Jussi Ekholm

I think Kirill is giving good info on Wake attribution. While I think it is great that NBTHK uses some lesser known attributions, it can be tricky. From Wake basically only Shigenori and Shigesuke are known, and even for them very few signed blades remain. I personally like the bit "loud" hada. I like things I can see easily with my eyes. I feel the koshirae is also quite attractive. One thing I often try to consider is how the sword has been in the original form. If the lower hole would be original it would have been c. 70 cm tachi, however if it is ō-suriage as Aoi and most likely NBTHK think, then it would have been 80+cm tachi. As I really like big old tachi this is something I try to imagine but 80+cm tachi are quite rare to find surviving to this day.

To me swords like this are almost the pinnacle of sword collecting as they are super interesting. I would much rather own this than some average suriage Jūyō katana. This Motoshige smith is not featured in any of the smith indexes. I believe NBTHK sees Yamato influence in this, thus they put it towards Senjuin (as they generally do to unknown Yamato smiths). I see this as an amazing sword but unfortunately far above my collecting level.

I would think it could be an unknown Yasumitsu (安光) smith from the late 1500's. This particular Yasumitsu signature is quite rare character combination, and I personally don't see any of the known Yasumitsu smiths in smith indexes as a plausible option for this sword.

Michael you know me too well I think pictures by you and Uwe kind of hit the point that I was after. Some of the Awataguchi blades are just amazing quality. I still remember seeing the famous Nakigitsune at Tokyo National Museum 7 years ago, spectacular sword. Then on the contrary I have seen the Kuniyasu tachi that NBTHK owns now 2 years in a row and I don't like that one too much. Then again Futarasan-jinja has a splendid tachi by quite unknown Awataguchi smith Kunisada. And this summer at Kawagoe meeting there was a very refined mumei Awataguchi ken for viewing, granted I might not have guessed Awataguchi but extremely refined hada was first thing that I remember. Definately not my type of item in general but I can understand the prestige and why people judge such worksmanship so highly. I think there can be also wide range in the work of even the top smiths. I remember seeing the Nabeshima Tōshirō this year and it is very refined work. However in 2023 I got to see Hakata Tōshirō at Tokyo National Museum and to be honest without having the signature and description I would not had guessed Awataguchi on that one. Funny thing is they are items 47 & 48 in Swords of Kyoto book.

I am not an art sword connoisseur, so my view will be incorrect when compared to high level collecting. To me that sword is uninspiring and I feel the only reason I see for the price and Jūyō status is that it was attributed to Awataguchi school. It is extremely narrow and tiny tachi with shallow sori, pretty much the opposite that I personally like. Of course that will make my view skewed and also shows my lack of understanding of quality. I do admit I don't understand Awataguchi. I have seen some of the top level Awataguchi in Japanese Museums/Shrines etc. some are absolutely amazing and some are unfortunately not that great in my personal opinion. I believe part is due to my lack on understanding of miniature details as that is personally not that interesting to me. It might be slightly different if seen this Jūyō 28 sword in person but seeing it in person wouldn't alter my feelings about not liking the size and shape of the sword, and for me they are the most valuable criteria for the sword. For mumei swords I personally want to think if I like the sword regardless of the attribution. Unfortunately for many top school attributions I am not liking the blades as much as I should. I would be much happier with a tachi or katana from much "weaker" school that is to my liking than owning an item I don't like just because it has prestige in attribution.

Huge thanks @Iekatsu Thomas, that was exactly what I was looking for. The blog post was great in overall. I was not able to find any 1500's tsuba in my sources just few right at the beginning of 1600. @GRC That idea about open accessible data is amazing and I hope it will catch on. I am always supporting open research. I think one thing about NBTHK is that it is mainly for people living in Japan. I am a long time member and with unfortunately very limited Japanese language skill having contact with headquarters is very difficult. I do believe it is possible to ask questions when picking up your item after shinsa results. Now currently there is just huge flood of dealers sending in items due to NBTHK papers having so much market influence. And the vast majority of international people send the items to shinsa through agents so the item owner will not be there in person to ask the questions.This summer I was having some questions at NBTHK offices (nothing shinsa related) at headquarters and due to my limited Japanese I only got about 20% of info I was after. However I remember there was an older gentleman with a sword discussing about it with the staff. Of course I needed to focus on making somewhat reasonable questions in limited Japanese supported by English... But I believe asking questions about specific items in person is possible.

