Hoshi

Hi Joe, Ddn't sell. The gassan however was fetched for very cheap, 6-7K if I remember.

I'd be curious what the board thinks of the Naokatsu tanto. It's late work, one year before his death - so it's mature work from the top of his career. I find the package splendid at first sight, and I've been on the prowl for a Naotane school tanto/short sword for a long time now as one of my collection goals. I find the period koshirae beautiful, and it's exceedingly rare to find a package with a historical koshirae left intact... http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24721/lot/423/ It's a little difficult to appraise the blade from the images, while the resolution is very high - the lighting is really no good to judge the nie or jigane. I'd love to hear opinions from the board on this item. Thanks in advance!

Some fantastic pieces in this one! Beautiful wild sea theme. http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24152/lot/80/ One of the prettiest tanto package I've ever seen. http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24721/lot/423/

I'd like to see the rate of conversion from Juyo to Tokuju+biju+bunka+koku of these same smiths. That would be awesome, see how the positions get shuffled.

Unless he's been hoarding extremely fine and rare yari (which he should know...) I would just go on Aoiart.net, and take the median price of say, 40 yari. I'd remove 25% from the price and multiply that by the number of pieces I own.

I didn't submit it. I don't think it will be a chance to learn anything new, as Darcy said it. The only reason would be for a potential re-sell, I suppose. But as my first love in the sword world It's not leaving my hands anytime soon Problem is that shinshinto work isn't very distinct compared to the older days. Steel production was centralized, methods of production became more homogeneous... Learning more about it would require a discussion with some foremost expert on Ishido/Naotane work. I'm sure someone like Tanobe sensei would have some interesting things to say about - but it's not the sort of sword he would agree to make a sayagaki for by my estimation. It's just too ambiguous and coated in some shady history. It would be untoward to ask.

My first Nihonto may be Unju Korekazu, or some other very good shinshinto maker. Mei has been erased at some point and a second mekugi ana has been punched to pass it off as O-suriage koto. That person also aged the nakago in some acidic solution to add to the little masquerade. http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/20477-disputed-attribution-unjuy-korekazutakei-naotane/ I love that sword despite all its trickery As you can imagine it was and is a great learning experience and this board was truly instrumental in solving the mystery. Lots of lessons learned. On a side note I'm baffled how much I learned since I first posted here, truly a wonderful community. I suppose I was fortunate in the misfortune of this sword, I would not have been able to afford such a quality blade otherwise.

I find this koshirae beautiful: https://whitelabel-2.globalauctionplatform.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/mallams-ltd-cheltenham/catalogue-id-srmall10048/lot-433baff8-4e2e-4067-bf1b-a80900a9fbe2

That is a splendid katana kake, made for 'foreigner' tastes apparently. https://www.hermann-historica.de/de/katana_kake_japan_um_1900/l/160848?aid=157&Lstatus=0&Accid=1719&_=1507597370873&currentpos=36 Not much catching my eye on the sword side. I suppose the top pieces of these collectors get skimmed off the top - but surprisingly the European arms are still very high grade.

Thanks for keeping us appraised, Stephan

Don't touch it with a ten foot pole. Look at the sales section of the forum, that's my suggestion.

As an aside, I'm in love with the Habaki.

Thank you for providing these numbers. It strikes me that there are far less TH in proportion to Hozon swords compared to what I'd intuit reading some of the posts above. Can this be right? for every Juyo blade there are only two TH ones?

Goods posts. Some very good heuristics in there. There are cases where it's plain not worth it to re-submit. Say the sword is a mumei chu-saku shinto wak - you've got no chance of moving beyond hozon. Kryptonite swords are more or less resistant to this issue just like low-grade tosogu. On top of it, nobody can have a 'confident' judgement on bottom of the pond mumei shinto wak. If the work is too low to be recognizable beyond tentative broad strokes and the polish makes for 90% of the value of the blade - getting new papers is probably not worth the hassle and the costs involved. I have a mumei sword with shitty old green papers and honami papers both throwing a wild guess to good smiths as a way to say "it's good". It's shinshinto, signature erased, nakago aged, and fake second mekugi-ana to make it look koto suriage. It will never get past hozon, and whatever the name that ends up on the paper isn't going to increase it's value. It's nice work, but from a value point of view it's tainted.

Very interesting design, thank you for sharing. Makes a lot of a sense as a side-arm to use a triangular cross-sections dirk. Is it repurposed from another weapon (yari) or is it originally designed as a tanto? Looks like the latter to me but I really wouldn't know.

