-ji, Ginkaku-ji, Sanjusangendo, Ryoanji, Arashiyama...its all worth seeing. Then, from Kyoto you can visit Fushimi-inari taisha, Horyu-ji, and Nara. All are within a short train ride from Kyoto station. Kyoto is worth spending time in - and I would make it my base for explorations into Nara, Osaka, Himeji, and maybe even into Hiroshima. Osaka is an hour train ride from Kyoto. Osaka has a castle, but it, like Nagoya, is a modern reconstruction. I don't know Osaka very well. I've never done too much sightseeing there. From Osaka, Himeji is about an hour away (less if you go by Shinkansen). Himeji has the best, most well-preserved castle in Japan. Osafune (of Bizen Osafune fame) is about a 2.5 hour train ride from Kyoto, and well worth seeing for the sword museum and sword-related craft displays. To get to Osafune, you have to change trains at Okayama, which has a castle (modern reconstruction, but some original buildings/walls) but it is also worth seeing. Hiroshima - less than an hour from Okayama by Shinkansen. Atom bomb museum, and a castle (reconstruction) not too far from the museum. Hiroshima also famous for its food culture. Hiroshima also has one of the most picturesque shrines in Japan, Miyajima. It is slightly far from central Hiroshima, but well worth visiting. It is a popular tourist destination on an island just off Hiroshima, so the connections and frequency of the boats/trains make it a relatively easy trip.

Filling in the blanks. 時代永正裏頃の四百三十年前　　　(must be 頃 but looks odd) 長サ壱尺八寸四分半 1 shaku, 8 sun, 4.5 bu Date 昭和弐拾七年拾月七日 October 7th, 1952 If anyone has Inami Hakusui's birth and death dates (years) I would appreciate it if you could share them. Been looking for them and can't find them.

Same mei as the one below. No idea about authenticity. https://www.e-sword....1310_6014syousai.htm 尾崎源五右衛門助隆 Ozaki Minamoto Goemon Suketaka

Yes, I think its just overlapping squares, represented as best as possible given the medium. Also, check out the below Called "chigaikaku" at this site. https://irohakamon.c...kaku/chigaikaku.html Another tsuba with this mon. Called "shige-masu" at the site below. The addition of the line that forms the border of this design makes it easily identifiable, whereas your is just the cut out spaces in sukashi (with no defined border), so yours looks a bit more abstract. https://blog.goo.ne....255cc70f2bac872eb7c9 Anyway, that's my take. all credits to the site's owner.

Very few of us know the specific histories of our swords. It's just one of those "unknowable" things unless your sword came with a detailed provenance. Even for Jūyō swords (or Tokubetsu Jūyō), the NBTHK doesn't research the history of the sword. They just provide you with details on the specifics of the sword as they see it now: the hataraki, the shape, the inscription, any other engravings, etc.. Even if the sword comes with an origami paper, or a sayagaki, the NBTHK may not even mention those things at all, or mention them in passing. I think what you have is definitely special, in that it is a real, traditionally-made, Japanese sword. I think Kanbun is the right call, and though I have some doubt about the second character of the swordsmith's name, I have no reason to doubt the 濃州 (Nōshū/Mino). Looking at the new close-ups you just posted, I still don't know what it is. It looks like 品, but the lack of any reference to any such smith nudges me to think the second kanji is something else. It could well be an undocumented smith. (Doesn't change the likelihood that its a Nōshū blade from the Kanbun era).

It's not a very reliable "rule of thumb" for anything but maybe the first 1000 swords or so. Yours is #5975. And despite the name "daimyo registrations", there were no more daimyo after the 1870s. Many of them transitioned into politics and became part of Japan's "peerage", and it was these guys and their heirs who held swords in 1951. All swords were supposed to be registered, not just the good ones, and not just ones held by the former daimyo and their heirs. Its just that the big collectors were encouraged to register so that everyone would feel confident in the new system. I should also correct something I said earlier. The NBTHK didn't and doesn't register the swords; its done by people from the Ministry of Culture, and then later devolved from them to the local Boards of Education. But the guys at the Ministry of Culture who were in charge of the very first registrations, were also the same guys who set up the NBTHK, so there is some overlap in the personnel. At any rate, the guys doing the registering aren't interested in whether the name is authentic or not. They are just recording what they see on the tang. With regard to your sword, in order to submit it to shinsa, you would first have to send it to Japan, where it would get "re-registered". You need an agent located in Japan to handle this. The old registration card you have is now invalid, hence, it needs needs to be re-registered before it can be submitted for shinsa. After that, you can send it to the NBTHK for authentication. From there, it will be as Rivkin says.