Huge thank you for posting this @treverorum GJ. It is extremely unfortunate that you came across this as a new collector but I am really happy you decided to post this information. I have looked at tens of thousands of NBTHK papers while doing my research and this is probably the first altered one I have seen (although I only track very old swords and not Edo period stuff). You can actually verify the papers from NBTHK, however for us international people it is actually very difficult. Even as a long time NBTHK member I feel NBTHK is extremely hard to contact if you live outside of Japan, and are with limited Japanese language skills. I think contacting NBTHK European Branch would be one way but I believe many of their members read the forum, so info might already have reached them. About the forged NBTHK papers. You can see in the original NBTHK has put down a long blank space which identify that there are several unreadable characters. Now the forger has erased that and added on the false kinzōgan-mei. NBTHK will of course have papers featuring both mei & kinzōgan-mei on the same sword if they are present. However in that case NBTHK will add (金象嵌) kinzōgan in brackets before the gold inlaid signature. In the forgery that is missing, I believe they might have just missed it or just ran out of paper as they couldn't add extra line due to altering old excisting paper. While I can't be of much assistance with Shinshintō items, if you need some help or information with items pre-Mid Muromachi period I will be happy to help on those as I have extensive library and data gathered on those.

This particular katana was 3rd of 5 kantei blades at NBTHK headquarters on 14.2.2009. It was featured in Tōken Bijutsu 626 as they have a write up on their monthly kantei blades that were featured in study session at headquarters. What is funny coincidence is that I have this particular magazine noted down as it features an article about Nanbokuchō period ōdachi. I also remember looking up Yasuhiro as potential answer for one of the NBTHK monthly magazine kantei some time ago, however went with another answer for that kantei. That is why I now looked up Yasuhiro when seeing the hamon. In honesty I am pretty clueless on Shintō and Shinshintō swords. I think it could have been any Ishidō variant and I would have been understanding it. Pretty much all my data is focused on Heian to Early-midish Muromachi, and these later works are lot of guessing on my part. So for me on this just few lucky things combined narrowed down my guessed general direction.

@NewB Unfortunately I have no clue about that number. It can still be fairly large. Also I see no reason why Tokyo National Museum, Tokugawa Art Museum, Imperial Collection etc. would send their Masamune to NBTHK for papering. So lots of the non-NBTHK blades can never be acquired as museum/shrines etc. have them in their collection. There are also historical Masamune that are not seen as Masamune by NBTHK. I know a forum member has one such sword but I will keep info on that private. Because Masamune has extremely few signed pieces then opinions can vary on some of the mumei blades.

I would guess Bitchū no Kami Yasuhiro (備中守康広). I would agree on what Jacques mentioned about Kantei on other thread. I am not really doing kantei in traditional way as it should be done. I lack skill in that. However I consider myself good in researching stuff and I use that skill instead of proper kantei. Therefore my style is just research instead of actual knowledge.

There are actually surprising amount of Masamune swords still remaining to this day. Currently I have info on 113 Masamune + there are 3 Jūyō ones I don't yet have info on, So at least 116 in total. Out of those the majority are either National ranked (Kokuhō, Jūyō Bunkazai) or NBTHK ranked. There are 37 Masamune that are outside those rankings. However I believe the majority of these will never be submitted to NBTHK for several reasons, and I perfectly understand not sending them as NBTHK appraisal wouldn't make a difference to me. There can also be a "downgrading" by NBTHK. This actually happened to Yasukuni-jinja ultra wide wakizashi that was a historical Masamune. Now it is Tokubetsu Jūyō but attributed to Tomomitsu by NBTHK. I have heard about few Tokubetsu Hozon Masamune but I have not been privileged to see a picture or get any info on them, as they are most likely reserved to people who study and collect Masamune at very high level. Cannot confirm that in any way but as there are Masamune popping up at Jūyō and these recent(ish) ones have been new to me, so there are most likely some more unknown Masamune blades that have passed NBTHK shinsa at lower level.

Here is one question as I am not a tsuba guy, what are the oldest dated tsuba? By this I mean tsuba with nengō, so if the date signature is judged legitimate then the age should be proven. I was going through the wonderful (non-tsuba) references I have and managed to find few interesting ones.

