Jussi Ekholm

It is a statistical outlier and I was surprised when I saw it first time. I have been following Naminohira swords (pre-Edo). In general old Naminohira swords tend to have relatively large curvature on average. For 14 signed old Naminohira Tachi I have tracked down they average the following Nagasa: 73,6 cm (some of them are suriage) - Sori: 2,6 cm - Motohaba: 2,9 cm - Sakihaba: 1,7 cm For 14 Mumei tachi with Ko-Naminohira attribution they average Nagasa: 76,8 cm (some of the are slight suriage) - Sori: 2,4 cm - Motohaba: 3,0 cm - Sakihaba: 1,7 cm For 11 Mumei katana with Ko-Naminohira attribution they average Nagasa: 68,7 cm (all suriage) - Sori: 2,0 cm - Motohaba: 2,7 cm - Sakihaba: 1,7 cm For the 4 Mumei tachi with Naminohira attribution (most likely made after Nanbokuchō) they average Nagasa: 78,1 cm (all ubu) - Sori: 3,2 cm - Motohaba: 3,0 cm - Sakihaba: 1,7 cm For the 19 Mumei katana with Naminohira attribution (most likely made after Nanbokuchō) they average Nagasa: 71,6 cm (most suriage) - Sori: 2,2 cm - Motohaba: 3,0 cm - Sakihaba: 1,9 cm Of course this is not in any means definitive analysis but based on available examples that I have for data it is easy to see that in general pre-Edo period Naminohira swords are quite long and with strong curvature and average width. For comparison I do have a mumei tachi attributed to Naminohira and Early Muromachi period, it is 77,2 cm with 3,7 cm curvature. Quite the opposite in shape to this example in the opening.

Can you post some measurements of it lenght & nakago length and full sized picture of blade & nakago. I can write better reply next week when I am back home and have all my sources at home. I do think calling Shintō period naginata in general as "womens weapons" might be just association that is not totally accurate. Also while Knutsen has lots and lots of good information on his book, some like the above posted diagram on proportions are bit skewed. I do understand that he used examples of his own collection for it but in general it does not show early naginata like they should be featured.

I think you got a good blade there Brano, I like that one too. It has nice wide shape. And seemed to be good package in overall. Here is a bit more to continue: 大磨上無銘也雄勁ナル延文貞治 - ō-suriage mumei XXX Enbun Jōji Unfortunately I am limited to phone now and long sayagaki like this surpass my current abilities.

I am among the artistically challenged folks, haven't even tried doing oshigata for a long while now. Should definately do some in future again. I did this 7 years ago of Shimada Sukemune tanto I used to own back then. Horimono on that blade is quite worn and my skills are lacking in bringing justice to the sword, some things are definately wrong in that oshigata too but it is what it is...

I believe it was made by Ikkansai Shigetoshi - 一貫斎繁寿 It is tiny tanto dated to 1905 and stating he was 68 when he made it - 明治三十八年二月日六十八翁作 , and I believe seller describes it never being polished. He also hints it might be among the last blades produced by the smith (if I understood that part correctly). I checked the smith died January 25th 1906 at the age of 69.

It is very cool item. It is late Muromachi though, Aoi has had lots of mistakes in the few of their English item descriptions that I have looked lately.

Here is a fuchi & kashira made by him. I have at least 3 other F&K by him in books. As I am not a fittings guy I am surprised he is so highly rated as his work seem quite scarce at top level, maybe they are really rare? When going through books I thought he was just a good maker but I didn't think him in same league as makers you mentioned in OP. Of course I have never seen his work in real life so cannot say much.

The signature seems to me to be 備前国長船住景光 - Bizen kuni Osafune jū Kagemitsu, unfortunately I believe signature to be gimei (forged signature).

鯰図縁頭 - Namazu theme fuchi & kashira - Mumei 古金工 (Ko-Kinkō) 赤銅石目地 高彫 金色絵 - Shakudō ishime-ji takabori [Kin iroe??]

Would be nice to see more of the sword Robert, seems like a great find. And it is always astonishing what Ray can figure out.

康光 (右衛門尉) - Yasumitsu (Uemon no Jō)

I think it is 貞文 - Sadafumi

The ones that pop up with Google searches are not made by 1st generation Munemitsu. They are (at least on my searches) actually mid-late Muromachi period pieces. As I mentioned earlier this is so far the only surviving tachi by 1st gen Munemitsu from Kamakura period that I am aware of and it is by attribution as the mei has partially eroded. Signature on this is 備前国□□住 (Fumei) and it has been attributed to Munemitsu who was of Nagamitsu school.

