Jussi Ekholm

It is really fun trying to dig info on old koshirae as I have wonderful references in general (even though they are really focused on swords). I was looking into Fukushi Shigeos Tōsōgu Classroom and I am bit puzzled about what I read but it seems there are several theories on many Muromachi fitting making schools as there is just so little historical information and old theories are gradually being improved. Here is a Nanbokuchō period tachi koshirae of Kasuga Taisha that is designated as Jūyō Bunkazai. Photo credits go to Sankei Shimbun (I just saved the picture): https://www.sankei.c...H35JUHNNY7ZFUJGZTBA/ I am hoping to visit Kasuga Taisha in 2025 as I have not yet been there. Nor do I have a book focused on solely on their sword collection. Unfortunately in my references I only have a tiny side view on this koshirae. Here is also a link to the famous Uesugi Tachi that currently resides in Tokyo National Museum. I believe it it thought that both blade and koshirae are made at the same time during Kamakura period. While the tsuba is a single plate the ō-seppa on this have openings in the bird carvings. https://www.gov-onli...24/june_2024-12.html I think there would be one interesting followup question. If the sukashi tsuba timeline is pushed back to the end of Muromachi period, what kind of tsuba was used in 1400's and 1500's?

As I stated in the other thread fittings are unfortunately not my thing as I try focus on old blades. However research is my thing and I have done so much digging to NBTHK Hozon and Tokubetsu Hozon it is easy to flip some of the info to fittings and koshirae. Just note that NBTHK has all the fittings and koshirae in same paper category, meaning not all of the items 4XXXXX or 40XXXXX are not tsuba but fittings and koshirae in general. I believe the reason for numbering change was that the sword Hozon papers were going to get into 100,000 creating a problem in numbering. The change happened in Heisei 24 (2012). I will show this with actual linked tsuba examples for fittings. Hozon 404848 - item papered in Shōwa 63 (1988) https://eirakudo.sho.../tsuba/detail/021946 Hozon 464758 - item papered in Heisei 24 (2012) https://eirakudo.sho.../tsuba/detail/015889 Hozon 4000253 - item papered in Heisei 24 (2012) https://eirakudo.sho.../tsuba/detail/733167 Hozon 4022661 - item papered in Reiwa 5 (2023) https://www.aoijapan...bthk-hozon-tosogu-2/ Tokubetsu Hozon 200XXX - unfortunately couldn't find one by fast search - - - Tokubetsu Hozon 229414 - item papered in Heisei 23 (2011) https://www.aoijapan...hu-juyu-suruga-saku/ Tokubetsu Hozon 2000882 - item papered in Heisei 25 (2013) https://eirakudo.shop/901495 Tokubetsu Hozon 2010410 - item papered in Reiwa 5 (2023) https://www.aoijapan...ubetsu-hozon-tosogu/ The conclusion of this above (however note that this includes all the fittings and koshirae [even though I think tsuba is the largest item group sent to shinsa]) At least 86,000 items have passed Hozon shinsa to date Around 40,000 items have passed Tokubetsu Hozon shinsa to date In overall that is a lot of items. While it is possible there is an error in my count I do believe it is logical as NBTHK has a running numbering for the items, and every item passed has a specific number on the paper. Now the shinsa numbers for Hozon & Tokubetsu Hozon are currently limited but before that, you could perhaps make an educated guess in how many items passed a specific shinsa after gathering lots of data, since the numbering is continuous. I feel that might be pretty much useless info and data though...

