Hoshi

This sort of conversation cannot work without specifying which bracket the advice applies to. One who is fishing on Ebay for nice waks cheaply priced cannot possibly benefit from the same advice as someone hunting in the treacherous mid-range. There is something for everyone in this hobby, and I think its important to qualify where the advice applies otherwise the message is inevitably elitist. Someone can do well in the Ebay hunt, and more power to that person.

For Shinto, blades which are Machi-Okuri cannot pass Juyo (there are certainly some exceedingly rare exceptions to the rule, though). Expect a big chunk of the price being deducted for such a blade. So if it screams "good deal" the Machi-Okuri, however small, is certainly to credit. While I'm sure it wouldn't bother most of us overly, it is however a substantial issue in terms of collectibility for Shinto collectors in Japan. Pristine condition is so important for later periods. It's the first priority. Unadulterated shape. Original Nakago, crisp and legible signature, good patina, these all play a preponderant role in Shinto which certainly eludes most of us and our collecting instincts. The wholesomeness of the form expressed through the pure intention of the smith is paramount in Shinto. Another way to put it is, where the beginner western Shinto collector sees "cheap" the old, hardened Japanese collector sees "ruined". At the end of the day, if its a major smith, and it's machi-okuri, then it's certainly a chance to get a major "discount" and hopefully sell close to the purchase price in the west because it screams bargain and some other western collector will want it, not understanding the gravity that Machi Okuri represents in Japan in terms of collectibility. One just needs to understand what you're getting into. It's treacherous territory. If it's not a major smith, and its Shinto Machi-Okuri, and more than a few hundred bucks I would run away. Keep your money to fight another day. As to why this is? I have a few ideas: It could be that because Shinto work lacks the luster of old koto masterworks, or its intense hataraki, that one needs to look and appreciate other parts of it, such as a fine cursive signature, and revel at the sight of rare type which flows effortlessly on the Nakago. It could also be that there is a natural filter. Collectors who don't mind dinged and beaten pieces will live just happily with Koto works. Those that require emergency aneurysm surgery in response to a mm thin kitae ware on the Shinogi of a great koto masterwork will find refuge in the perfection of Shinto. And finally there are so many shinto blades floating about that one needs a simple algorithm to sort them into the desirability ladder. Wholeness of the form is a simple criteria which filters what goes, and what falls off the ladder.

Look I got a deal for you. First of all it's a worthless blade. It's BAD. No bueno. I can smell the hagire. I mean - not a small hagire, but like, five, or ten? Maybe more Hagire. Ask Jean, he's had five hagire, blade just like yours. You see, it's not worth it. Second you can't push the dosh in. It's like setting your cash on fire. So I'm going to help ya out, okay? I help strangers like that, you know. I like to put my money on fire. I'm like that. I know a polisher in Japan, he's a top guy. I mean really TOP. Big name. He does BIG polishes for BIG people. He's from the Honami clan, he's the real deal. Now, I got a slot with him, you see. One rare slot. It's ten years wait, at least. And you need to know people. I'll put your blade through my slot. I could sell that slot you see, everyone wants a blade polished by HONAMI. So what I'm sayin' is that I'm making you a BIG favor. Now, if the polisher says it's good, you don't need to repay me for the slot okay? I keep the blade, you get the slot for free. Like a favor. If the blade is bad, you cover my costs, that's all, few hundreds, its CHEAP. You see, you only win. You like to win. I can see it. PS: Jokes aside, shape is promising. It's a good lottery ticket you have here. Go with Paul and get some opinions, and in the end you might want to give it a scratch.

