Hoshi

Hi, I much appreciate the feedback. I am working on lightening the text, make the pictures overall more central, and make it feel much snappier and responsive. In the meantime the bug that interfered with "open a new tab via right click" has been fixed. Good catch. Best, Hoshi

Hi, Yes, there is a large update underway which calls for a change in architecture, the quick popups don't really work well for this. Transition times like these with many updates in a row can be a little turbulent, this is why I so much appreciate the quick feedback I get here when something is off. Keep it coming. Best, Hoshi

Hi, Much appreciated report, this is an oversight in a major update that made it through, half-baked. "Contact seller" is now replaced with "Visit dealer site" Question for feedback: What is missing on the NW page that is present on the dealer page, which adds to the study process? What more would you like to see? And thank you for the swift report, Hoshi

Hi, Go is first and foremost a kiwame given to particular group of traits, chief amongst them the clarity of the work. As I explained previously, deviations from these canonical traits will lead to different judgements (e.g., violently turning Kaeri will bring the work to O-Sa, etc), a more stormy character will lead to Masamune, and so on and so forth. Go is simply the pinnacle of Soshu clarity, with ichimai, some masame, etc as reinforcing concordant traits. Whether the historical person called Go made the sword is not an answerable question. However this is besides the point, the NBHTK states in its attribution that according to tradition and study of the canonical traits present in the blade, then amongst all historical person, it is most likely this specific historical person who made it. Now everyone can assign a percentage to this. There is a Juyo Sanakage that went Tokuju to Go. This is normal, judgement can shift upon further study and as new evidence emerges. It was sold on Christies shortly after. That some blades are in between, for instance - 50% Go / 50% Masamune is also possibility. This is the case with the extraordinary video of the Go shown above. This blade, in the eyes of Tanobe sensei, would have gone to Masamune was it not for the widely hardened near ichimai boshi. Kojo says Go, and hence there is no "Den" attached. The old judges are respected and on masters with no signed works, their opinions is the basis of the system for modern attribution. This is not a problem at all. One must simply accept that such Kiwame are simply the best possible opinions given the current state of knowledge. The sword in itself is magnificent, and the monouchi is simply out of this world. I call it affectionately the "8 centimeters of God" Go, and all who have seen it agree with this statement. The stormy character of the activity, with plentiful inazuma dancing in and out of the ha, are however more distinctively Masamune than Go, specifically the hatsuboku-sansui manner for which he is revered. The way the ha widens gently towards the monouchi, and the near ichimai qualities of the boshi are canonically Go traits. https://nihontowatch.com/artists/go-yoshihiro-YOS1434 One can adopt various beliefs in the matter: 1. Hon'ami Conspiracist: Go is a fabrication by the early Hon'ami masters serving Hideyoshi. No signed works exist, and the Muromachi period text as not hard evidence. They took a guy without any works left and made him famous for some occult purposes. (Imamura Chogi famously held this theory for Masamune, which nobody serious really accepts today...) 2. Uncertainty embracers: Go most probably existed, along with other famed masters without signed work lefts, but one cannot deny the existence of a certain high-class cluster of Soshu works with co-occurring traits that represent the Apex of Soshu-den. It is perfectly reasonable that Go, the historical person, produced such works. 3. Authority literalist: Attribution on top class mumei works pinpoint the historical figure with perfect accuracy. When there is a congruence between the best experts and bodies - Honma Junji, the old Hon'ami, Tanobe Sensei, and the NBHTK - then there can be no other possibility and it represents not simply the best theory, but absolute truth. And there is a vast continuum in between. One can be midway between 1 and 2, or between 2 and 3. Currently, I would rate myself at 2.3. This does not diminish the material value of the items themselves unless one collects because one insists on the "Authority literalist" stance in order to accept value. A masterpiece is a masterpiece, regardless of who made it. One must learn to separate the 'brand' from the 'work' from the 'historical person' - and while these are tightly interlinked and highly predictive of each other, the goal of study is to appreciate swords as Art Objects. I, for one, am completely comfortable when discussing my collection to state "Maybe Norishige, Maybe Go" - it's part of the beauty and mystery of the field. On collaboration And finally, a point that is often overlooked in the field, is that these smiths worked with each other. Most if not all top-grade Soshu works are collaborations. This is true for every school. Nagamitsu worked with Mitsutada and Sanenaga, they made blades together. In every prime and late period Mitsutada, there is some Nagamitsu, and probably some Sanenaga. Just as a late Nagamitsu has some Kagemitsu in them, and Kagemitsu has some Kagemasa. Awataguchi Kunoyoshi contains some Awataguchi Yoshimitsu. Masamune, Norishige and Yukimitsu made swords together, alongside Go and Sadamune, albeit later. Sword making was a collaborative enterprise. There are phases in a collector's life. Remember that the position you hold today may change in the future. Hope this helps, Best, Hoshi