This is extremely good idea to open up these topics. Unfortunately koshirae is not my field so I cannot add much insight to the discussions. I tried to find specific koshirae examples that can be traced to specific individuals but there are actually only very few of the really old ones pre-1600, and the remaining ones are often to some very famous people. I personally love shrines and temples in Japan and romanticize their items. Often swords donated to them have remained unchanged for long time periods. Also the battlefield ōdachi and naginata/nagamaki were pretty much useless after wars in Japan ended, so many of them have remained in shrines in their koshirae. Now I have been fortunate to see many ōdachi at various shrines in Japan, and also many ōdachi koshirae. I would agree that the ōdachi tsuba in general are really plain. Mostly just metal or leather plates, there are few that have the boar's eye cut outs in corners as you mentioned in the opening post. Unfortunately I don't have photographic memory but I don't think any of the ōdachi koshirae from Nanbokuchō or Muromachi period I have seen in person had large sukashi cutouts. Also one thing to note that artists in the period might not know the actual swords 100% correctly. Atsuta Jingū owns the two famous massive ōdachi Tarōtachi and Jirō Tachi, and were wielded by Magara brothers/or father&son (if I understood the legend correctly) The smaller one Jirō Tachi 166,6 cm blade was I believe by legend wielded by Magara Jūrōzaemon (真柄十郎左衛門), and there is a famous painting in which he wields the ōdachi on horseback at battle of Anegawa 1570, where he died. I think Jirō Tachi was dedicated to the shrine shortly after battle by the victorius side and Tarōtachi bit later in 1576. Here is the painting and it has similar open wheel tsuba as in the painting discussed earlier. https://en.wikipedia...i_sword_on_horse.jpg Someone has taken pictures of Tarōtachi. Here is the current koshirae. Now in one book there is a text passage about these koshirae but I cannot yet read it correctly. https://static.wikia...00?cb=20150919175256 Atsuta Jingū also has 3rd ōdachi with similar koshirae that was made in 1620, it has 144,5 cm blade and it has 17,5x17,0 cm tsuba that is dated to 1620. So obviously this was later than the 2 famous swords but as it features the same koshirae style it could have been made to honor the famous swords. Unfortunately photography is always forbidden at the shrines so I do not have any pictures. Sorry for going bit off topic with this as it was not exactly on topic but illustrating how difficult it is to prove something with certainity. I agree the tsuba I posted a picture of might not be Nanbokuchō period, just that Japanese experts have possibly agreed on that as it was featured in publication. I do think shrines and temples are the best places to discover original and unaltered items, of course they might often not be that desirable by high end collectors.

That nagamaki tsuba in your post is for another Jūyō Bunkazai naginata of Uesugi-jinja, this one is attributed as Ichimonji Norikane. The shrine has 3 very large naginata with very similar mounts, I agree that Muromachi period would sound quite plausible for these koshirae. I believe the saya for these have been lost.

I believe Steve has correct info on the painting as it is owned by Kyōto National Museum and I would take their description over others as they have the item in their collection. Here are few quite old sukashi tsuba for you. As I specialize my research on ōdachi and old naginata I think I should have perhaps info on few others in my books. Very large Kamakura period naginata (Katayama Ichimonji) in nagamaki mounts that has a sukashi tsuba, Jūyō Bunkazai item owned by Uesugi-jinja. From the same Uesugi Book a possible ōdachi tsuba 10,2 x 9,9 cm from Nanbokuchō period that resides in private collection.

I think going wide is just as viable as going quality, in my opinion there is no correct way in collecting and enjoying the hobby. I can very well understand Dan. As to certain point I would be going similar way if I had funds. In my personal collection I would much rather have 10 middle tier swords than 1 high quality sword in comparison. To me that would be much more enjoyable. I have a friend here in Finland who has 100+ tsuba along with very massive collection of all things Samurai. I always enjoy greatly viewing so large number of tsuba with huge variation in styles and quality as well. I know not everyone would like that but I try to enjoy items of all levels.

The ultrawide Tomomitsu wakizashi was a historical Masamune that is owned by Yasukuni-jinja. I have so far missed it everytime I have visited Yasukuni-jinja as it has been at NBTHK grading run for a good while now, it just passed as Tokubetsu Jūyō and I hope it will be back at Yasukuni-jinja next summer. The mumei Sadatsuna tachi has the following kiritsuke-mei - 奉納象頭山金毘羅大権現 / 文政十二年己丑六月日 / 願主杉山政徳敬白 - There might be an error in my translation but I believe it was dedicated to Konpira Daigongen of Mt. Zozu by Sugiyama Seitoku (or Masanori) in 1829.

Here is one very rare set that is in Europe. These are not really my thing so I am not that interested in these but I remember this was at Japan Art Expo 2023. https://www.honto-ni...en-no-suke-munetsugu

I was just checking some historical items in Japanese books and there are possibly few daishō that are slightly pre-1600 as they can be traced back to specific owner. However they had the blades the person had historically and not matching pair of blades. Also the pair of tachi & short sword is referred in books as ryō-goshi (両腰). The actual surviving historical examples of these are ultimately rare. I think in the few koshirae books I have there is only 1 with proven ownership. Now bit tongue in cheeck but still factual at the same time. Unfortunately I don't yet own all of the Jūyō books but so far this is the only item anywhere I have seen with this setup after they re-sent this for Jūyō as the package. There are some papered Jūyō daishō that have attachment daishō koshirae. However this was originally from Jūyō 16 as daishō with attachment koshirae but re-evaluation at Jūyō 47 now has daishō & daishō koshirae on the same paper. An unicorn to chase...

