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Ok, with now 4 from Barry (I just counted Barry himself previously) and also Brian in, I arrive at 42. That is quite incredible and lowers the translation fee to $72 per person. @Barry: I hope you stressed that a commitment is binding as it calculates everything for everyone and a drop out forces me to go back and check with all others if they are still in if the fee goes back up again Just to recapitulate briefly: I am positive that we might lower the price to somewhere around $65. So even if you go for the color print version, you end up at $125 for the copy to arrive at your place (or just be happy with the eBook that is included with your participation). So with everyone in this field despearately looking for more info in Nobuie, I think this is a pretty good deal. I mean, you are potentially going to spend at least several hundred to get something Nobuie or an amount in the four-figure range for the "real deal." So $65 or $125 doesn't sound to bad as a "decision-making tool."

I will make two versions: A plain b/w and therefore cheap copy, for those who just want to have a print book (and can refer to the color pics in their eBook). This one would be somewhere around $10. And then I will make a color copy for those who want the print to be as the eBook. As color is expensive with Lulu, we arrive somewhere around $50, calculating about 250 pages or so for the book. Shipping depends very much on location but starts around $5~8 (no tracking, just plain). I just got a reply from Eckhard saying that he got three more. So with Gilles and Mauro, we are 35 now, dropping the price to $86 per person.

Excellent! We just arrived at 30. So it is now only $100 per person. Will keep it open until next week. Until then everybody should have made up his mind. Seems we have a very fruitful combination of social media, NMB, and a topic that many are interested in.

Great! Thank you Peter.

Thank you Barry! Feedback is coming in so counting just you in from your group, we arrive at 26 participants at the moment. This would mean $115 for everyone if it stays like that but I am sure we can get some more as also others told me they are reaching out. @Peter Farrar: As you "can't take a copy" but have to participate, should I count you in? If so, we are already at 27 and $111 per person.

Great response so far! 22 are in. As for the books, yes, there will be a real copy made available by me via Lulu. With participating, you will get a private link where the copy can be ordered to your discretion. This said, I want to address a point that I will stress later again when we are good to go: Projects like that are for personal interest only. I mean, everyone participating gets his eBook and can order his paperback copy. These are neither meant to be shared nor to be resold (e.g. to recoup your investment or worse, to make profit). I always see that after sending out those private links when a project like that is completed, some are ordering two, three, or four copies. Of course Lulu doesn't show me where the order is from (apart from the country) but it does show how many copies are purchased in a single order process. Let me know if you are going to order for another participant, no problem, everything is fine. It's just always a little sad (and frustrating) for me to see when 5 or so copies are being ordered because what is this going to be? Of course they are ordered to be sold under the counter... It's not about that I am so greedy. I mean, I make an estimate on the basis of the to be translated pages and get my money from the participation. So I am paid. It's about that it "destroys" such little and medium projects in the long run because everyone will say that well, I am not going to participate because I know that I can always get a copy later from X or Y. So fewer and fewer people participate and here goes the downward spiral... Amen.

Hi all, I have stated this a while ago on my facebook page to let the word spread and feedback is rolling in, so I am at a point where I also want to post it here on the NMB. Thing is, Ito Mitsuru, the author of the three Higo books, wrote about 15 years ago or so an extensive article on Nobuie that was split up into 42 parts. In this article, Ito not only reassesses the grouping/classification done by Nakamura Kakudayu but also addresses all the important points regarding Nobuie, e.g. signature (hanare-mei, futoji-mei, ...), interpretation, shape, etc. The series stretches over 200 pages with tons of pics, consisting on the one hand of reprints of Nakamura's rubbings (used for his reassession), and on the other hand of concrete examples (which I will back up with color pics as the series was printed in b/w). In addition, Ito introduces a very detailed biography of Akiyama Kyusaku (I think no such detailed bio of this scholar has yet been made public). Now I am doing this like the Echizen-Kinai and Choshu no Tsuba project via a closed group of participants, with the costs for the translation shared. By the way, this is so to speak an "official" thing, i.e. Ito san is in the picture and the project came to me via my friend Eckhard Kremers, author of the Sukashi Tsuba book and close friend of Ito. So far I got about 15 commitments. From experience I know that at least 5 of these 15 will drop out but it would be nice if we can get let's say 25, or even 30. If so, that is if we are 30, costs would be around $100 each. For this, everyone will get the PDF-based eBook and for those who want real books, I will also provide a color paperback copy (via direct order link on Lulu, print and shipping born by orderer). Would be nice if we get some more into the boat and the project rolling! I will keep this post and my initial facebook post updated with concrete numbers. As mentioned, I count 10 as definitely in at the moment. Thank you for your attention folks!