I am rooting for you @lewis, this is a great adventure. This has always been the case. There is no assurance that they will read it, though, given the volume that they face. It is one of the only ways to get certain fittings unstuck from the perpetual "Horyu" state. Furthermore, when it comes to provenance information, they are unfortunately not consistent in incorporating the information, even when provided with well-respected primary source data. For high-level submissions, I can be helpful to write a short dossier on a submission, but not engage in theories outside the mainstream. Remain 100% factual, and collate only canonical or primary sources. Best, Hoshi

Truly an amazing accomplishment. Heartfelt congratulations.

Hi, I understand your constrains. I built a tool to help with these searches. Try this search: https://nihontowatch.com/?tab=available&type=katana&cert=Hozon%2CTokuHozon&period=Nanbokucho%2CMuromachi%2CKamakura&priceMax=700000&sort=price_desc These should fall within your budget, have appropriate papers, and allow you to make an inform decision on what the market can offer at this specific price point for Koto works. If you explore outside the bounds of Koto, you will have much more choices. Play around and see what you can find. I hope this helps. Hoshi

Hi, Regarding the provenance confound you mention, I think it is not so pronounced that on average, it prevents inference. When comparing Jubun to TJ, there is an average difference on many dimensions, especially condition, signature status, motohaba. A fair minority of TJ (10-20%) I would estimate as "Jubun class". This is not to say provenance plays no role, only that it is not strong enough to invalidate the approach on its basis alone. That said, it is a good addition to the limitation of the Pass Factor analysis. 6. Provenance confound: provenance can steer a blade to higher designation. It does raise the broader point of what it means to be a 'the most historically important' smiths. Is history of ownership not an intrisinsic part of this measure? We certainly cannot make the claim that we are looking purely at artistic merit in these rankings. This is part of the reason I systematically extract provenance from the data (which has another big limitation of its own: it's incredibly incomplete). I would like to understand how to both control for it, and how to make it legible to the market. Work in progress. I think this is spot on. Excess granularity is meaningless and error-inducing because of all the above-mentioned limitations. Noisy continuous measures should be normalized into distribution quintiles, for instance, and the 'score' presented with a large warning as to avoid misunderstandings. More broadly: I tend to think that works across certain schools cannot be compared: Bizen vs Soshu vs Yamashiro is apples vs orange vs milk. Who was better? Masamune, Mitsutuada, or Yoshimitsu? There is really no answer to this question. Comparison is meaningful insofar as the ideal that is driving the work is comparable. Another analysis that I find personally promising is lexical-based. Rather than relying on designations, analyze positive vs negative descriptors along the saeru/uroi axis, which is the central qualifier of artistry in the field. In the end, we will probably land on combination of equivalence classes over elite factor, provenance factor, with qualitative honors, and lexical analysis along the saeru/uroi axis. Music for the future. Hoshi

Hi Brett, This is a fascinating topic. This analysis is called "Pass factor" and was first proposed by Darcy Brockbank. You can find the original blog post here: https://web.archive.org/web/20210123052432/https://blog.yuhindo.com/pass-factor/ There are a couple of issues you will run into as you refine your analysis: 1. Small sample sizes: prevents you from drawing valid inference due to the statistical noise. 2. Unequal value of the higher designation: A Kokuho ought to be worth more than a Tokubetsu Juyo. 3. Contaminated categories: there are arguments in favor of excluding Jubi and Gyobutsu post-Nambokucho. 4. The condition confound: signed works can achieve high designation on a condition basis rather than workmanship. 5. Some elite smiths such as Tomonari or Masatsune are actually sub-schools within Ko-Bizen, but they are treated as a single individual. To solve for (1) you may try setting the different levels of thresholds on the minimum n of blades. Test 5, 10, and 20, and see how the ranking evolves. Alternatively, a more formal statistical way is to use a Bayesian Shrinkage estimate which is in my opinion the elegant path. Essentially, you have a prior that everyone is average, and the model must 'see data' in order to change its mind. To solve for (2), you can use a frequency-weighted approach (more defensible), or assign some other weights that fit your mental model of the gap between the average TJ and the average Kokuho. For (3), you can run the analysis excluding Jubi and excluding post-nambokucho Gyobutsu and see how the rankings evolve. Regarding (4), you can rerun the analysis while controlling for the ratio of zaimei to mumei works, but you enter rarified air territory. The best you can do is just accept the state of things and hope for statistical independence between the observations. Regarding (5), one just has to live with it. You can find a draft of an article on the topic here: https://nihontowatch.com/eliteranking This is what NihontoWatch uses under the hood for rankings. Here is Awataguchi Yoshimitsu: In the end, whatever method you choose, once you control for the unicorns by setting a threshold or a bayesian prior, you will converge on the traditional literature such as Toko Taikan and the list will begin to look very familiar. Personally, what I find most interesting is not where these analysis converge, but where they disagree: there are historically underrated smiths by Fujishiro and Dr. Tokuno that will "pop out" and this is what one should look for as it is the most informative. Correlation with Toko Taikan: Period-adjusted correlation with Fujishiro: Hoshi

