SteveM

There are all kinds of #5s. Take a look at the variation on the page below https://moji.tekkai.com/zoom/五/page.html

津田越前守助廣 Tsuda Echizen-no-kami Sukehiro

Looks to me like either Z三五四 or 乙三五四 Z354 or 乙354 (乙 is a used in numbering or ordering things. Both Z and 乙 would just be part of the assembly number). At any rate, the 354 is a match for the tang and the tsuka.

Yes, Saitō Kiyoshi (斎藤清)

Polishing, specifically "shinogi-zukuri" polishing. It says in the English description too. "Our staff member, Yoichiro Kawakami, placed 6th in the Excellence Award! This was his first serious attempt applying to this competition in the area of sword polishing."

上等小柄六本 Jōtō kozuka roppon 6 high quality kozuka I can't make out the 6 lines under that, but they are describing the 6 kozuka: material/theme Third from right is "Shibuichi, tori (bird)" The first and fifth from the right might be 赤銅 (shakudō) then a description of the theme

赤坂町一　Akasaka Chōichi (various readings) 髙橋熊次郎 Takahashi Kumajirō (name, there was a politician in the mid-20th century with this name).

Too dark for me. But I think even with a sharper, brighter picture, it would be a tough one. Possible to get a better picture?

名産　Famous (well known) 鐡器　Iron Goods / Iron utensil 謹製　Well-made It's a cast-iron tourist product from Iwate prefecture, I think. There is a consortium of local producers of iron products who produce various goods for tourists: cooking tools, ash trays, wind chimes, teapots, etc. The consortium is called Nambu Tekki (南部鉄器).

My guess is that it is supposed to be a pair of buddhist implements: Nyōi and hossu. Nyōi is the Ruyi that is mentioned above (same thing, but Japanese word vs. Chinese word). Hossu is like a brush. They are some of the implements used in Japanese buddhism. Here is another set. The brush on the set in this thread doesn't look very much like a brush, but given the context... I don't know what else it would be. http://www.sword-auction.jp/en/content/af15205-目貫：短冊銘-土屋-menuki-tanzaku-signature-tsuchiya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hossu

Yes, its the same as the 出 in 出来 https://glyphwiki.org/wiki/n-gtwinppx_kanjibeya-001-097 I'm thinking it would be interesting to have a database of his sayagaki. They are written so well. It would also be interesting to see how his descriptions progress through the years.

As is quite often the case, the sayagaki is written in kanbun, which you need to be something of a scholar of classical literature in order to read (alas, I am not). I can pick out the meaning, but I am unsure of how to pronounce some of the phrases. This description feels majestic in its use of complicated kanbun and seldom-used kanji. I think Tanobe sensei takes pride in finding out-of-the ordinary kanji (㞮来 and 穀旦), and in employing the slightly idiosyncratic use of other kanji. 荘司彌門直勝　 Shōjiyamon Naokatsu 慶應元年紀有之 Keiō gannen ki aru kore. With date of Keiō gannen (1865) 姿態剛壮作域賑々敷候 Shitai gōsō sakuiki niginigishiku sōrō A powerful piece, full of activities. 㞮来傑レ且為此工ノ最高作哉 Deki sugure katsu tame kono kō? no saikō-saku nari A magnificent piece (unsure what comes after this) which will take its place among his best works. 刃長貮尺五寸七分有之 Hachō ni-shaku, go-sun, nana-bun kore ari Length 2 shaku, 5 sun, 7 bun 平成拾四歳壬午暦水無月穀旦 Heisei jūyon nen, mizunoue-uma reki minazuki kokutan Heisei 14 (2002), water/horse. Auspicious day in June. 探山邊道識 Tanzan Hendō shirusu Written by Tanzan Hendō (aka Tanobe-sensei)

Yes, it is the same inscription 東都住人一貫齊國護謹作 東都住人 - Tōto jūnin (Resident of Eastern Capital: aka Tōkyō) 一貫齊 - Ikkansai (this is an "art name", a sort of pen name that the artist adopts. In Japanese its called a "gō". ) 國護 - Kunimori (this is the artists name. Actually it is an adopted name, often different from the artists birth/given name). 謹作 - Kinsaku (made diligently)

Interesting discussion (and an unexpected interesting last photo in that discussion). Thanks for positing your sword and for linking to the Shigetsugu thread.

Wow. Nice. I think its January, Showa 13 (not August). Its got the Shimazu family crest on it as well. Nice ensemble. I saw a few examples on the net, but I didn't see anything that said these grass script mei where daisaku. Are you sure its a daisaku?

Hello Tony, I think you are obsessing over this spot, when it literally is nothing to worry about. It's just a dark spot. It's not a kizu, not a ware, not any kind of fatal flaw or any other defect that would cause anyone to take pause. You have a beautiful tantō, and you should enjoy it for what it is. It is a handmade work of art, made from the rawest of materials. The shape, the hamon, the horimono, the jihada, the bōshi, the tip, all look lovely.

The rest 正長以後二代目、 After Shōchō (1428) the works are from the 2nd generation. 帽子先が尖がる特徴 The pointed bōshi is characteristic. 室町初－備前国 Muromachi onward. Bizen.