I would think it was the National treasure ōdachi by Tomomitsu. After seeing it several times in the museum it is probably my favorite sword as it is just amazing item. However there are other incredible ōdachi that I have seen and picking favorites is bit difficult.

11 years later and my realistic dream is still the same it was then. Hopefully I am not 10+ years off from it anymore but closer to it. Will have to see how life goes. I think fun question for those who were answering in late 2013 (and if they are still here) would be if someone achieved their realistic goal?

The sword in question seems to be signed 於東都麻布邸盛岡住斎藤正実作 / 安政四丁巳年十二月日 (unfortunately the pictures are tiny). This is an early signature of the smith Masanaka (正中), who seems to have started using Masanaka in early 1860's. However I am clueless about these quite modern swords but I would feel the smith is quite unknown. He seems to be a student of Hosokawa Masayoshi who is considered as a good smith.

There have been some very good posts written above. Unfortunately I am not privileged to have info on the top level collecting in Japan. However through my own tedious research of tracking items over the years I have found out some answers that are also logical. To my understanding tthere are few absolutely massive private collectors in Japan. Also from other private collectors often some top items get donated to a well known museum for example for perhaps various reasons. Tokyo National Museum, NBTHK, etc. will get some great items donated to their collection. Personally because I cannot ever collect at the top level I am not stressing about these things but the reality is that there is only X amount of certain items and the pool of items that are possible to acquire gets smaller. For example for rare signed items by top smiths I think it is more likely that the items will end up in some collection than new unknown signed pieces will pop up in large numbers. Here are few examples I am currently aware of 30 signed tachi by Ko-Bizen Tomonari, however I believe possibly only 2 of them might be possible to own outside Japan (items from TJ 10 and Jūyō 31, and of course also these might be beyond reach, just that I am not aware of). There was a tachi that passed Jūyō 33 but I recently found out it has been donated to Kyūshū National Museum. For Bizen Kanemitsu I currently know about 40 signed tachi, of these I believe 15 of these might be items that might be possible to own outside Japan (however I would believe several of them are already out of reach, just that I am not yet aware of that). I remember I tracked in a thread here how much absolute top items the Nagoya Tōken World was acquiring at quite rapid pace. Now the museum has absolutely stunning collection and is probably the best place to visit for a sword enthusiast. However the hundreds of swords that have end up in their collection will probably forever stay in that collection. Here is a link I had these numbers almost 3 years ago (I think there might be extremely little movement in these National Rankings, Kokuhō and Jūyō Bunkazai but they can sometimes although very rarely change ownership). An example of this is will be from the above mentioned Tōken World in Nagoya and swordsmith Bungo Yukihira. I have found 41 tachi by Bungo Yukihira so far, perhaps 11 of those would be possible to own for a person outside Japan (although I would assume several of these are locked in private collections). The number would have been higher but Tōken World has 3 Bungo Yukihira tachi with NBTHK certification. I remember being very impressed when I saw each of them when I visited the museum. Two of these are Tokubetsu Jūyō and one is Jūyō. I do have only the free online catalogs of 21,22,23 and 24 DTI, as I haven't found the need to get the old ones as financial side of sword collecting does not interest me. However there are 8 items in these 4 catalogs that make multiple appearances. Now if I would get to browse through all the old ones at home I believe I would be able to match a lot of items that have been sold multiple times at various Dai Tōken Ichi. Of course the logical reason for this is that at the top level there is not that huge amount of swords that would be available for purchase. It is very easy to track Jūyō and Tokubetsu Jūyō items and as almost all (at least public) high end sales are NBTHK papered, you can see swords going from dealer to dealer.