Indeed Denis. I think in fact someone cleaned that very sayagaki recently. The sword has a few uchiko gung-ball scratches, so there you have it. Grey, that's a very good tip. I'll do exactly that.

Thank you. Rice glue is surprisingly easy to make from what I've gathered and it's probably the safest (wood glue would surely hold up better). I'll make a batch and apply it to the split area. With the moisture it should as well reactivate the existing glue. I don't have a regular saya for the blade so I'll just keep it well oiled in a dry place as it will take time to dry.

Hi, I have a shirasaya with a subtle sideway split along the glue line. It came as is, and I presume it was cleaned up by splitting it then re-glued poorly. The horn pieces keep it in one piece but you can still see feint openings. My question is - how bad is it? Presently I've tightened it with leather straps to keep it sealed, but you can't make a perfect seal this way - should I seek repair? If it's not too involved, could I do it myself (rice glue?). I wouldn't want moisture to get down in there and make a mess. Thank for the advice, Chris

National museum is a hit or miss. They display one or two major artifacts everyday. I was unlucky and got a scroll. There a few national treasure swords that may go on display every now and then. It's on a rotation basis. If you go you need to check what's the treasure on display that day - or adapt your schedule as to get to see one of the major swords. No idea if its listed anywhere, but you can call to make sure. The rest of the swords exposed there weren't even close to the sword museum.

Don't forget the french-speaking Swiss

The thickness of the boshi doesn't really fit with the tip being broken and reshaped, unless it's been somewhat masked by clever polish or creative oshigata...

Blown away, thank you. That was a fascinating read Lloyd, the most detailed information on iron manufacturing in Japan I've seen.

Thank you Jean for your in-depth answer. It's enlightening. But then what is your point of view on this, that the regional iron ore deposits (and their composition) has no discernible effects on the craft? Or do I read you wrong. It seems to me that the regional characteristics of iron ore deposits are often invoked as the reason why it's easier to kantei koto-period smiths compared to say, shinshinto, when iron production was centralized. As for old swords being recycled, that's an interesting point. Reforging the blade would lead to a lot of carbon loss and hence, I suppose you could use it to make core iron. I read tea kettles and old temple nails were used by some shinto smiths to make blades in the old style (I think Kotetsu did this, hence the name meaning "old iron"). Also, do you think that namban tetsu was indian wootz cakes? or something else? I suppose it would make sense given the likely maritime trajectory of the traders in that time. But do we have any hard evidence of this or is it just a conjecture based on the visual account that it looked like "iron cakes".

Indeed, always enjoyable to read your posts. Thank you for posting so often down here and sharing your experience. "By my books" referred to a search on the nihonto signature repository. Coupled with the intuition that inlaid signatures are less likely to be fake - the latter is probably not the case even, in retrospect. Back to books and grinding cash in what I'm good at. -Chris

Thank you for all the replies. Carlo, I'm hoping someone had a look, that's why I ask! It seems to me that running chemical analysis on the raw materials used by geographically-distinct schools is such a basic low-hanging fruit I can't believe it hasn't been done. Jean, the idea that bloomery process yields "pure steel" only varying in carbon content has been challenged to say the least. Bloomery steel is in fact full of impurities, the only notable difference is that the temperatures are insufficient to melt (most) of the trace elements into the iron, as steve points out. These "macro-level" impurities are beaten out but they persist. Japanese swords are full of impurities, in fact. And some smiths used these impurities to create more durable steel in the folding process. e.g. https://www.esomat.org/articles/esomat/pdf/2009/01/esomat2009_02024.pdf Density of "impurities" vary naturally from the raw material and the smith's work. Now the word impurity is perhaps not ideal in this context, because we that these impurities influence the properties of the steel. For instance while high phosphorous steel is ill-suited to make swords, traces of vanadium found in indian wootz have been shown to improve the structural properties of the steel. Modern metallurgic, especially the field of high-grade crucible steels for specialized applications relies these adjunct elements to form extremely tough steels. Now one could argue that we're confusing inclusions versus homogeneous distribution (and carbide formation) but I think it's quite clear that they both have an effect. Jussi, Having a translation of the Naruki article would be great, it looks very promising. I'm not impressed however by the "one problem three solutions Part 2" as it's really doesn't do a good job at presenting wootz. But it's understandable given that the major headway in understanding the stuff has only been done in the past few years. However the first part on on late medieval era swords was interesting - I've read also that Europeans in the late medieval era failed at forging imported wootz cake because they overheated it, leading to all sorts of superstitions about the indo-persian smiths. The vikings managed just fine, however. But I'm drifting so far off-topic...