Adam can you post the examples of 1st & 2nd generation mei you mentioned, and what references you are using for information on them?

There is partial fumei long signature tachi that is attributed to 1st Munemitsu at Jūyō 20. Other than that I have 0 info on 1st, 2nd or 3rd gen.

I believe they are Dha swords from Southeast Asia, Thailand, Burma etc.

I think trying to compete with others is not a good way to go in collecting. If someone just starting collecting goes to top dealer and gets a top item, that is just fantastic. I think the achievement in owning something might be that you have just personally set a goal like that. Even though you can get amazing items by top tier makers in a day (if you have the finances and in some cases connections too) as you put it, can you get the exact item you will want? As an example I have personally a quest for a blade from Hōju school, I know there are some top ones of that school that will be forever unobtainable for me, and probably in the last 10 years there might have been around 5 Hōju tachi for sale that I would really have wanted to own in my collection. Unfortunately the timing was never right for me at that time when the items were sold. Now if I just would want to own a Hōju blade there are probably 10+ items for sale in Japan at this given moment by various dealers, the thing is just that I don't really like any of the ones for sale that much. Of course I am not even in buying position at the moment, hopefully I will be when I encounter an available Hōju tachi that I like, be it 5,10 or 20 years onwards.

I think it is fun idea. Here is a 9 item collection (excluding the possible koshirae from the count) I came up with. In perfect world all items would of course be ubu. I think excluding the ōdachi and ubu naginata, the rest can be achieved fairly easily, and I left out any makers in order to make the basic format easy to see. And I am not personally yet too drawn into any specific makers, as there are so many interesting smiths and schools throughout the history. I realized it easily shows my preference of item types over specific schools. However I must say in reality I would probably cut the Muromachi trio for another earlier item but I included them to this fantasy format as I thought 9 items like this would give a nice view into different item types as well. Kamakura 1. Naginata 2. Tachi 3. Tantō Nanbokuchō 1. Naginata 2. Ōdachi 3. Ko-wakizashi Muromachi 1. Yari 2. Uchigatana (daishō koshirae) 3. Wakizashi (daishō koshirae)

Ray was super fast as usual, here is a reference sword: http://www.nipponto.co.jp/swords4/KY329076.htm

I do think a lot is riding on the signature or the attribution, as all things are not equal.

I think lots of things go into Tokujū submission, those that have done it can explain things much better than I can. Darcy has written an excellent blog post on the subject. I do think in general people who will have a go at Tokujū shinsa are often people with great knowledge, and they have done the background work and are prepared for the submission. And of course the item sent in is in most cases very good. Jūyō shinsa (while quite uncommon for average collectors) is still much more relaxed compared to absolute top at Tokujū. I believe It is much lower bar to try a good quality Tokuho item for a chance to Jūyō, where as in order to to pass as Tokujū the item would need to be among the top quality of Jūyō items. Hozon & Tokubetsu Hozon are just bit "generic" as you can see by the numbers of them passing every year. Of course things are not black & white as there are still great items at just that papering level. However on the other hand there are plenty of weak Tokubetsu Hozon items too. I think here in the West we are sometimes too concerned about the level of papers, and often in discussions we bring up the NBTHK papering levels (yes I am often quilty of that too), instead of focusing on explaining the item in other ways. I know it would be convenient to but things in boxes but I think some of the boxes are too big. For example as there is about 1,500 - 2,000 swords passing Tokubetsu Hozon every year, there is lot of different swords in that yearly bunch, and some amazing items will be passing every year, along with some that will barely make it, while the majority will be everything in between those extremes. However all that I am saying must be taken with grain of salt, as what I am writing is purely theoretical. I have not yet submitted a sword into a shinsa by any organization.