This is just a personal opinion but I would just take the NBTHK attribution as probably the best opinion available. Similarily to mumei swords the attributions for such partial mei are not absolute. I believe their decision was that Kiyomitsu would be the most plausible opinion judged by their expert panel. I would just treat it as late Muromachi Bizen sword, could be Kiyomitsu, Sukesada, Munemitsu, Harumitsu etc. and the actual maker does not affect much to me as the mei is so partial. I do think it is a sword that has interesting hamon. I can make a comparison to your other thread, as there are variations in Kiyomitsu collecting too. I believe Gorōzaemon is regarded as the best Late Muromachi Bizen Kiyomitsu smith. So aiming for the top you would look for very good sword that is signed with Gorōzaemon mei and dated. As for NBTHK shinsa, they have quite recently put a limitation on how many swords they accept to H/TH shinsa session. It is currently at 1,600. They do run 4 Hozon/Tokubetsu Hozon blade shinsa per year so that is 6,400 swords. Then they seem to have gotten bit over 800 submissions for yearly Jūyō shinsa in recent years. Now this may sound like blasphemy coming out of low level collector like me but I believe the majority of items they process are not interesting. In general the majority of Japanese swords are not that interesting to me personally. Of course I do have quirky taste for historical swords vs. the "art sword crowd" (I personally hate to used the art sword as a term). I do think for many of the regular items NBTHK shinsa does not spend too much time on, I believe on the rare and important items they will spend more time even at Hozon level, as the sword is important. To give some idea of rarity of NBTHK ranks I believe for blades currently c. 124,000 have achieved Hozon status and c. 77,000 blades have achieved Tokubetsu Hozon status. While it would of course be amazing to have info on each and every item, I understand they just don't have time and resources to write about each uninspiring mumei blade for example.

I think one complicated thing would be deciding on what would be considered as a fair pricing. There are also amazing very high quality items in collections of various European collectors. Also while I understand "rating" dealers, it can sometimes be tricky as they can have invetory outside their regular "rating". Some top dealers will have some cheaper items and some cheaper dealers can have very high quality items. Judging the particular item would be more important. Also as someone obsessed with old items it is also important to know that some items can change ownership quite fast. There are items that have even popped up online at 4-5 different dealers over the years, and might have even had offline sales too. In those cases of course the actual item remains the same but it can be listed by variously "rated" dealers. It is possible to find good deals at 5k, 15k, 50k, 100k+€, however perception might vary. What I personally might consider for example a good deal for 10,000€, someone else might think it would be overpriced and vice versa. People value different things like Erik wrote above. Do you have some specific direction you are looking for future purchases? Building business relations would be awesome and I will highly recommend that if it is possible for you. For someone like myself it is just not possible because I can make purchases very rarely. So possibly waiting for several and several years between purchases, I would not stress about the dealer relationship but would rather focus on specific item regardless on who is the dealer that has it.

Here are the oldest swords with horimono that I have in references, in no particular order as I cannot really say exactly how old they are but I believe all of these date to late Heian period. 三条宗近 - Sanjō Munechika 五条国永 - Gojō Kuninaga 正恒 - Ko-Bizen Masatsune 友成 - Ko-Bizen Tomonari 大原真守 - Ōhara Sanemori However there are multiple chokutō that are much older and feature carvings. I did not include those. There are swords with horimono that were made in Early Kamakura period but they are not as old as the blades from makers above. Then of course I will include 5 oldest dated swords with horimono I am currently aware of. 国綱 - Awataguchi Kunitsuna 1253 (I believe this mei might need more research) [an interesting sidenote it is an ōdachi] 守家 - Hatakeda Moriie 1280 来国俊 - Rai Kunitoshi 1292 了戒 - Ryōkai 1293 国光 - Shintōgo Kunimitsu 1294

Thank you for giving your experiences! The amount of top quality items for sale must be mind boggling. The TJ28 results can be found in here: https://www.touken.or.jp/Portals/0/pdf/news/第28回特別重要刀剣等指定品発表.pdf

Yes it is Paul Chen/Hanwei and I believe from 1999 - signature would be 中国大連陈朝波己卯年 If your friend has pictures of the fittings it will be very easy to identify the model as Hanwei only makes specific models and not custom pieces.

Sometimes even small things like this can lead into great discussion and lots of thinking. Now as ōdachi are my passion, I decided to do this same look into historical ōdachi that I have in my resources. Actually I will do some more digging into them on another matter so this was good preparation dig. For this I will only use Kamakura-Nanbokuchō-Muromachi ōdachi and I was super happy to count that I currently have 86 of these. I will leave out the Edo period ōdachi from this but I was bit surprised to see that I have 43 of them in resources too. 33 of the old ōdachi have normal hi termination 24 of them do not feature hi at all 10 have horimono of various type 3 of them have hi termination well short of yokote (as was the topic of the thread) 2 of them only feature a short hi 14 I do not have a clear picture of kissaki area, some of these have hi but I cannot see hi well enough from tiny picture of a massive sword Even I have to admit that some of the most massive ōdachi were not used in battlefield (however there are actual records of some huge ones been used in battles) but the super massive are few in total number. Still I would think that if there would be a really practical purpose to terminate hi well short of yokote it would have been done more often. As majority of these are indeed battlefield weapons. I do think my choice of words might have been bit incorrect, perhaps I should have maybe used spritual instead of aesthetical. For example I don't think horimono in general have functional purpose for practical use but they most likely have extremely strong spiritual meaning which could have very well been psychologically much more important than some tiny functional factor. I think I will some day try to do this same with a smith or 2 who have been noted of having used this type of termination, and from whom I have lots of signed tachi examples to provide data.