Don't touch it with a ten foot pole. Mumei shinto waks can be bought by the kilo in Japan. Koshirae is an absolute gaudy mess. It is not a desirable set, even for a couple hundred dollars. You are better off putting these dollars in the pot and waiting for an opportunity to buy a solid piece on the forum here. For shinto and later, you want UBU (not shortened), signed, papered, and polished. And avoid Waks. Waks no bueno. Waks are a minefield. Go for Katana. In your range a good place to start is http://swordsofjapan.com/ - Ray here will help you find something within your budget which is collectible. Here is a great site to look at what sits at the top and learn: https://yuhindo.com/

I've gone through many Muramasa and I do find this distinctive hamon pattern especially in Ko-Wakizashi. I wish it had its own name. A pattern of three spikes repeating at an interval. "Gunome connected by notare" just doesn't capture it. I do agree that the most characteristic would have more angular elements in place of the spikes, which we are so accustomed to in Muramasa's work. Good exercise!

I like how we're all trained to say "Kanbun Shinto" as reflex number 1. And reflex number two is some variation of Mino. And understandably these are the most common ones to go around here and just looking at the base rate it gives us the best odds provided shape matches more or less. With the information available, the correct kantei here would be something which matches as close as possible the shape and hamon pattern - possibly later gen Kanemoto when the Sanbonsugi becomes so regular it's almost mechanical. Sukesada later gen could also work. The issue which really makes it tricky is that the hamon here doesn't represent the essence of any one maker. It has a regular Sanbonsugi portion and a suguha portion...what a curveball. So funnily enough I don't think Kanbun Shinto Mino would have been so far off the mark in terms of kantei. Wisdom of the crowd...

Koto nanbokucho generally have thin kasane, and a shinogi line which is placed higher towards the mune to lighten the weight by affecting the thickness of the cross-section, on these types of blade profiles with O-Kissaki. Here it is both wide, thick and O-Kissaki with a shinogi line which is closer to the middle section of the blade than the mune. This makes for a very hefty blade. The metal tends towards Muji-hada (although beware, could be the polish). It's machi-okuri and probably suriage, but again, beware the hadori work and the photos. Taken together this indicates shinshinto to me.

Looks like a shinshinto piece trying hard to look Nanbokucho koto. The steel, the thick kazane, shinogi placement, supreme health, and shape of the hamon and the relative lack of typical koto features indicates as much to me. Probably the goal was to make it appear like a Nanbokucho Aoe blade, or Soden-Bizen Motoshige, or perhaps Sue-Sa (Sa Sadayoshi?)

Last time I checked there was so many gimei/YJP! "treasures" floating about and being presented as legitimate that I just put it in the scam category of my mental repertoire. I mean look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qni28kP0dFo&list=PL9hcecXUdJrp396fVDoyOJsBQHmBjFJ_9&index=5 It's not even a decent fake. What a shame to put it up there without a disclaimer. Now to learn that they threatened lawsuit over copy-writing "Nihonto" just tells you all you need to know: stay away and give no credence to these people.

This doesn't compute. If a sword has juyo papers then the estimate is going to be higher, and the auction house will make more money. Pride or no pride there is no reason not to list those, except for ignorance. The "Kanemitsu" doesn't even have a legit Sayagaki. On top of it the auction house is covering its back with "either kamakura or nanbokucho" which is a weasel way to say that they don't trust the nanbokucho attribution.

Beautiful illustration that what we consider in the west as rare treasures, are in the east in such surplus they make for good kitchen decorative tiles.

The healthy thing to do is to prune one's collection to move up, and get better pieces with the money that is liberated. It just doesn't make sense to me to accumulate 100 Shoami ironwork, when for the same amount invested one could have a representative collection of tosogu, For example: One great and tasteful Higo piece One great old and dignified classic Goto One great piece of later machibori The later is the more desirable collection, and sits about at the same level financially, and is more likely to accrue value over time. It also goes to show the great currents of Japanese aestethics, from the austere inspired by bouddhism, to the formal and noble Goto, to the later lavish works and creative explosion heralded by Somin, etc. If one really wants to buy old iron, then rather than going through the various online sites and paying the foreigner tax, the better path is to go to Japan and arrange purchases by the kilo. These things aren't rare, even if we have the illusion that they are here in the west. I mean they're used as paper-weights... I like the idea of pieces having a story, having been cherished by a family, and so on. This is important to me also, and it isn't uncommon for a Goto set to say, come with a honami origami estimating its value, adding provenance to the piece, and squaring it as a desirable piece of art back then just as it is now. Continuity of desirability is important, and shows that there remain universals in taste and appreciation of fine artistry and craftsmanship. We should aspire to be continuity of this tradition of appreciation. It's a hobby with eight hundred years of collectors behind us. That counts.

