SteveM

篠田氏房 Shinoda Ujifusa WW2 swordsmith

I think the auction would have you believe it reads 英雪. It seems a stretch to me, because not only is the 雪 very poorly carved, but I can't find any such smith in Wakayama. I don't know what the squiggly bit above 英 is, but it is unusual as well. Feels very weird to me.

I wouldn't read too much into it. If it is 玄番／玄葉 , it's just an honorific or almost cosmetic title given to the swordsmith. As mentioned above, the inscriptions on kogatana are often done as a tribute to another smith.

Or... 玄蕃 https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%8E%84%E8%95%83-492918 which is a kind of title or official position ("magistrate"?).

The first two look like 玄審 (Genshin), but I have no idea what it means. 玄審吉重作

The signatures are all Hirochika (弘親). Original post is the gō 宝寿斎　(Hōjūsai). The gō in the two tsuba in Adam's post is 紫雲斎 (Shiunsai). Both are known gō of Hirochika. He also used at least two other names. None of this guarantees the validity of any of these signatures. I'm just reading what's in Wakayama's reference. Also, the style of the last kanji (斎) is so strange that its not recognizable to me. The only possible alternative I can think of is 堂 (dō), which Hirochika also used, but the kanji doesn't look like dō either. However, since its fairly consistent across all of the tsuba in this thread, I'm taking a leap of faith and assuming they are all intended to be sai (斎). I await correction if this reading is wrong.

昭和十八年三月　　Shōwa jū-hachi nen sangatsu

And here's a sayagaki from a past thread on NMB where Suiken uses the 剱 kanji. http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/4954-sayagaki-from-fukunaga-suiken-and-attributed-to-nakajima-rai/

The kanji are 剣 and its variation 剱. Considering this is a pen name, I wouldn't automatically dismiss one or the other as fake. I think it is plausible that he used both variations. The big name attribution for the sword, and the lack of corroborating NBTHK certificate certainly sets off alarms. But the use of one kanji or its variant in Suiken's signature doesn't strike me as weird or suspicious. I'm not a Fukunaga Suiken specialist, so if anyone has information that he only ever used one way to sign his name I will be happy to know this. Here is another Fukunaga kantei-sho using the 剱 kanji. Edited to remove redundancy.

Third one is Bakufu Seishin　世臣 (means basically the same thing as Bakufu-shi　幕府士)

I think its an homage to the Muromachi smith Kanetsune. The blade itself is probably Late Edo period.

①　藤原久孝 Fujiwara Hisataka ②　川井久幸行年六十有余歳作之 　　弘化二ねん二月日 Kawai Hisayuki Gyōnen rokujū ari amari toshi/sai saku kore* Kōka ninen nigatsu-jitsu Kawai Hisayuki made this at the age of 60+ years. 1845 February *kanbun reading would be slightly different ③　幕府世臣久幸作 Bakufu Seishin Hisayuki saku Made by Hisayuki, retainer of the shogunate

The crest is a fan with the letter 大 (dai, meaning big or great). A bit like the one below, but with a different character https://kamon.myoji-yurai.net/kamonDetail.htm?kamonName=%E4%BA%94%E6%9C%AC%E9%AA%A8%E6%89%87%E3%81%AB%E5%90%89%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97

春柳軒　 The 柳 used here is a variation (below) https://glyphwiki.org/wiki/zihai-074817 The 春 used here is a variation (below). https://glyphwiki.org/wiki/u2318a-jv Should have looked for this right away, but I thought it was going to be 青 as Uwe said. Never seen this variation of 春 before.

Here's your man 伊勢守藤原信貞 Ise-no-kami Fujiwara Nobusada http://www.sanmei.com/contents/media/N2545_W2769_PUP.htm

竹内兼正 Takeuchi Kanemasa

Hello Kren, It is a kitae-ware. It is a result of the forging process. It was not intentionally added to the sword. Many swords have a small kitae-ware. It is usually not considered a fatal flaw, but in this sword's case, with the kitae-ware running for so long into the kissaki, it might be considered problematic enough to keep it from getting papered. Tadayoshi is a big name, and therefore the signature is often copied. With kantei, I would suggest looking at the features in the opposite order that you have above. In other words, start with the shape and the hada and the hamon, etc... and then lastly look at the signature. The signature often seems like the most crucial part of the sword, and for sure it is a very important part, but let the sword itself first reveal its quality to you. Or at least, train yourself to think; Is this a good sword? If so, I wonder who made it? Edit: It does look like a real antique Japanese sword. The signature was added by someone trying to tart up the sword. It could have been added hundreds of years ago.

安原美乗 Yasuhara Bijō

私物 - personal effects (unreadable) 東砲兵会部（九）石亀 - eastern artillery (#9) Ishikame Can't read the first kanji because of the fold in the cloth. Not completely sure of the blue kanji after "eastern artillery". Yes Nōshū is a province in Japan, known as a principle sword-making region, and there was an arsenal there (or several) that produced WW2 swords.

濃州住源天秀鍛之 Nōshū-jū Minamoto Amahide Kitaeru Kore Need a better shot of the surrender tag. The surname name on it is 石亀 Ishikame It's a WW2-era sword.

I think less than 10% were "samurai" (with regional variation). But at the end of Edo, there was very lax enforcement of the rules regarding sword ownership. http://honkawa2.sakura.ne.jp/7860.html (Japanese only, but the blue portion of the graphs represent the nobility/samurai).

加賀守藤原 Kaga-no-kami Fujiwara

My very rough guess based on page count would be maybe $15k to translate the book from Japanese to English. At 243 pages, and translating 4 pages a day, I reckon it would take maybe 3 months, give or take a couple of weeks for proofreading and rewriting. The cost and time required will drop if there are a lot of illustrations, but I think this is offset by the increase in cost that comes from the nature of the specialized and technical vocabulary used.

Some web-surfing turned up a bit more information regarding the ink stick. The manufacturer of the stick is Hu Kai Wen (胡開文), a firm that still exists, in the Huizhou District of Anhui. From reading about it, it seems it is a high-quality ink, and the owner must have been a serious student of calligraphy. Kinfukan (金不換), which I mistook for a Japanese brand, is a Chinese phrase that means precious (or, literally, "better than money", "non-exchangeable, even with money"). I don't think this was a special made-to-order ink, but it makes me curious as to the journey it took from China to Yamagata. Edit: 徽 instead of 微 Reading about this company, it seems to be really unique. I leave some links here because they talk a bit about the factory and the ink. https://www.chinadiscovery.com/anhui/huangshan/hu-kaiwen-ink-factory.html https://www.inkston.com/stories/people/hu-kai-wen/ For Brian, I can only speak for myself, but helping and being helped here on NMB is its own reward. If I can get occasional tips like the above from Moriyama-san, or Morita-san, it makes it all the more worthwhile. Viva NMB.

The writing on the ink sticks are just brands of ink. One of the brands (金不換 - Kinfukan) is still around. The other one comes from Anhui province in China. The last one (looks like a seal) says 横一氏　 Yokoichi (Mr.)