Note that omodaka may also be spelled 沢瀉. Associated families are: Shiina, Someda/Yanada, Mori, Kinoshita, Asano, Sakai, Horikoshi, Mizuno, Tsuchii, Fukushima, etc... 椎名、梁田、毛利、木下、浅野、酒井、堀越、沢井、水野、土井、福島など More information (in Japanese) here at the linked page https://irohakamon.c...kagedakiomodaka.html

I was thinking 群雅堂 (Gungadō).

壹千圓也　= 1000 yen 下原免 = Shimobaru-men (an address in Nagasaki)

Yes the kanji 品 can have several possible pronunciations (shina, kazu, nori, etc.). I use the word pronunciations here instead of "readings" because it can be confusing. How you pronounce 品 isn't the problem here. The problem is that the name, 兼品, doesn't show up in the usual swordsmith indexes. So I suspect the name on the sword isn't actually 兼品, but something that looks confusingly similar. Maybe 兼邑 or 兼別 or 兼命 or something like that. It's hard to determine what that second kanji is, because its not inscribed very clearly. In 1951, which is the date on the registration card, the NBTHK was just a couple of years old, and they may well have made a mistake in thinking this 2nd kanji was 品. They would have been looking at a huge volume of swords and would have had very little time to research each sword.

Hello Kevin, Regarding Tokubetsu Kicho papers: take a look at the threads below. It is one of the most talked about topics here on NMB. These threads do a pretty expert job of summarizing the various issues surrounding these papers. https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/16555-authenticity-of-nbthk-papers-green-paper/ https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/46795-green-papers-mean-no-papers/

Slight correction: futatsu-dō otosu

Yes, this is the kind of thing I was thinking.

The two-body sword is Gary's. I posted a three-body sword that is, sadly, not mine. Just one that I found posted to a Japanese seller's site. Thought it might be interesting for Bruce. @Bruce Pennington Yes I found that kao also interesting. Same kao design as the OP's, but the date is closer to the one Markus posted. So I guess the smith really revised his kao sometime that year (1681).

OK, thanks for those. Unfortunately it doesn't help me with the exact year, but it does appear to confirm the era of Bunmei. And it confirms Katsumitsu of Bizen/Bishu (which is also supported by the era of Bunmei, as that is the general time frame when Katsumitsu worked). The precise year is a bit eroded or corroded, but its not so crucial. You have similar, sharp close-ups of the other blade?

Bishu Osafune Katsumitsu (備州長船勝光). The reverse side should be the year, Bunmei (1469-1487) something, August. Need better photos to figure it out. Same for the second sword. It almost looks as if the name has been scraped off, but better photos would help.

万囗弘光　Hiromitsu would be the name, but the two before that are... 万寿? There are three Hiromitsu artists in Wakayama. All mid-to-late Edo. None of the entries provide any clues as to what the first two kanji are (location or family name or art name).

That is an awesome photo collection. You could get lost in all of those old pictures.

Another one from 1681. (Not the Sesko one). https://www.tsurugin...om/items/a00220.html Sword itself is by Tsuguhira, and is Jūyō.

備州長船住横山祐久作 Bishū Osafune-jū Yokoyama Sukehisa saku (Sukehisa YOKOYAMA of Osafune in Bizen province made this). 友成五十九代孫 Tomonari 59th Generation (59th generation from founding smith "Tomonari") 慶應二年二月吉日 Keiō 2 (1866) an auspicious day in February

Tsuba is 正阿弥　重信　(Shōami Shigenobu). Probably Aizu Shōami Shigenobu. Mid-to-late Edo.

I'm at a loss. No such swordsmith (Kaneshina) appears in any of the obvious references. My gut feeling is that the original reading of Kaneshina may be wrong, and that the "shina" part is actually something else. But I can't tell what it might be. But I could be wrong. Stay tuned. Maybe somebody on the forum has a more comprehensive list of Nōshū swordsmiths. Nōshū is synonymous with Mino. Seki is the center of swordmaking in Nōshū/Mino province. Kanbun is also a safe bet for this sword.

Hello Michael - Do you have a picture of the papers?

服部正廣 Hattori Masahiro One of the million variations of his mei.

I may be in Japan then. Will have to see if I can swing a trip to Osaka.