I don't know if there are hidden quotas behind the Tokuju Shinsa. But I don't think it's a stretch of the imagination to claim that they include a slot or two for what we consider "head scratchers" - e.g. this Naminohira, Shikkake Nagatina, etc. So they just pick the best of the minor schools and pass them. Probably, these item compete within the pool of minor school items, aside from Bizen, Soshu, and Yamashiro. This is why we six ko-mihara blades passed through the history of tokuju, and why we don't have six more Fukuoka Ichimonji in their place. What's also striking to me is the number of Soden-Bizen items passing. And the excellence bracket for Soden-Bizen is getting stretched to include one more Yoshikage. Kencho is having a showing as well and has been on the rise for a while, with two passing - same number as Chogi and Kanemitsu.

My pleasure! This is over and can be moved to the sold section.

Removing scratches isn't as easy at it may seem. Indeed, no such thing as a "touch-up polish" which is a notion that comes straight from AOI's amateur stone job, it's a term that gives a lot of false impressions. Removing scratches requires equalizing the surface with a coarser stone and move all the way to the gentle ones from there and that's a time consuming process. Now, the harsh truth is that the new finish is unlikely to match the old polish, which means one should redo the finish on the old polish to avoid a glaring difference in style, which is a full process of shiage again. At the end of the day, removing scratches in a professional way is going to end up very close to the work of a full finish. The complexity of the process just isn't captured with the "touch-up polish" concept, which just should get expelled from our collective vocabulary as it implies it's easy, fast and cheap. We need to be a little stoic here and accept to live with scratches if the polish is good otherwise, it's a reminder of mishandling in the past and present.

Run away!! Bad gimei with dremel horimono. Get your money back if you can...

Shibata Ka!

PMs closed. On hold.

Would a mumei AOE blade with fatal flaws, be worth the cost of its polish even if it returned as Hozon? You need an extremely skilled polisher to navigate such wreck to begin with, and this will run you 4000$ or about, and a year or more of waiting. If it was a unicorn smith, signed work, e.g. a completely wrecked Daijimbo with chips all over the ha and and a hamon running off, then why not. It would still constitute a highly valuable reference material in spite of its fatally compromised condition.

Well done Chris.

It's Oei Den Naotsuna, which means second or third generation. So that's two more notches down. The Sayagaki is fake, that seller only sells fakes. You can't generalized your experience on Sayagaki by sampling from Yahoo JP. That "Hasebe" you mention must have came up in the fakery mill as "MASTER WORK HEIRLOOM OF HIROMITSU" and Hasebe would be indeed, one notch down. The fact that it comes down as Mumei Sue-Soshu is basically third-rate and, I dare say, a disaster. Now you can say the system is rotten and your blade is really a Hasebe, and here are all the anecdotes which constitutes proof, or roll the dice with NTHK, NTHK-NPO, FUJISHIRO, and basically "p-hack it" as much as you can, to use the academic expression, until the desired result comes out. But I don't think that's a very wise path to thread, but the results are interesting nonetheless. The seller that sold the "Masamune" and fakes Sayagaki also makes acid polish on all his blades. And that's something one needs to live with. Extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence. I would like to see a few of of those "one notch down" blades you found in Green Papers. It's a very dangerous notion to be promulgating here and the sort of claims which generally serves only the self-interest of sellers of green-papered blades. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. It may be the case you really found some "one notch down" pieces at a fraction of their worth, but that's risky business and not something we should be clamoring in case beginners read it the wrong way without the proper caveats. I'm not sure I'm understanding this correctly. Do you imply here that Juyo Judgements, from the weaker sessions (~19-24), are less reliable than Sato's Sayagaki, which are less reliable than ...Green papers? That's the world upside-down. I mean this with the most respect, and I am a big fan of your books on Eastern Weapons. But some of the assertions you provide here, with the authority you carry from a different field, can lead to substantial confusion among less advanced students, and big mistakes down the road.

