Jussi Ekholm

I know that there seems to be some debate on it. But NBTHK has described wakizashi with similar tips as shobu-zukuri. I'm thinking I see high shinogi & thinner kasane, and I'm not sure if I see kaeri or if it's just something else. Of course I might see completely wrong.

I might be totally wrong with this but sometimes as a novice you have to ask stupid questions in order to learn. Could this be shobu-zukuri wakizashi?

Very nice to get some discussion about this. Here you can see the crossections as whole on Ted's site: http://www.legacyswords.com/fs_misc10.htm I sent him an email some months ago asking if he'd still have a lecture handouts leftover from the event. There is a 4 page article about these cross sections on Bushido magazine Vol 2 No 3. (The main reason why I bought the magazines ). I believe Jacques D. has provided few pics of the article some time ago, and that peaked my intrest on it. Ted's cross section number 17-18 is to my understaning Bizen Kiyomitsu which has complex variation of makuri lamination, it's discussed in Bushido magazine article along with other examples. Unfortunately I do not have information about the origins of the chart I posted earlier. I have seen it on couple Japanese blogs if I remember correctly. If I understood correctly professor Eiji Yamasue from Kyoto University was speaking about the properties and uses for tatara steel, so I believe he was the one who had chosen this chart for his lecture. But many of the more basic types are found on many books on Japanese swords. For Mino blades in particular Malcolm E Cox - Mino-to discusses the construction of Mino swords briefly. There is a lot of information about various methods in The Sword and The Same, including one method which ends with the phrase "This method was favored by Masamune and his followers of the Soshu school". Also continued "Needless to say such process was extremely slow and costly. Moreover it was necessary to exercise the greatest care in keeping the surfaces free from grease, dirt, slag or other foreign materials which might prevent the integral welding of the layers and produce flaws in the finished blade." But if I understand the book correctly, Masamune and Soshu followers made mukugitae blades from steel only without added iron. But the steel plates they welded together had different carbon percentages. Piece folded in 2 is first done up to fifteen times, then 4 similarly folded pieces are welded together and the whole piece is further folded up to 5 times. So in book it's calculated that there would be 4,194,304 layers. I do not have read descriptions about construction used by Masamune anywhere else. I don't know if the method described in the book is totally made up or real, but there is a star * with description the above has been adapted from Masahide's book. On the Origins of Nihonto by Carlo Tacchini has excellent part about construction. Also Ohmura's site has so much information: http://ohmura-study.net/243.html Also just found this intresting picture when searching with Google.

Not sure if this intrests anyone, but I thought I'd post this here. There was a collaboration of Couple universties in Finland, Finnish knifemakers guild and Universities of Kyoto & Tokyo Arts labeled as International seminar on Art and Technology of Pre-modern Ironmaking and Blacksmithing in Japan and Finland. Unfortunately I was not able to attend this event, as it would most likely have been awesome. Hearing the lectures and seeing the tatara. However I was able to find lecture dias from the Universitys website. And I'll share one of them here as it will be great for discussing the various construction methods. Feels funny as I think myself being quite far from being an engineer, yet I do have great intrest in stuff like this. Here are my translations of them, please make corrections if I made mistakes. Upper row 1. Hachimai awase 2. Sanmai awase 3. Wariha Tetsu 4. Muku Middle row 5. Hizen Tadayoshi 6. Bizen Sukenaga 7. Nobukuni 8. Shihozume awase 9. Kyumai awase 10. Gomai awase 11. Makuri Lower row 12. Kongobyoe Moritaka 13. Bizen Kagemitsu 14. Bizen Harumitsu 15. Seki Kanemitsu 16. Hon sanmai 17. Shichimai awase 18. Kobuse Unfortunately I missed the lecture, would have been great to hear more about this dia. I've seen the construction for Nobukuni earlier and it puzzled me a bit, but Kongobyoe construction was something new for me, and very intresting, as I have developed a small liking for that school. Also Kagemitsu and Harumitsu cross-sections are intresting.

There was Kanefusa Odachi sold by Aoi-Art recently, unfortunately it's not on their site anymore but you can PM me if you'd like more info on it. Late Muromachi sword, 110,5 cm nagasa, ubu nakago. Spectacular sword, as I'm a fan of big swords it instantly won me over. If I remember correctly it sold for c. 1,7M Yen. Aoi-Art sold last year Odachi that was made 2009 by Akamatsu Taro Kanetsugu (Kanesada Kimura). 102,7 cm nagasa, in koshirae, had very intresting koshirae with kurikata and sayamaki. Price was 800K Yen. If someone has information about a book specifically focused on Odachi/nodachi, I'd love to know too. There are good bits of information scattered throughout many books.