It's the cover sheet to a compilation of prints. Historical Drawings of Yōsai Reduced drawings by Fukui Gassai Copyright owned Aoki Sūzandō Publishing Yōsai is the artist Kikuchi Yōsai. This compilation was produced in mid Meiji, 1894. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kikuchi_Yōsai

昭和壬子年卯月

As Matt says Aogai mijin nuri 青貝微塵塗 It is a common lacquer style. Working with this material can apparently be a life-shortening exercise, as the dust can get embedded into the lungs and cause havoc. Or, I recall reading that somewhere.

Hello Enrico Both 壱 and 壹 are different ways of writing "ichi". So of those two I guess I like 壹 the best. Not summer of the horse year, but one of the zodiac combinations. The Showa era is correct.

Chances are it would be the first, since he lived the longest. He signed in a variety of ways, but it looks like this matches with one of the samples in Wakayama. Wakayama also notes the second was only able to use the name for a comparatively short time since the first lived so long, and that it is difficult to distinguish works from the first two generations. The third was active and using this full name for only a short time, as was the fourth who seems to be really a Meiji artist, and probably not making works of this caliber. (That's my speculation, not Wakayama's.).

I think it says 刃長壱尺八寸二分有シ Not sure about the last one. I would normally expect 之, but it doesn't look much like 之. Also, the 壱 doesn't look much like 壱. But it's not "two", and "three" is almost out of the question unless its a really massive sword. At any rate the sword itself will reveal what number this is supposed to be (even if it doesn't reveal the actual kanji that the writer has written. Anyway, either 壱 or 壹 is my guess. On the second picture it says ERA NAME + ZODIAC YEAR + MONTH (I think its using the classical name for the month). Then at the end, it says Kanzan wrote this + kao (as you correctly pointed out). Does that help?

Also Furukawa Mototaka, as Wakayama says. These two different readings were a topic of another recent thread. I started digging a bit deeper into these readings, but I hit a brick wall. The problem stems from the two possible readings of these kanji. 元 = gen, moto 常 = jō, tsune 珍 = chin, and very rarely taka Wakayama says: Furukawa Mototaka was the father of Furukawa Tsunetaka (常珍), and studied with Yokoya Sōmin. Wakayama himself used a 19th century text written by Akiyama Kyusaku as his reference. One of the first western scholars of such things, Henri Joly, also used Akiyama Kyusaku as a source, but Joly claims the readings as Genchin and Jōchin. Haynes is supposed to have used Wakayama as his main reference, but Haynes claims the names are read as Genchin and Jōchin, so I suspect Haynes used Joly's readings for this artist. Andy Quirt makes a slightly circular argument, saying that since the son's name was Jōchin, it's likely the father's name was Genchin, which ignores the references that claim both father and son use Mototaka and Tsunetaka respectively. So why the two readings? As most people on this site know, kanji characters have two ways of being read: one is a native Japanese style (kun'yomi) and the other is a replication of the original Chinese pronunciation (on'yomi). The Japanese style is used for native Japanese words, and the Chinese style is used for words or concepts that arrived through various waves of writings or scholars from the mainland. However names can use either the on'yomi pronunciation, or the kun'yomi pronunciation, OR, they can take on an altogether unique and idiosyncratic pronunciation used specifically for names (sometimes called nanori). These name-readings (nanori) are devilishly hard to predict for the foreign reader. Taka is indeed a unique reading of 珍. It is not an intuitive reading, as we sometimes find. It is a reading that is deliberate and uncommon, at least nowadays. I feel that Wakayama must have had some reason for stating definitively that the name should be pronounced Mototaka. But I have yet to solve the puzzle. Genchin is certainly a more intuitive reading, and given the connection with Sōmin, it is easy to imagine a symmetry in the names Sōmin, Genchin, Jōchin, which all share the same kind of construction and euphony . If anyone has a copy of Akiyama Kyusaku's original work, I would be very interested to see if there is a clue to the reading of this name. Or, if Markus has an idle second and has some information on this artist, I would be very happy to hear what he has to say. As a side note; in China there is usually only one way to pronounce a kanji, and so you don't run into this problem of multiple readings. Not often, anyway. In Japan, the problem of multiple readings is somewhat compensated by using far fewer kanji in daily life than is used in China. So in China there are tens of thousands of kanji, but each has only one pronunciation, whereas in Japan we only use about 2000 - 3000 kanji, but each kanji has multiple pronunciations. As a further side note, the on'yomi in Japan isn't necessarily associated with China; I mean, Japanese people do not suppose they are speaking Chinese just because words use on'yomi. The connection is only historical. It is similar to how many words in English have their origins in the Latin language, but we don't imagine that we could converse in Latin just because there are words in our vocabulary that came from Latin. Its not a perfect analogy, but maybe a useful one. references: http://www.shibuiswords.com/makoto-ni.htm http://www.nihonto.us/LS017 FURUGAWA GENCHIN.htm http://www.shibuiswords.com/books.htm

It's a name 松浦安？ Matsuura Yasu-? Family name of Matsuura, given name of Yasu-something. Maybe Yasueimon 安右衛門 using abbreviated forms of the last two kanji. Matsuura is a fairly common last name, found all over Japan. Maybe slightly more prevalent in the west, around Hiroshima.