I’m closing PMs for this on Monday 18. Thank you for your interest, I'm humbled.

Attribution is the foremost statement of quality. A low quality iron Tsuba won't come back as Hozon Nobuie, nor will a poor sword return as Hozon Bizen Yoshifusa. In some cases there is substantial uncertainty and there are many good ideas on who could have made it, and then it's even more closely interlocked with a quality assessment. What is true is that judgements at Hozon level are more likely to be conservative and broad and map on quality buckets, and its an invitation for further study. So here is another variant of the maxim: Buy (and understand...) the quality assessment, not the paper

Also a good idea Alex. I just want to avoid any frustrations by mentioning that this is not "first come, first served" basis. I'll pick the next caretaker myself from the PMs I get over the next few days.

The time has come to move on. This is the sword described, photographed, and analyzed in this thread: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/20477-disputed-attribution-unjuy-korekazutakei-naotane/ I think the pictures will speak for themselves. It's later work which was tampered with to pass as a Koto sword. A second mekugi-ana was added, and the nakago was artificially aged. As such, it isn't anywhere near the value of a signed blade by a top smith. This means it's also an opportunity to own a high-quality blade at a fraction of the price. As you'd expect its absolutely flawless, it has an aggressive geometry, an impressive ~75cm cutting edge, a thick kasane, and a heavy duty feel to it. It was not made for show, but to fight. The hada is very fine ko-itame and there is a conspicuous kinsuji bolting through the hamon. The polish is in very good condition, except for a few subtle scratches in the upper portion of the blade, which I inherited from its previous owner. I had the original copper habaki repaired, restored and richly gold plated, which is now extremely tight and I believe will need some small file work to adjust. There are a few fine vertical scratches on the 24K gold plating (my fault) but it's good work which has been carried by one of Ford's apprentice. The Shirasaya likewise will need to be adjusted for its restored habaki. I had a koshirae made for it - a foolish labor of love as many of you know - and bought tosogu in a matching Gempei war theme to fit its martial nature. I will be keeping the Gempei war tsuba (it is part of a daisho set) which means that the open-work tsuba pictured in the thread above comes with it, and it will need to be fitted with Sekigane to be tight. I also had custom gold-plate seppas made for this set. The Koshirae is a fixer-upper - I paid 1000$ to have it made in Japan. And you get what you pay for, as such - it can only be described as low quality. However, with a bit of adjusting work it can become a tight, fully functional koshirae. The Koshirae is outfitted with ~1800$ of Tosogu, purchased from AOI art, all papered with desirable attributions to schools such as Kaga-Kinko or Goto. I paid 5500$ for the sword and it was acquired in the dealer auction for 5000$ by a merchant named Hataya. I paid 2800$ for the koshirae and an additional 400$ for restoration work. There is a total of 8700$ invested into this sword. I got rid of the green papers after reading all the bad that came from them to our community, so this is really a case of buy the sword, not the paper. We will never know who made it. Could be Naotane, could be Korekazu, could be Naokatsu, could be later, maybe Shigetsugu, and the list goes on. It's the sort of eternal ambiguity that its next custodian will need to live with, but this is what got me so deeply into learning and study in the first place. I want to give this to someone out there who can't afford a signed sword the chance to own something which is quality and will spark endless curiosity and assiduity in study. I'm going to put it up the whole package up for half-price. Flip side is that I won't sell it to just anyone, I'd like to see some history of contribution, genuine curiosity or a sincere motivated pitch in PM. Sword + Koshirae (50% discount)