Awesome news Carlo, your essay is amazing and it has taught so much to me.

I thought this old thread would be appropriate as this is about oshigata as art. I quite recently got some amazing oshigata from forum member Kunitaro, then I got them professionally framed, and today my father helped me in mounting them to walls. The pics do not do justice to these, they are amazing when viewed in person. Over my Japanese sword rack Over my computer Just wanted to share these, great study pieces and great art pieces at the same time.

Amazing job Brian, this is sounding great. Gabriel, I can do the SBG announcing too as I'm quite active poster there :D. But possibly the age structure & intrests there might not be the ideal for this project. But spreading the word is the best thing to do, and who knows there might pop up intrested folks in unexpected places. But for many spending that much on books might sound crazy. Like you I have bit little faith in members of other sword forums being intrested in this project but I might be totally wrong about it. And given the poll of this thread on a forum which specializes in this field shows how hard it is to get folks involved on this. Kickstarter is a great idea, and I'll try my best to recruit intrested folks in when the time comes. Did I count the poll correctly that we would be on 70 orders now, so we would need 80 more?

Very intresting discussion. As I personally like strong curvature in swords, sori has been one detail I've eyed a lot. With my limited knowledge I can only advice towards books. Sano museum exhibition that Chris Bowen mentioned must have been wondeful, as I've greatly enjoyed the catalog. I would also recommend pages 259-450 of Yamanaka Newsletters book 2 (of the 4 book version), they include An Introductory History of the Japanese Sword and Identification of Nihonto through shape. My favorite parts of the books. Excellent info on the sori can be found in these pages. Also descriptions who preferred to make strong sori and who preferred shallow, some didn't make swords like the general "ideal" sugata of the certain time period. Here are some descriptions about sori of various Kamakura era schools/smiths. Ko-mihara: Tachi made in torii zori, though it has a slight "feeling" of having koshi zori. Ugai Unji: The Tachi shape is made very firm and it has the sori accentuated towards the kissaki. Osafune Sanenaga: Tachi is made with shallow sori and the width is made narrow. Fukuoka Ichimonji school smiths Nobufusa and Nobukane made tachi in the shape of Ko Ichimonji, that is in the style of Heian Period with very high graceful sori with the mihaba not wide. In history part true Bizen tradition blades are mentioned being koroai (just right), shape is never too curved. Length of the blade being 2 shaku 7-8 sun or little over with strong koshizori and with much fumbari. So in those above there are koshi, torii and slight sakizori all within Kamakura era blades. One thing to also consider is the actual amount of curvature, shaku radius. One very helpful leaflet would be W.M. Hawley - Curvature in Japanese Blades which discusses the shaku radius, I made bit longer post about that in this thread: http://nihontomessageboard.com/nmb/view ... &view=next I would agree with Chris Bowen that the smiths knew exactly what they are making. Placement and the amount of sori makes a huge difference on the handling of the sword. I don't draw or swing my nihonto but I've done a lot of that with Chinese made replicas of varying curvature and lengths. One thing that can fool the feeling of sori is nakago sori. Strongly curved nakago will affect greatly on your feel of the sword. I have a Chinese made replica of Kogarasu-maru, it's the same 62,8 cm nagasa and has 1,0 cm sori, deepest point of the curvature is c. 29 cm from the munemachi. I also have a Chinese made replica of Bizen Tomomitsu Odachi, it's over 125 cm nagasa and I drew it from the hip (from my bit improvised tachi rig) to try it out. Of course physical limits apply, and when mounted in manner in which I can draw it from the hip, the saya will drag on ground once the sword is unsheated. Hopefully in the future I'll get to handle a lot of nihonto of varying curvatures instead of mainly replicas. :D Didn't have much useful to add but I liked this discussion and tried to contribute in some way. PS. Jacques posted a pic from this article, and I'll second the recommendation of reading the excellent blog post about Kamakura sword shapes by Markus Sesko: http://markussesko.wordpress.com/2013/0 ... de-shapes/

