DirkO

I have the "Sources of Japanese Tradition" books - quite in depth and based on various old sources. Sources of Japanese Tradition

Regarding the habaki, they do pop up from time to time, but uncommon to say the least. I have this one on file - by Funada Ikkin (Hozon papers) - so a work of art in it's own right (but used for mounting nonetheless)

Just a friendly reminder for all NBTHK members to keep filling out these online kantei - I almost forgot this month! https://www.touken.or.jp/english/nbthk/swordjournal_October.html

By the looks of it, this samegawa has never been mounted. I've seen a few with writing on the back like this one, usually information about the actual samegawa, although this one does seem quite elaborate.

Being on a kiseru doesn't stop them from getting papers. I've seen kiseru with NBTHK papers. However, if they aren't original to the piece, it's maybe better to try and remove them with as little as damage possible.

Bit late here - it's not gimei. It's published in Shinto Taikan + I was able to track down a very good match which is papered. However, they don't specify generation (rarely do for Mishina unless Kyotamba shodai). It was wrongly filed as 3rd gen Osaka Tamba on my PC - because it's not 3rd gen, too many clear differences in overall mei. This one does have the kikumon, which is a bit odd. There were a few Mishina smiths that moved from Kyoto to Osaka though. Further investigation needed.

Hey Piers - could you post a picture of the mei? I have amassed 100+ ref mei for Mishina work from all generations - so would like to see if I can find a good match. If it's not shodai, you have a very big chance that NBTHK will just confirm the mei.

https://www.thejapanesesword.com/contact.php https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejapanesesword/ I don't know if he does proxy bidding however, it's not listed as a service on his site at least.

Don't know what you did, but seems to work fine now! Tried different searches and they all get expected results so far. Thanks!

Now I get 56 pages of results when searching for masamune and being logged in.

If I sign out and do the search, I get 1331 results, weird...

I imagine you're using mySQL for the search, then perhaps there's a different time cut off for non admins? Support forum

Settings: Results: I did notice there's no longer a flood protection on the search, but maybe there's other limitations at play here?

@Brian using your settings and looking for 'masamune' I get 2 results - pretty sure there's more written on this forum about him