That basicaly means he made them at different stages in his career.

There is an alternative way of counting the generations which I think might go back to Fujishiro. Not sure if or how far this counting is gaining more ground and if it is considered to be more close to the "real thing" than the traditional counting, i.e. the one that sees Daishoshi as the 2nd generation, maybe eventually replacing the traditional counting. Well, Tanobe uses it, so the alternative counting must have certain "convincing arguments." Anyway, this alternative way counts two generations Echigo no Kami, the latter of which being followed by Daishoshi as the third of the lineage and the first to actually use the honorary title Izumi no Kami. I can see that the tradition that Daishoshi receiving, as 3rd generation, his honorary title in 1616 being no longer sustainable as there exist several joint works with his successor which are dated much later, e.g. one from Jokyo 1 (1684). So maybe we will see the traditional counting change.

Takamine kizamu (孝峯刻), "carved by Takamine". I think it might be H 09286.0, the Mito Tamagawa artist.

The supplement (shinsui-kumi kore o tsukuru, 神水汲造之) is to be taken literal, i.e. "made by using/drawing sacred water (from the Hakozaki Hachiman Shrine)."

I was talking at the same time and off the board with an owner of an ubu Senju'in tachi (nagasa 83.3 cm, sri 3.2 cm) and underlined, as Darcy indicated, the importance of those pieces. Everything that is earlier than mid-Kamura is extremely rare anyway and those early Yamato blades allow us, with a certain caveat, connect the dots back to the earliest indigeneous swordsmiths groups. As Jean pointed out via the quote from the Nihonto Koza, in Japan, experts like Honma link these early Yamato blades intuitively to the those indigeneous swords from the Shoso'in. So everything that pops up from that time that is like Jeans' tanto even signed is a true treasure.

Re-reading my post, I realized that the uncommon kanji doesn't show up in the first brackets of my point 1. So, its this one: http://glyphwiki.org/wiki/u276bf

Hm, see two scenarios here: 1. The second character () is an uncommon one but which reads ju, homonymous for ju (寿, longevity), which often comes in combination with the first one and forming fukuju (福寿), "long life and happiness." In short, a word play with ju/ju. 2. "Different" way of writing (福聚), which is an abbreviation of fukujukai-muryô (福聚海無量), a Buddhist slogan that means "The fortune of the Kannon is vast and immeasureable like the ocean." Tending to #2 at the moment...

That's the dated tachi btw, an ôdachi with a nagasa of ~ 97.0 cm.

Oops, sorry for the typo. Should read "Possible but not...". Due to the suffix -maru, and if it was really a gift, it was probably going to the young (i.e. pre-coming of age) son of a samurai.

Mei reads "Doshû-jû Masamitsu saku" (土州住正満作). He was a bakumatsu era Tosa smith.

Possible not not necessarily. It is also possible that the blade became a gift later and the then donor had the good wishes inscribed on the tang.

I think so too. See the somewhat thicker "upper" (上) which was then crossed out by four thinner vertical "strokes" (short, long, short, long; from left to right).

The second one reads: 龜徳丸靍壽 Kitokumaru Kakuju - "Long live Kitokumaru!"

