Jussi Ekholm

How large is the curvature of the sword? If the sword is ubu I'd think it as late Muromachi sword from early 1500's. If it has been greatly shortened then I think it has had massive curvature and perhaps early Muromachi might be better guess.

As it is not iron I'll jump into the kinkō-train as well. I can't comment on age though. As Saotome made often large iron tsuba of this design what is the size of this tsuba?

Interesting piece. I think full length hi on a shōbu-zukuri blade is not the most common thing.

I'd think the design is original as ana is included in the design. I'd guess making major changes to design like that after the item is already made would be futile as you can always make a new tsuba with similar but slightly altered design. The shape is kiku-gata/kikka-gata. I'm not too well versed on who made these but I believe they often get attributed to Saotome. So my guess is Saotome.

I read through your blog Yurie and I enjoyed it a lot. Very well written and you explain things in an easy way. I hope your blog will get many readers and I will surely bookmark it for future and keep checking it.

I would second Geraints suggestion of getting into Tōken Society meeting in London. There are great collectors in the group and they can tell you a lot when seeing the sword in hand. I accidentally stumbled across this unknown Tomonari while trying to search NMB; http://ryujinswords.com/tomonari.htm, http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/7635-nakajima-rai/ I think the most likely scenario is that your sword just has false signature of one of the most famous Japanese smiths added on. My guess would be that it is genuine Japanese sword (fairly new) with crudely made horimono and roughly 75 cm blade, I think it is original length and not shortened. Possibly a suguha hamon but I am not sure as I can't see much in the pictures. Not sure if the characters on the other side of the blade are carved or etched? I'd dare to think that the horimono is Japanese made too, I am sure most of us have seen lower quality work on some lower quality Japanese swords. The horimono is tamaōi-ryu, a dragon hunting a gem, it it quite common design of horimono and usually takes a lot of space on the blade. I have seen large horimono of this (and other large dragon) design many times on lower quality swords, possibly added in later to hide some flaws for example. Or maybe someone just wanted a huge dragon on their sword.. I am not sure if there are mei examples of Settsu Tomonari. Sometimes in Japanese sword tradition the family trees etc. get passed down by tradition and there are errors and impossibilities in them. As you see with Settsu Tomonari and date given to him, where as his supposed father Yoshiuji worked c. 50 years later than him.

Paul I cannot provide you a mei example as it seems that the Tomonari from Settsu was very unknown smith. In Seskos Index he is listed being from Nakajima-Rai school and working c. 1360's. None of the mei references I have do not feature this smith. Granted I do not have any books focusing on Nakajima-Rai. There are 7 Tomonari signing with these kanji in Seskos, 6 Bizen smiths and 1 from Settsu. My personal guess is that this isn't signed by any of the 7. I would try to go by opposite approach and leave the signature out of the picture, do you think your sword has mid-Nanbokuchō shape and Nakajima-Rai characteristics?

I'll give another vote to Namikawa. Haven't dealt with them in some years but the few purchases I had from them were good.

This has been educational thread. I was browsing lots of dealer sites and scrolling their tsuba selection by pics and try to identify them on my own. I was set on Higo few times while the attribution was to Tosa Myōchin.

I happened to check out this tsuba and I remembered that there had been a recent post about these. Exactly the same design as in last post by John. https://www.aoijapan.com/tsuba-mumeiunsigned-takarabune-treasure-ship/

I might have worded that bit foolishly. I was meaning that for me the fact that the tsuba came from collections of Sasano & Kremers and if Eckhard authenticated it at Ashmolean event these combined with NBTHK papers would give it a very strong provenance in my opinion. Of course the exact year it was made will probably always be up for debate. I was surprised at n.5 too. However I think it is not always black & white and someone is right and other one is wrong. I think Darcy has written a very good piece regarding how NBTHK attributions are not set in stone and should not be taken as absolute facts. NBTHK shinsa panel just offers one of the best opinions in the world. Sure some things are very stereotypical and attributions are easy to accept (it does help a lot if you are agreeing/hoping for certain attribution). However there are plenty of things that can be either or, and without a working time machine we will never know for sure. Attributions by experts are the best possible method of authentication, and of course it is completely possible that different experts see things differently.

Thanks for this Grev, it was really fun. Personally I'd give great value to comments from Sasano & Kremers.

Would make more sense. Nagahide is listed in Sesko index for Bun'an and his entry to Bungo Taikan I believe says that there is and example that is signed 豊後州永秀作 / 文安三年二月吉日. I think he is very unknown smith.

I wouldn't immidiately think it is a fake. I think it reads 豊後州秀行 / 文?五?? Bungo shū Hideyuki / Bun ? 5 ?? I believe this Bungo shū is the most uncommon start of Bungo signature, but I looked at Bungo Taikan and found one tachi, where 豊後州 is signed above the ana like in your sword and signature continues after the hole. The Hideyuki listed in Bungo Taikan seems to be Kanbun period smith, same that Markus has listed in his smith index.

1.? 2.? 3. Ko-Tōshō 4. Akasaka 5. Tōshō / Katchūshi

Amazing report team Italy!

I am not a tsuba guy but I'd think you are seeing the remnants of amida yasurime, you can see example at Grey's site here: http://www.japaneseswordbooksandtsuba.com/store/tsuba-%26-kodogu/t250-tosho-tsuba-amida-yasuri

I think this is just fun & games more than hardcore serious kantei. I can tell that my initial guess was Sekishū Sadatsuna, which is incorrect. However here is a fun thing that was steering us to our guesses I think, based on gut feeling and some statistical data. It is really easy one and might be too obvious.

Sounds like pretty solid deals could have been had there. This is just so minor hobby and you need to have the right buyers at the right time. I'm glad to hear some Token GB members scored nice deals at the auction, and hopefully NMB members too.

Just noticed that my copy of vol.2 seems to have similar checkerboard over some images that Chris showed in his pics. I hadn't even noticed that before as I hadn't read this volume as much as the 1st one. It's a minor detail but of course it can be bit annoying. I am not too bothered about it.

I am too good at finding the actual swords... I wish my ability for kantei would be as good. But I'm a good sport and keep it secret, unfortunately my initial guess was off. I love the shape of this, moto & saki are very wide, spectacular sword.

I might be going against the common consensus but I do not like that sword. I do not like the size and shape of that sword in it's current state. And for me that is the most important part of the sword, as I do not have too keen eye on artistic values. I was talking with Graham Curtis briefly at Utrecht about statistical approach to swords, I enjoyed his lecture greatly and I felt bit similar mindset to my own. We discussed a bit (among few other things) how you can imagine how the sword is by just looking at the numbers. As I've been working on my own databases I've learned a lot about my own preferences. So as crazy as it is by just looking at the numbers of that sword I would know that sword does not fall among those I like. This comes round to that what Paul B. said in his lecture about good swords vs. bad swords and personal preference. I understand that the Ichimonji Fred has is a good sword, I just don't like it. I do like many swords of much lesser quality but that does not make them as good as this one.

I remember I had posted about this subject earlier so I found it by searching, this might give some insight on regional tamahagane: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/23184-steel-analysis-of-different-regional-schools/ Unfortunately I don't know anything about hammers. Would be nice to hear about it from modern swordsmiths/blacksmiths.

Not a Bizen expert but I believe they are two seperate schools. Wake smiths lived in Wake (和気) and Kokubunji came from Kokubunji (国分寺), hence the names I believe. I think the lineages and histories vary from source to source. And you have to also think about the geographical locations as many of the famous bizen locations are within a 10 km circle around Osafune. For example Wake is about 10 km north of Osafune along the Yoshii river. I believe at least by one version Wake school is connected to Saburō Kunimune and his school worked in Osafune. One version of history for Kokubunji is that he was son of either Sukemura or Nobukane from Fukuoka Ichimonji school. He first lived in Tōjō in Bingo province but later moved to Ashida district where he established a school in the remains of local Kokubunji. So I believe one of the current theories is that Kokubunji Sukekuni is a Bingo smith with Bizen background. Here are links to 2 Wake blades I have stored up. Wake Shigenori: http://www.kusanaginosya.com/SHOP/489.html Wake Shigesuke: https://www.touken-sakata.com/%E5%88%80%E5%89%A3%E4%B8%80%E8%A6%A7/%E5%88%80-%E7%84%A1%E9%8A%98-%E5%92%8C%E6%B0%97%E5%BA%84%E9%87%8D%E5%8A%A9-%E5%8F%A4%E5%88%80-%E4%B8%8A%E4%BD%9C/

I've always thought (maybe incorrectly) that if NBTHK specify Magoroku (孫六) in brackets then they are meaning the Magoroku, and later Kanemoto generations get sometimes kodai (後代) etc. in brackets. But it is probably most common for just Kanemoto without specification in brackets. So that is why extra added Magoroku is "significant".