It is tricky piece. Personally I might see it as a tachi. However NBTHK has judged it as a katana and I respect their authority. Also one important thing in their attribution is that the sword is judged as 後代宝寿 (Later Hōju). Now while it might feel like a minor remark it actually has a dramatical effect to the appreciation value and financial value of the sword. I am personally super interested in Hōju school, and their work goes from Kamakura and Nanbokuchō up to Muromachi. When there is mumei attribution 宝寿 (Hōju) is used to cover Kamakura & Nanbokuchō works and 後代宝寿 (Later Hōju) is used for Muromachi period work. If someone would show me that sword my first guess might be Muromachi period tachi without looking at NBTHK judgement paper.

In general it is bit difficult to find an old tachi that would be really desirable from online sources for under 1,000,000 yen. With the current exchange rate it would be c. 6,500$ in Japan. You'll need to add shipping possible taxes etc. on top of that. When a decent tachi in this price bracket pops up at online dealers they will usually sell quite fast. My recommendation would be perhaps try to resist buying urge and try to save up to 1,5-2 million yen, as in that range there are lots of fairly good ones to choose from but of course the price is quite a bit higher. Here are 2 cheap signed tachi that are currently for sale in Japan but I would personally skip both of these. Uda Tomotsugu, 580,000 yen : https://www.toukenko...i&katanaA071223.html Masanobu (Unknown province) 550,000 yen : https://nihontou.jp/...gu/tachi/094/00.html

I admit I am sometimes going way too deep into things. I have been actually quite curious as some things like these hi endings are sometimes quoted as being features of some smiths. Likewise I have read the kissaki repair theory from multiple sources. Now I had some free time today and I did some digging, and indeed this type of hi ending can happen on Nanbokuchō period swords. However the ones stopping a lot short of yokote I would personally see as aesthetic choices rather that allowing extra space for kissaki repair. I also searched every Gō attributed sword I have in my references (as this has been in several sources suggested as feature of his style). I currently have info on 64 swords that have attributed to Gō (I left out 2 tantō from this). Now out of those exactly half, 32 feature some sort of carvings on the blade. 10 of these have the hi ending short of yokote, few of them extremely far and 3 of them just barely. 17 of the swords have in my view pretty standard hi ending, 2 of the swords feature very short hi on lower portion of the blade. 3 of the swords have horimono. So while it does happen in work attributed to Gō I would not put extreme amount of weigh towards it. As I was browising items it did happen on works by many various Nanbokuchō smiths. Also as I am obsessed with ōdachi I did some viewing on them and it did occur on some however I wouldn't put significant importance towards it. I would personally see the hi stopping well short of yokote mainly as aesthetical decision.

Amazing work Andrew, thanks for sharing this with us. I can't even imagine how difficult it must be to polish a sword like this but you made details so nicely visible, I can only imagine how wonderful it looks in hand.

I believe the Japanese term for this is 樋先下がる (Hisaki-sagaru). It could be giving some direction on school and era, however like John said above then the hi would need to be original. Judging that for me would be very difficult especially on ō-suriage swords. Here is an example on a sword that I have and I am almost certain the hi is added on later.

1. Theme - I will keep my dream theme a secret for now as unfortunately I do not yet own an item that would be of that theme. My next purchase should be of that theme, when that will be I cannot yet say... After 20+ years of collecting I own only 3 swords and each of them are supportive of that theme I have in mind. 2. Aim - It would of course be amazing to have vast collecting of various items of that dream theme. However given the time it takes for me to get an item it won't be happening. Realistic aim would be just getting items that I enjoy. 3. Border - No borders. Only requirement for me would be that I like the item. 4. Behaviour - Just watching while doing my research. I admit this is the most tedious part for me as it would be fun to actually buy something. I keep scouting the items every week and I will try my best resist the urge to do sword dealing or trying flipping items for profit, as I don't want to go down that road. 5. Purpose - Research. I am very happy I enjoy research as I cannot collect at the level or in the style I would like. I feel my purpose is just doing my research and I am enjoying doing that. 6. Stage - Evolving, I've had various ideas for collecting before and they've been evolving into my current vision.