I can imagine the following scenario: Blade was handed down as Enju Kunimura. It was one of these cases where a blade "had" to be shortened at one time but the desired length actually allowed to preserve the mei at the very nakago-jiri. Now blade got a little out of polish but Honma, knowledgeable as he was, saw that everything was fine with the blade and mei and so he added it to his references. Somewhat later, the (new) owner was suspicious about the whole thing and visited an appraiser who told him that if he wants to be sure, he needs to get it papered. For this, he also needs to get it polished and the appraiser also said that the mei doesn't look good so better have that nakago-jiri cut off so that it papers at all. So he obeyed and can you imagine the guy's face when he gets it back papered to ... Enju Kunimura! So he was a little upset and brought the blade to all sword meetings to get more opinions and everyone told him that this is actually a really good blade. So he submitted it for Juyo, handing in also the cut-off nakago-jiri and explaining the whole thing to the NBTHK. So they accepted it and it passed Juyo with flying colors. Then he felt so guilty about what he did and as everyone kept saying that the blade is not only very good, it is very very good, he wanted to do some "damage limitation" and felt responsible for having the cut-off nakago-jiri, cut-off on his behalf, preserved. So he was eventually opting for gaku-mei and the blade was submitted again, this time for Tokubetsu-Juyo, and passed...

Very interesting indeed. The mei of the blade was presented in Honma's 1958 ed. Nihon Koto Shi when it was still on the blade, although already down at the nakago-jiri. Ito Sanpei wrote about that issue a while ago on his blog and says that back then, the owner consulted an appraiser who told him that the mei is bad and suggested that he should have it cut off. However, it seems that the owner was smart enough to keep the cut off part as it got juyo in 1974, that is as "package," i.e. as "mumei Kunimura, with zaimei nakago-jiri." Reason I know that is because someone informed me a while ago that I feature this mei twice as reference in my Koto Meikan, one time with the cut-off nakago-jiri, and one time as gakumei, not realizing that it is the very same blade, haha.

I started one a while ago in German for my own reference. I will try to take it from here and put one together in English. Might take a little.

Brian or one of the mods, please feel free to split it from somewhere around post #30 onwards

Fully agree with that. As far as as I can tell, this whole case is more like scaremongering. It seems that a few years ago, some very few fake hozon and/or tokubetsu-hozon papers popped up and someone informed the NBTHK about that. The NBTHK reacted, in my opinion, accordingly, and posted a warning in their magazine. Exact wording was: "Fake appraisals have been discovered and this does not only concern shiteisho and ninteisho but also hozon and tokubetsu-hozon papers. A reconciliation with our register might be done by phone but for an actual authentification of an appraisal, the item and the appraisal in question have to be brought in. For this, please inform in advance our management division and visit our Tokyo office." As mentioned, the warning was in accord with the scarcity of these fake papers. AFAIK, it was about one of those dubious Japanese online auctions. Thus a small but obvious warning (thick fat box around it) in their monthly magazine. So it was not like that an investigation had shown that three of five circulating papers are actually fake. If this was a large scale problem, I am sure they would have addressed it properly as a full page insert in their magazine and probably also online on their HP. In short, relative minor issue and an appropriate warning. I mean, if there is a problem with the brakes, Toyota (or any other car manufacturer) would start a huge global recall. But they would not do so if its "just" about someone selling a couple of fake Toyota. They would react just like that, i.e. add a little warning in their bulletin or hand out a brief press release. Now we can argue about the lack of communication with their non-Japanese members, that's a different issue. Than this whole issue kept floating around in some people's minds over the last couple of years and they kept approaching the NBTHK about it and blew this whole thing up: How many papers, what kind of papers, what are you going to do, how you gonna react, will you shred all papers and start once more a completely new system, won't somebody please think of the children? So they added another note in their magazine, this time saying: "If you have any doubts or if there is anything unclear about an existing appraisal (i.e. ninteisho, kanteisho, shiteisho), please call the Tokyo office so that we can check it with our register. However, for an actual authentification of an appraisal issued by our association, it is not enough to match it with our register, the appraisal in question also needs to be examined by our staff. Thus for an authentification of an appraisal, it is necessary to bring it to our Tokyo office (by prior telephone appointment)." Again, this is not a large scale issue and I haven't heard of any dealer being affected by fake papers. It is just that some of those "bargains" bought at one of those dubious Japanese auctions that might come with a fake paper are being put into the market again. I mean, I have seen anything being auctioned off there over the years, for example fake lost meibutsu or fake former daimyo collection items with fake mei and completely fake "provenance package" (i.e. fake ancient looking box and a bunch of fake ancient looking papers), fake Hon'ami origami, fake Honma and Sato sayagaki, fake everything. No wonder that there might be the one or other fake hozon or tokubetsu-hozon paper amongst them.