I do believe there are still thousands of items that should eventually pass the coveted Jūyō shinsa. As you can see 600+ swords were sent to this session, so there is steady flow of items coming in to try. I am personally not a fan of NBTHK's several tiers of submissions, even though I understand the system a bit. Currently I believe around 120,000+ swords have passed Hozon shinsa and 75,000+ swords have passed Tokubetsu Hozon shinsa. These are just NBTHK numbers there are also lots and lots of awesome items in Japan that will most likely not be appraised by NBTHK. I would love to be a fly on the wall and see all of the swords that were sent in order to try understand the bigger picture. I can't really figure out the game as sometimes it just seems weird that some passes are absent from some sessions while they are abundant in general and vice versa, some passes came in unexpected bunches. For example I was looking at signed Samonji tantō as there were 2 passing this session 70. There seems to be weird intervals when I look from sessions 30-70. In 31,32,33 - 3 of them passed. In session 41 - 1 passed. 49 & 50 have 4 passes, 58,59,60 - 4 passes. Now in 70 there were 2 passes. This can be just total coincidence but it seems like there are signed Samonji passes c. every 10 years and then it is silent again in between. Still I feel it is crazy to look at the data. Then some things you can usually take for granted is things like a Norishige or 2,3,4 passing. From 50 to 70 the session 56 is only one where a Norishige didn't pass. Within just these sessions 41 Norishige blades have passed. However there must be a lot of competition for Norishige as many of them get probably submitted to every session. However there are always the fresh air in form of super unknown smith, and I personally love that. For example the Bingo Kanetsugu is extreme rarity, I believe this sword is actually Okayama Prefecture Bunkazai that has now passed through NBTHK, it would be too much of coincidence to have exactly the same sized sword signed and dated to same year by very unknown smith. Here is the link to Prefecture Bunkazai: https://www.pref.oka...ttachment/261317.pdf Unfortunately I do not yet have picture of this, but when book 70 will be published I aim to get it. Bingo Shigetoshi seems to be another rarity, so far I haven't been able to find any item of his. Extremely important that items like these pass so they will be documented vs. sword being the 56th mumei Shizu katana that passed Jūyō. I know I am biased in my view and I understand some mumei ō-suriage items are of extremely high quality. Now it seems this is actually a first Jūyō session where a single Ichimonji did not pass bit mindblowing fact for myself.

There were some great posts there above relating history and terminology. Naginata are one of my greatest interests and I have gathered a lot of data on them. As said above Nagato-Sa is very rare attribution, and to this date I have not found a naginata or naoshi that would be made or attributed to Nagato-Sa smiths or school. I believe I only have 1 surviving mumei naginata from entire Sa school, and it is mumei with smith attribution. For naoshi blades there are some with attribution towards specifics smiths but most common attribution for naoshi of Sa school is just Sue-Sa 末左 (Late Sa) (however the use of Sue-Sa can differ). Naginata-naoshi attributions tend to often bit bit grouped up, some schools get naoshi attributed towards them much easier. There are wonderful historical naginata surviving at various shrines in Japan as well as some other museums etc. I have been focusing my travels to be able to see several of them. There is actually a lot of variance in naginata throughout the historical periods, as well even within the period. For example during the same time period you can find smaller petite naginata as well as massive monster sized naginata. The size of blade also affected on the shaft length however unfortunately I am not a martial artist so I cannot say anything deep in that field. There is also a lot of variance in the blade shape, I believe this is what is often seen when discussing nagamaki-naoshi vs. naginata-naoshi. I currently always use the term naginata-naoshi for the blade. Still I understand the the wide swordlike naginata blades with very small curvature are referred as nagamaki-naoshi by some. Here is an example of various long naoshi with very swordlike blades from a presentation I held some time ago. I am not good with gender politics but I would assume for old pre-Edo naginata I wouldn't think stuff like that, just that they were battlefield weapons. I don't see genders being an issue at all. I would believe women who used and practiced naginata would have had strength to wield one without any issues. I think only some of the most massive Kamakura,Nanbokuchō and Muromachi period monster naginata would have been too massive for average strength person (even men included). I am aware of few naginata that have provenance to various Princesses in Japan. I actually saw one of them in 2023, the blade is actually decent sized naginata 51,5 cm blade and 57,0 cm nakago and it is attributed to Middle Kamakura smith Bizen Saburō Kunimune. Naginata in general were quite useless during Edo period as they were in my eyes battlefield weapons. Similar to ōdachi they had no place in peaceful Edo period. We are lucky some of them have survived in shrines and other places to this day.