As I was browsing through my Tōken Bijutsu magazines, I noticed some interesting information. I have pretty much just skipped the yearly report as I have seen it mainly as financial stuff etc. and with my limited Japanese skill is not possible to really read it, I know some info that it contains etc. but now I decided to take a closer look on some sections and I was surprised to see how much info is presented in there. I must say I have probably had bit more conservative number about yearly items, I think I have been in somewhat correct ballpark as I have done research based on paper numbers and what numbers pop up to dealer sites in Japan after shinsa. As this is public information posted on Tōken Bijutsu magazine I do think it is ok to post data I translittered to English in here. NBTHK membership is unfortunately quite rare especially outside Japan. I know many people in the west are bit suspicious about NBTHK and there has been some negativity and slander behind the scenes and out in open too. I know people often still bring up some things that happened way in the past, in order to discredit the current organization. I do believe in open discussion and exchange of information, and I do think NBTHK is doing wonderful things for our tiny hobby (as are many other smaller organizations too). Here are the numbers that NBTHK provided in their yearly report, for some reason In Jūyō results number of swords passes is 100% match but other items do not always match the actual number of items passed on results list? But here are the last 5 years of results for you to study and think about. 2019 Hozon Tōken – 7,106 submitted – 4,749 passed Hozon Tōsō – 333 submitted – 186 passed Hozon Tōsōgu – 3,764 submitted – 2,401 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōken – 3,317 submitted – 2,259 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōsō – 154 submitted – 102 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōsōgu – 1,062 submitted – 841 passed Jūyō 65 Tōken – 997 submitted – 101 passed Jūyō 65 Tōsō – 45 submitted – 8 passed Jūyō 65 Tōsōgu – 287 submitted – 29 passed 2018 Hozon Tōken – 7,433 submitted – 4,978 passed Hozon Tōsō – 345 submitted – 177 passed Hozon Tōsōgu – 3,408 submitted – 2,131 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōken – 3,372 submitted – 2,342 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōsō – 203 submitted – 103 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōsōgu – 854 submitted – 604 passed Jūyō 64 Tōken – 916 submitted – 135 passed Jūyō 64 Tōsō – 63 submitted – 7 passed Jūyō 64 Tōsōgu 296 submitted – 23 passed Tokubetsu Jūyō 25 Tōken – 342 submitted – 70 passed Tokubetsu Jūyō 25 Tōsō – 10 submitted – 2 passed Tokubetsu Jūyō 25 Tōsōgu – 41 submitted – 5 passed 2017 Hozon Tōken – 4,257 submitted – 2,880 passed Hozon Tōsō – 199 submitted – 126 passed Hozon Tōsōgu – 2,600 submitted – 1,646 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōken – 1,891 submitted – 1,287 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōsō – 106 submitted – 66 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōsōgu – 629 submitted – 421 passed Jūyō 63 Tōken – 753 submitted – 140 passed Jūyō 63 Tōsō – 35 submitted – 6 passed Jūyō 63 Tōsōgu – 279 submitted – 29 passed 2016 Hozon Tōken – 7,455 submitted – 4,913 passed Hozon Tōsō – 351 submitted – 196 passed Hozon Tōsōgu – 4,123 submitted – 2,753 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōken – 2,771 submitted – 1,893 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōsō – 135 submitted – 89 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōsōgu – 1,022 submitted – 763 passed Jūyō 62 Tōken – 875 submitted – 149 passed Jūyō 62 Tōsō – 54 submitted – 9 passed Jūyō 62 Tōsōgu – 274 submitted – 29 passed Tokubetsu Jūyō 24 Tōken – 326 submitted – 71 passed Tokubetsu Jūyō 24 Tōsō – 10 submitted – 2 passed Tokubetsu Jūyō 24 Tōsōgu – 27 submitted – 5 passed 2015 Hozon Tōken – 6,984 submitted – 4,594 passed Hozon Tōsō – 367 submitted – 218 passed Hozon Tōsōgu – 3,948 submitted – 2,613 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōken – 2,450 submitted – 1,648 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōsō – 152 submitted – 107 passed Tokubetsu Hozon Tōsōgu – 940 submitted – 754 passed Jūyō 61 Tōken – 826 submitted – 165 passed Jūyō 61 Tōsō – 49 submitted – 11 passed Jūyō 61 Tōsōgu – 277 submitted – 37 passed

The signature is 陸奥会津住道長 - Mutsu Aizu jū Michinaga

I think mei is 一刀斎安綱作 - and smith Ittōsai Yasutsuna. He was born 1924 and died 1990. Here is one reference sword: http://kako.nipponto.co.jp/swords2/KT215546.htm

I remember I had posted some centimeter measurements of early long/longish kissaki but these are unfortunately not dated swords: