Hoshi

This isn't a tanto. This is a broken shinto wak/kanata which is being repurposed into a 'tanto' to salvage money. Most likely because the original blade has a hagire or a similar fatal problem.

Interesting. I wasn't aware of stamped manufacture in this domain. With the malleability of copper under pressure, it makes a lot of economic sense and must have been a very cost-effective manufacturing process.

Remember that Japanese culture is extremely polite. Horyu is a gentle way to say it won't pass because something doesn't match. Translated into american English, I fear it means something much more dire than 'try again next session'. It's not going to change if you resubmit I'm afraid unless it's an extremely borderline case and some new scholarly data comes up. If you remove the signature it will come back as something else if the signature didn't match the deki. In case the signature itself is deemed bad, it may come back as a mumei piece of that same smith. Tanobe sensei would be the person to tell you more about it and if it's the later case you need to be very mindful before engaging in signature removal.

It's a little bit apples and orange. Very different swords which capture different periods and makers. The Sue-Sa with the gimei gakumei has been making the rounds for a while now. It sits in a weird spot of 'almost juyo' and good for Sue Sa. But Sue-Sa is a bit of a cryptic attribution because it can mean anything from direct student to fully diluted end of line. I think here it's quite clear it's late Nambokucho, perhaps bleeding somewhat in Muromachi, worst case. It was tried on auction last year to test the water, but the reserve was too high and it didn't sell, without papers to try and get some gamblers on board. Good one to haggle on as its been sitting in inventory for far too long and after a while people start to get suspicious. The Yamato Shizu is Yamato sword. Personally I really like the Koshirae, to the point where it makes me like the sword perhaps more than I would otherwise. That said, Juyo 19th is a weak session, where borderline things which wouldn't pass today could pass back then. I don't know enough about Yamato Shizu to say if it applies here. But It's not Naoe Shizu either, which at Juyo 19 I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. It's one of those cases where it can be an interesting deal but because of Session 19 you need to study very carefully the other Juyo Yamato Shizu to see where this one is situated. The Ichimonji has great activity, shusho, period koshirae etc. It's a great package. The only thing that kills me is that its on the short end but it was so strong on other aspects that it passed Session 61, which is a good session and this tells you something important. At the end all of this is priced in. You can be sure that if it was ten cm more it would close to double the price. It's also fresh on the market which is desirable.

4

You're a hard one to please. There are no Koshirae by Shibata Zenshin, as far as I know. For me these qualify as great at their respective levels. I'd be curious what qualifies for you? if we set the bar to a full set produced by Goto Ichijo well, I know of one Masamune paired with an Ichijo Koshirae and that's about it. Or maybe this one will do it, another fantastic koshirae paired with a Kencho: http://tetsugendo.com/swords/C_115_Kanenaga_Katsuhira.html A high level koshirae that survived through late Edo with its paired sword is exceedingly rare. There are ten times less Juyo-level Koshirae than there are swords. Now if take the intersection you're left with basically nothing, and when you do find a pair that has survived the impetus of profit seeking then you know you are left with something truly rare and precious. Goto, Omori, Ishiguro, Mito... It doesn't need to be Goto Ichijo or Kano Natsuo to qualify as great to my eyes. And I thought I had posh tastes...

Wonderful tanto indeed. For ambient light photo it's a nice photo! What I really like is that everything about these photos tells me this tanto is deeply cared for. Here is my tip: to make photos of the Jigane or the Hamon you need directed light sources and a relatively dark room. Beam the light directly on the blade and take a picture at an angle. Using multiple directed lights will make for even better results.

Kirill, I'd like to offer an alternative perspective. I think that this evidence doesn't tell us much about how 'packages' were construed during the late Edo period. One could as well argue that the evidence you present is just more of the same thing that we see with modern dealers: separation due to the need to generate maximum cash from a sale. I don't think the term package is very good either, because it refers more to the process of a sale than the valuation by an individual during the period. Now let's look at it from the start of a koshirae's existence rather than the sales ending. A great koshirae was ordered to complement great blade. While this isn't a rule, there is a correlation between these things. The more the blade was valued, the higher the owner was willing to pay to make a koshirae to complement it. This reveals that these two things weren't boxed in different mental containers of appreciation, but designed to be valued as a pair. Now I think we would probably be wise to restrict the the argument to late Edo. Mid-Edo and Late-Edo have drastically different forms of Koshirae. The former focuses on court decorum and has very rigid and standardized norms of Koshirae, while during the late edo we have an explosion of creativity and styles begin to appear which break completely with convention. One could argue that the late edo period is really the time of 'complementary' Koshiraes because the artists had much more freedom around thematic expressions.

If anything Japanese dealers should be even more sensitive to it because the market they operate it in is more efficient (more competition, turnover, etc). After all, 10% can make the difference between turning a profit or a loss and getting overrun by competitor next door. However, for the reason you stated good packages come from Japan. Once and a while Darcy will dig one up and I will marvel at it until it gets sold. For instance these are absolutely top level packages. Kuniyoshi's Koshirae in particular is prime material for tosogu boxing and its a miracle it survived. If you let these things float in Japan, every time it gets into a dealer's hand you roll a dice to see if it ends up boxed or sold separately: https://yuhindo.com/kagemitsu-daisho/, https://yuhindo.com/awataguchi-kuniyoshi/ While these aren't top level makers of tosogu like the above examples, they are very aesthetically pleasing to me as the style just compliments the blade beautifully: https://yuhindo.com/ochiba-sanekage/, https://yuhindo.com/aoe-tsugunao/ More than the sum of their parts.

My suggestion is for you to get in contact with Darcy, he has access to a lot of stuff which isn't currently on his website. Many of his things sell before he gets the public listing up.

I tend to have a different approach. I highly value a good period koshirae which was designed for the blade. In fact, I'm somewhat of a collector of both. I strongly believe that having such a 'package' contains more value than the sum of its parts. I'm especially fond of Meiji and pre-Meiji koshirae and tosogu, with the great variety in style and creative blossoming you find in later Goto or Yoshioka work. One could call it arbitraging on dealer's remorse. BC = blade collector TC = tosogu collector s**t Koshirae + good blade = BC$ Good Koshirae + s**t blade = TC$ Boxed Tosogu + Blade = BC$+TC$ The problem is: Good Koshirae + Good blade =/= BC$+TC$. This is a bad deal so these get broken down. This is where I come in and do Good Koshirae + Good blade = (BC$+TC$)*(1-arbitrage) arbitrage=the value I need to find so that the dealers sells me the package. if it's 0, I pay full BC+TC. Anywhere > 0 represents an opportunity. Say .1 or .2 is good. Of course I still pay rent like everyone else in the end, because the arbitrage is not going to exceed the dealer margin because otherwise he would have broken it down himself already. The key is to find the dealers with high 'remorse' e.g. those that have a higher threshold of lost profit before they destroy or separate Koshirae. This is step 1 to offset rent. Step two involves a long bet that somewhere in the future, these original koshirae with blades will be valued more highly, since the great majority of them will have been completely destroyed and tosogu boxed.

Confession: I discovered thanks to Darcy that what I always thought was Utsuri was, in fact, the darker antei part. 'shadow of the hamon' is a very bad way to describe Utsuri because it makes one think it has to be the dark part. In fact, 'reflection of the hamon' is the better descriptor to avoid misleading guys like me. This means that what I said above applies to the 'antei' not the Utsuri. The antei is the area of transitional hardness.

What surprises me is the primitive nature of the procedure, there is a niche here for a business. Business model idea: Koshirae bottom-feeding company that provides sword outfitting services to dealer for cheap. Buy by the Kilo, sell a service with a margin. For instance, AOI loses money (via labor costs) by playing musical chairs with Koshirae and sometimes have to delay listings because they don't have an immediate fit. Some of their swords end up with none at all, which isn't good for business. Finally they end up with piles of Koshirae which takes up inventory space and thus costs rent, and lately they've been giving up on some swords and had Saya's custom made. And while they do go with the cheap guys it eats into their margins. This could be made more efficient by centralizing the harvesting and re-outfitting process: appraiser for tsuba and menuki auto-swaps, automated Koshirae fit prediction by renting an X-ray scanner, in-house artisan to make 'quick fixes' and tier-based services to dealers, etc.

https://yuhindo.com/osafune-kagemitsu-tachi/ I tried to preface this post with a description, but words just don't fit to describe this beauty. The interplay between hamon, antei and utsuri must be the work of Gods if there are any... Truly a sacred object, and one that hovers close to the Apex of Nihonto...

As Ray said. I will add that Kencho is vastly underrated in Fujishiro, at Jo-Saku. When counting his Juyo/Tokuju blades, he's at JoJo if not midway to Sai-jo. He is considered superior in skill to Chogi with regards to some of the hamon complexities he could produce, but is priced about halfway to his master.

I recall we discussed this particular sword, which is no doubt top end for Naotane. It appeared on AOI soon after the TJ results in which a naotane sword passed, joining the very elite club along Kyomaro. It's quite clearly an attempts to test the market given the TJ results with a new, much higher price point for a good sword by Naotane. For that price, we're into high tier Koto territory.

Thank you Jussi, interesting numbers. It's really too bad we don't have these going back longer in time. It's hard to make out trends glancing over at raw data but I see a strange slump in submissions between session 56 and 61. It's not a once-shot anomaly, but something which stands out as a multi-year dip and I wonder what caused it. No other trend jumps out of the picture to me. This is something which would be worth producing a proper chat for, provided the numbers all the way down to Juyo 1 are obtainable.

From what I've gathered in my studies, Utsuri denotes a particular steel structure of intermediate hardness between the brittle edge and the soft interior and back. I do faintly recall it entailed a second, softer quench, which also had the effect of stress relief.I can't recall the specifics but it was clearly a functional innovation. I'm sure someone here can say more about the technical details. Bizen steel is reputed to be quite soft, I do remember polisher testimonies which state that utsuri areas are of 'intermediate hardness' and I think this fits well with the idea that to maximize structural soundness you want graduated transition between brittle and soft, and I think this was the function of Utsuri. Now, it could be specific to Bizen, not in the sense of the innovation per se but in the sense of its necessity given the raw materials that this school had to work with. Perhaps the unhardened part of the Bizen steel was so soft that this led to too much bending - so rather than to change the procurement of raw materials, they implemented a second hardening stage to palliate for the deficiency of their ore and this led to Utsuri.

Very interesting. Do you have a source for this? This is fascinating but I suspect it's exaggerated and that the data, if any, is very weak, but I may be wrong. However, Diet + Genes = Height is a proven scientific fact. Nambokucho swords are heavier, larger, longer, and all together require a more muscular frame to use effectively. If the Samourai class and in particular the Tokugawa were short during Edo times, it makes sense to 'regulate' the size of sword to prevent their opponents from having a reach advantage, at least psychologically. Reach is a monumental factor in battle, and perhaps the single most important one when it comes to single combat.

I don't understand the appeal of these sorts of tsubas very well. These strike me as unoriginal productions from a popular template. 1. It's a copy from an original design. There are a lot of them. 2. the original design is excellent and the inventor deserves high praise. If the copy was in a way better executed than the original, I would understand the appeal. But I looked up the original maker and his work in this design is superior. What am I missing?

Very interesting conversation, thank you. It's been a long plan of mine to create a quality piece of furniture to exhibit bare blades. My initial plan was to keep blades and fittings in different environments, because they have different needs in terms of humidity. I never reflected on residual micro-pollution from air quality and fine dust, however. This is new to me.

Agreed Michael. This is a classic fail in fraud: deep, clean chiseling of a new mei. The result is that the mei is too deep and crisp and doesn't fit with the overall condition of the Nakago. It ends up 'standing out' on its own and just giving away the gimei without need for further study. This is one of the most difficult part of making a good Koto gimei. Other than that there are clear call backs to the school in shape and hamon. It's just sleepy activity-wise...

Why would someone offer a Muramasa: 1) On a site with low reputation consequences for defrauding someone else 2) While losing tons of money because it has no NBTHK paper 3) When living in Japan with access to the top appraisers just next door Either: 1) The seller is a fool 2) The seller is very pro-social, and has a strong desire to give money to others anonymously on internet 3) ...?

Completely agree Michael. The auction house business model and it's absurd value erosion isn't attractive anymore with the advent of the internet. For example, big name Gimei at the Bonham: https://imgur.com/a/knqYfds

By price-testing I mean they set a reserve price which is too high to mitigate the risk that it may sell for less than desired. Usually these are close to dealer prices, and if you add the auction house commission then it ends up being a terrible deal indeed. There are many reasons to try this and very few of them are legit. A blade is too toxic (has been around for too long and isn't selling, people get suspicious) and a sale needs to be attempted outside the usual channel because all the usual suspects know it's bad. You can try to get gamblers in: don't send the papers, just Honami old paper, set big price, hope for gamblers to bite. If you have a Honami Shizu Kaneuji attribution and NBTHK says it's Naoe Shizu you're far better off withholding the papers and getting gamblers on board. In auctions, people pay a premium for lottery tickets. You're boneheaded and keep thinking you can get more for your blade than what the guys in the business suggest you sell it at so you parade it around aimlessly.