I refrain answering due to knowing that exact sword. However I must say that just looking at the hamon I would have been in totally incorrect location but pretty much correct time.

NBTHK released the Jūyō 70 results today on their website: https://www.touken.or.jp/Portals/0/pdf/shinsa/第70回重要刀剣等指定品発表.pdf I had fun time after work going through it like always. I did the yearly translation to western alphabets like I do every year. This features all the 91 items passed, doing the fittings is getting easier as I do have all the previous Jūyō results to tackle the fitting makers I do not know. There might be a fitting guy or 2 in there that I still have incorrectly. It is always good to go over the old results too and fix the errors I have made. For example I found out I had 戸張富久 Tobari Tomihisa incorrectly in previous session, to be honest I had no clue at all about this maker but finding a tsuba by him from Iidakoendo I must admit the work is spectacular to my eye. After going through the results I can say I am just very puzzled... I know my own personal valuation criteria are most likely different than NBTHK has for their Jūyō shinsa. I am stunned by the lack of Bizen items in total - 5. In comparison to me it seems crazy that 5 items from Rai school passed. Also what was noticeable to me was the lack of signed tachi in general (2 tachi & 1 kodachi, 3 in total). Also to be noted koshirae and fittings are very high in number compared to their usual amount vs. swords. Juyo 70.pdf

Paul Martin always gives out great interviews. However I do think Japan as a high cost of living country has the problem where it is tough to make it in crafts profession, as you can get crafts from low cost of living countries for lot cheaper. Swordsmiths here in Finland face similar problem, they will have to price their work quite high in order to make a living. However the consumer can get the sword from Eastern Europe, China, India etc. for much lower cost. I am not sure how much demand there is for new modern swords in Japan? In the modern world swords don't break that often and martial arts practicioners who use swords are quite small group. And there are the second hand modern swords that can get passed down and resold.

Unfortunately I won't be shopping at Jūyō level and perhaps never will. I have however collected the majority of the Jūyō books. I would assume collectors would desire the early Jūyō items and it has been often stated to be wary of 2X sessions. However I don't judge the items by sessions they passed. There are awesome items and maybe not so desirable items in every Jūyō session. Even 23 and 24, that are often seen as "weak" sessions due to massive amount of items passing in them, have lots of amazing items. I think for mumei blades attribution is the factor that carries the most weight. I personally find it hard to grasp how much the attribution sometimes can affect the value in some cases.

Those are very good points Steve. I must admit I have been surprised how difficult it is to find original uchigatana koshirae even from late Muromachi era that are intact. There are so many tachi koshirae even from Kamakura and Nanbokuchō periods that have remained in original form. The Tokyo National Museum Uchigatana-goshirae book would agree with you guys that the style of sukashi tsuba that is the topic of this discussion would emerge at the end of Muromachi period. I think the oldest intact koshirae with sukashi tsuba that I have found so far are following famous koshirae Akechi-goshirae (by old tradition was worn by Akechi Mitsuhide or Akechi Mitsuharu who both perished in 1582, however in Tokyo National Museum book it is written that there is no 100% evidence of the historical ownership). The tsuba is identified as Owari-sukashi. This famous daishō that was owned by Toyotomi Hideyoshi has extremely rare very decorated early sukashi tsuba. While again maybe going a bit off again with my love for ōdachi, Tsurugaoka Hachimangū has 2 ōdachi and 1 tachi that were all dedicated to the shrine in 1538 by Hōjō Ujitsuna, and all in their original koshirae. I visited the Hachimangū in 2023 but unfortunately none of these swords were on display then (but I was lucky to see their largest ōdachi). I have 2 books of the swords of Tsurugaoka Hachimangū but unfortunately neither of the books have a side view of the tsuba. However trying to look at the pictures closely on the second book I would assume at least the one with only wood remaining on tsuka has a sukashi tsuba.

Thanks Arnaud! I do believe these tsuba types were quite common for old battlefield ōdachi and tachi as there are several surviving koshirae from Nanbokuchō and early Muromachi period that feature these at various shrines in Japan. I think I am just bit puzzled about the developments in tsuba as there seems to be few conflicting theories. And there can be lots of difference in dating for some tsuba as has been already evidenced in this thread.

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.