Hi, This is the Juyo Oshigata of TJ 25. There are two Go that passed TJ on this session, only one has Ichimai. J35 does not have ichimai. Note that I do not presently count Kokuho and Jubun in the trait sums. The reason is that their descriptions are not adequate. Aside from this, the counts are exact, following the verbatim statements on the setsumei. Only Juyo, TJ, and Jubi have detailed and standardized descriptions of the traits. Regarding Nanki Shigekuni, I would not discount survivorship bias here: the one with ichimai are most likely to have been used for shenanigans. It's a grey area, in the end we do not know. I would not use the presence of an ichimai boshi as the strongest securing factor over the attribution. Rather, I would consider carefully the jihada and the hamon and look for an ancient atmosphere. Some expressions were simply never attained during Shinto times. Another such tell is the way the deep nie diffuses within the ha: if it forms a deep nie gradient, the shinto grandmasters could achieve this (Kotetsu, Nanki...) - on the otherhand, if nie is present all the way into the ha, without a clear diffusing gradient, appearing like snow all the way to the border, it is assuredly Koto. If there are inazuma and kinsuji forming cloud-like swirls, within the deep nie of the ha, then you double-assured. There are multiple factors to consider: one must integrate deki, provenance, and old and modern appraisals. Best, Hoshi

Hello, I am enjoying these discussions lately on high-quality blades, happy to chime in. I am in the process of building an empirical kantei trait library. What this means is that I am extracting the traits of a given artist not from the books as has been done so far in history, but from synthesis of the entire corpus of a smith's published works by the NBTHK and the Bunkasho. This reveals new data that the books, which are focused almost exclusively on the archetypes, miss. Note that this is an early stage project, and there can (and will be) mistakes. The count for Go ichimai boshi I have is 8, with ko-maru, hakikkake and midare-komi as being about just as common. https://nihontowatch.com/artists/go-yoshihiro-YOS1434 The most discriminating factor for an attribution to Go is the clarity of the work: the unrivaled luminous ha and clear jihada. It is, in a sense, an attribution based on grade of Soshu-den brightness. Ichimai boshi will certainly strongly pull it further to Go, but it is not a requisite as we see in the data. I would not read too deeply into the attributions to Go, in the sense that "This specific historical person made it" - and while it is certainly the best bet, if one had to bet on a specific person at all - it is best considered to be a qualitative judgement on a certain group of traits that tend to co-occur and set the work apart from the other Soshu Joko. A sharp turning and extended kaeri would move the attribution to Sa (also known for his remarkable brightness), a more stormy character with larger-dimensioned angular chickei to Masamune, a lower degree of brightness combined with more extreme activity in the ha to the finer and rarer ko-itame style of Norishige, and a calmer overall feeling to Sadamune. Such is the nature of attribution on mumei blades when the signed corpus is almost absent. However, I would be cautious with blades attributed to Go, as he was a frequent target of emulation during later periods (such as Nanki Shigekuni). For this reason, I would consider carefully blades that are not accompanied with a strong historical backing such as a Ko-Origami, or a record of gift-giving. I will say that in the blades attributed to Go that I have had the chance to handle or acquire, there has been so much variation in the execution of the jihada in particular, that I find it difficult to discern a single hand. It is important to understand that this acknowledgement of uncertainty does nothing to diminish the artistic appeal of the blades in practice. Clarity ("saeru") is one of the cardinal hallmark traits of high artistry in Nihonto, and blades attributed to Go exemplify this very characteristics. One must just accept the uncertainty, and appreciate the object for its intrinsic qualities. Best, Hoshi

Wonderful article, thank you sharing.

Hello, The Count is the model collector archetype, and amongst the ones I most admire. He lovingly invested into every single of his blades to leave them in a better, more complete state than when he bought them. Polish, Koshirae, habaki, name tags, tsunagi - he had an entire system, and these artifacts are precious today and add value to the whole. Here is one of his swords that just came out today, with wonderfully and tastefully created koshirae. https://nihontowatch.com/s/493024?v=1781928271 Best, Hoshi

This is now fixed, thanks again for the report.

Dear @PNSSHOGUN, Oh my. Thank you for letting me know, this is clearly a bug. I will investigate. Best, Hoshi