DirkO

Talked to him about swords once, he came up with a sword that I knew was for sale in Japan and offered it to me for 50% more. Never bothered after that.

Worked with him on several occasions. He never disappoints and goes the extra mile. He's an institute and can't be thanked enough for what he has done and is still doing for the western collecting community.

stylised usubata? they come in all shapes and sizes

Tsunenao, first name „Kyūbei“ (久兵衛), was a student of Nagatsune. He originally came from Takatsuki (高槻), in Settsu province. Haynes lists this kinkō artist as the same person as Sadanaka (貞中) but the „Tōsō-kodōgu-kōza“ lists the latter as an individual craftsman without any reference to Tsunenao. In a document which is based on the records of Nagatsune we find the entry „Tsunenao, student of Nagatsune“, followed by two similar but differently sized kaō. Incidentally, it has to be mentioned that in contrast to the Edo kinkō schools like the Hamano, Nara or Yokoya, the Kyōto-based schools did not in general allow their students to use the original family name which was handed-down in the lineage of the eldest son. (extract from Markus Sesko's Toso Kinko translation)

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 😉

Search does work for me, however it's only giving me very limited results. @Brian could it be the indexing is still running? All results I get are from recent posts.

Reference books are a bit of a minefield. Sometimes there's now new knowledge, and when it's privately published it's sometimes done to enhance sales by a collector.

Well, with some luck the paper will say Masachika (Bushu Ito). It will confirm your own findings and - which I was alluding to - provide peace of mind and certainty to a future owner should you choose to let it go at one point. Obviously papering for commercial reasons only makes sense from a certain price point, the other reasons for papering being educational to confirm your findings, or shed light on doubtful mei,...

OK, different story altogether - indeed if a big name sword/tosogu came from Japan without any proven provenance (ex-Sasano for instance) and without papers, then I would be very carefull indeed. If you know what you have and can evidence it, great! However, when the time comes to pass things on, NBTHK kanteisho do make it a lot easier. They're by far the most commercially interesting certifications to have at the moment (plain fact)

I'm curious, seeing the number of items passing just Hozon shinsa, what gave you this idea? A lot of collectors, not having easy access to shinsa, won't bother with it. This doesn't mean that those items wouldn't pass.