Jussi Ekholm

You have done good research. 😊 To be honest I was pretty much clueless about this smith Awataguchi Yoshimasa, however if he potentially is 1st Kagenaga then it changes things a bit. I think also for Inaba Kagenaga even the experts have hard time deciding on generations. And the works I have recorded in references go from late Kamakura to early Muromachi. Unfortunately the only work I have seen in person is the 1402 dated tachi of Yasukuni jinja. Japanese scholars of course have the real life knowledge of actually seeing and handling these swords. While I've seen them in museums only and in limited amounts. And of course all my references are written by Japanese scholars. Unfortunately my data is purely collected and not actual knowledge. Perhaps the scholars also sometimes want to throw curveballs, so they put it to an obscure smith instead of a well known one.

Both points are of course very valid Michael. Still I think some of the old swords in Japan have been preserved extremely well even though they are very old. So in those cases I assume they are as close to original as is possible for example for the 700 year history of the sword. I am mostly referring to ubu or nearly ubu swords here, that are in prestigeous Japanese collections. Even though not my personal preference I cannot deny that for example Tsuda Sukehiro and Taikei Naotane make very fine swords. In quality I would say these swords would be much better than some old less refined things I personally like the most. I feel Shintō smiths seem to be belittled too often. It is of course bit offtopic but as I read the OP I felt I knew what was meant that Shintō is not appreciated that much. One important factor also is that swordsmiths could produce swords of varying size and shape. While most Japanese swords are very similarily sized throughout the history, you can still find variance even within the works of a single smith.

I think one thing would be to slice up the Kotō and Shintō to many smaller pieces. For example even just early Kamakura stereotype will be different to late Kamakura stereotype. Likewise early stuff from Genwa/Kanei will be different from Kanbun and then 1700's stuff will vary from that. In general I think one key thing is consistency. I think very good Shintō smiths made very good swords consistently. For someone liking old stuff it might sound sacrilegious to say that from some top old smiths you'll see even works that might not be (or might not even originally been) that good. Now I am not really one to judge quality as that is not my thing in collecting. Those above are just my thoughts that I've seen as I've visited many museums and shrines to see their swords.

You have a nice sword(s), congratulations. Now this following might sound elitist but that is not my intention at all. Just when doing research and studying items I think the ideally reference works used should be zaimei works. If using mumei works as a reference (even historically attributed and important works) there is always room for opinions and errors. Enju school has relatively many signed works by various smiths, I just checked and I should have c. 100 signed swords by them in my references. Some Enju school works are very high quality. Earlier this week I was lucky to see very good tachi by Enju Kuninobu, the Jūyō Bunkazai of Mitsui Museum. Awataguchi Yoshimasa on the other hand is compeletely different case. Seems like I have 0 swords by him among all of my references. If someone can point me to a sword by him I would be happy. That also brings us to the second thing, how can workmanship and features of the smith be evaluated when there are no, or extremely few signed swords left?

Your sword is signed 豊後住藤原輝行 - Bungo jū Fujiwara Teruyuki. I believe few generations of Bungo Teruyuki worked from c. 1650 to 1750.

I believe the signature would be 相州住神氣 - Sōshū jū Shinki. As I stated in other thread I don't unfortunately have access to my references for a long time and I think I have never heard about this smith from memory. Regardless the sword seems to be an interesting one at least to me, and will warrant more research.

Unfortunately I am away from all my references for a month. I might dare to guess it could be. 大和守氏命作 - Ujinaga. Unfortunately I couldn't find any reference examples to this particular Ujinaga smith online. But sometimes Uji 氏 & Naga 命 might look bit similar in execution to kanji on this sword when done by various smiths. Of course it is very difficult one as there are only specific amount of Yamato no Kami smiths.

I wouldn't think there is specific mm or percentage that would make the classification. If you can see a noticeable difference with eye I would say it is a high shinogi. The very thick kasane measurements are not too often seen in normal sized Kotō blades but with very large ōdachi or naginata in original form the kasane can be large. And massive kasane for some that I personally see as unusable sized.

There are guys in the forum that are very good in finer details on the blade. The Sue-Seki and late Muromachi to Early Edo could be a reasonable guess.

I think it is legitimate sword, just the condition seems rough even for me (and I can close my eyes on lot of stuff). I feel NBTHK sees this as Early - Middle Kamakura tachi. The NBTHK expert panel seems to have put Ko-Aoe as the attribution for this one. Unfortunately this Yahoo JP dealer always has small sized pictures. Would have been nice to see high quality pictures at the end of the nakago where there might be remnants of signature. This sword has also appeared at Yahoo JP in late 2022 (as I do backups on my files I could check it). Here is for comparison what I personally see as quite nice Ko-Aoe attributed mumei tachi: https://web.archive.org/web/20240921040517/https://www.samurai-nippon.net/SHOP/P-452.html Of course the price will be very different on the one for Yahoo JP one but I felt the nice one was also surprisingly "affordable". The term used in "" as the sword was still fairly expensive but I feel it was well priced for what it was and sold quite fast in 2024.

There is a huge variation between the "quality ladder" of the two attributions Hasebe is often seen as high level attribution while Esshū Mitsuyuki is very low tier Nanbokuchō attribution. I know they do need to attribute the sword to someone but these very less known smiths are pretty much as bucket where items can be thrown when there is not much to identify on. I have so far only found one signed short sword by Esshū Mitsuyuki. Now as I am bit obsessive in tracking down items, here is a fun fact. Actually the sword appraised just before this one got the same attribution towards Esshū Mitsuyuki.

Wonderful Rayhan and your contribution to the community is amazing! Huge thanks for NBTHK for allowing the old magazines to be shared. I think the English magazine ran for c. 15 years so within these magazines you will find many of the best Japanese swords as feature items.

Wonderful article

Absolutely amazing stuff again Markus I have tried to locate the ownership of blades as well as I can from publications. So far I have not found Sadamune or Gō that would be owned by NBTHK (where ownership would be written in book or on display text). I mistakenly thought that 太鼓鐘貞宗 was owned by NBTHK but it is owned by private person. It has just been displayed at NBTHK recently where I saw it last year and will see it again in their next exhibition when I visit next month. NBTHK owns at least 2 Masamune, Musashi Masamune and Ashiya Masamune as I have seen both in their exhibitions, and it is written that they own the item. NBTHK has also exhibited one Masamune that I saw last year that is privately owned, and that has been also featured on the viewing sessions. I believe many of the items brought in for viewing sessions are privately owned by NBTHK members and they share the great items as study material for the group. Then there are of course extreme rarity items like Ko-Hoki Sanekage tachi and Bungo Sadahide tachi that are both owned by NBTHK. They are very often used as reference items as I seem to have both in 15+ different references. I feel the NBTHK viewing sessions have a focus on high level items by great makers. Focus on items like these and you will get high level knowledge and will train your eye for details. There is extremely rarely obscure and weird stuff used in these sessions (at least written down). I personally like obscure weapons from less known smiths as that makes me tick but NBTHK does not appreciate that type of items highly which is of course understandable.

Some of the top end Japanese dealers do occasionally have real Jūyō Bijutsuhin blades in their inventory. However I think often they are not advertised that much in public, they buyers might respect privacy and the shops know their clients. I don't really visit swords shops in Japan as I can't buy anything at the moment. I still remember first time going into Iida Koendo many years ago and they had JūBi at their shop that they hadn't even listed on their website.