One thing to consider is the fact that people have various reasons to collect stuff. The most important factor for me is that I enjoy collecting swords. I'm still a newbie nihonto collector, but I think I've gotten through the first phase (wanting to buy everything), as I'm having quite clear vision what I'll be buying in the future, and even very minor things affect on my purchase decisions. However not all collectors will ever want to get into connoisseur style of collecting. They are just happy that they own authentic Japanese sword. I can perfectly understand that philosophy as I collect swords of various cultures. I tend to buy Indo-Persian junk that true collectors of those weapons won't think highly, as I'm saving my money towards nihonto. So I'm actually doing the stuff that was described but I'm doing it with weapons of other culture, of course I do research as much as I can, but I'm buying junk. I enjoy the fact that I'll be getting a real antique sword for very affordable price, and that fills my Indo-Persian collecting need. If those were nihonto of same quality & condition, I wouldn't even consider them but while I do this with other weapons I can understand perfectly how somebody thinks the same way about the Japanese swords. Heck, my first nihonto purchases were done bit hastily as they were on online forums and back then I didn't have that many references. If I hadn't done those first purchases and learnt from the mistakes I did, I could have ended up collecting European swords, or swords by some other culture (well my passion towards Japanese swords would have drawn me into them in every case, but trying to make a comparison here). You have to take that first step sometime, and once you've taken it, you'll start another learning process. Once you do mistakes they will teach you the most. Even though we try to help others not repeating the mistakes we personally have made, they will do some eventually, and it will be great learing process. I've done my share of mistakes, and I'll do more in the future. I agree with Peter that once you have a reason to buy a sword, that's all you need. Granted most of the members of this forum are "hardcore" collectors, there is another breed of casual collectors and both have usually different reasons to buy a sword. For many casual collectors just having a sword is enough, they don't want to know all the details of it or the full history behind it. Lately I've noticed I sometimes envy the casual collecting mindset. It's just so relaxed, as you don't have such high standards. Age and the maturity of the new collector are also important factors. I started collecting swords at very young age. As a kid you can't handle the critique very well, as you are not mature enough to understand the wisdom behind it. And therefore I personally don't want to give harsh critique as I know how important own swords are to a person, lots of critique will put the person in defensive mode. Light and constructive critique is ok, and it helps in understanding. Very good advices in this thread though, my post was more about different collectors, as Brian said it well that many newbies will evolve into serious collectors.

I can try to help a bit, but my help will be only partial, and it will need much more clearing by experienced people. I have first seen that picture around 2005, and around the net it's usually referred as being a koshirae that Musashi used. Here you can see a pic of one Musashi koshirae, pic from Zusetsu Nihonto Yogo Jiten. I was able to find this picture, which is from some book, and you can see it says Musashi koshirae. Here is the blog post which had the picture: http://ameblo.jp/rokurokusanjin/entry-11328900973.html I'm unfortunately limited in my Japanese reading, and translator programs always leave me scratching my head almost as much I did before. So hopefully someone can provide rest of the help. Markus Sesko's koshirae book gives following description about Musashi koshirae "The term Musashi-koshirae is ambigious. It can be applied to sword mounting from the possession of Miyamoto Musashi and those which were made later and modelled after the original(s)."

You will want to get Nihonto Koza Koto III. Pages 65 - 96 will feature information about Nagato area smiths. Pages 1 - 96 will feature information about Chikuzen & Nagato. Sa lived in Nagato Toyoura from around Shitoku (1384-1387) to Oei (1394-1428) Akikuni around Oei (1394-1428) Akiyoshi around Oei (1394-1428) and Shocho (1428-1429) Yukitoshi no comment Akinaga around Kakitsu (1441-1444) Another version of family tree has a lot more names. There is more information and explanation about the 2 variances in the book. But it's a middle of the night here so I don't have time for proper write up. Yasuyoshi around Kenmu (1334-1336) Akikuni around Jowa (1345-1350) Akikuni around Oei (1394-1428) Akiyoshi around Eitoku (1381-1384) Akinaga around Ekikyo (1429-1441) Yasuyuki Kakunaga Akiyoshi around Oei (1394-1428) Nobushige Shigekuni Yukikuni Iekuni Yukitoshi around Oan (1368-1375) Yukiaki Yukisuke Nagahiro I recommend getting a copy of the book as there is a lot of information about the Nagato smiths, alongside with oshigata & some pictures.

One very helpful leaflet would be W.M. Hawley - Curvature in Japanese Blades. The shaku radius calculations on it are extremely helpful. 900 Juyo blades were used as basis and there is a school chart listed with average shaku radius. The formula for calculating shaku radius is A= blade length in shaku,sun,bu B= sori in shaku,sun,bu AxA ---- 8xB Under 9 shaku - Deep curve 9 - 12 shaku - Medium curve 12 - 16 shaku - Slight curve 16 - 20 shaku - Almost straight Over 20 shaku - Very straight I currently have only 2 blades I can calculate. My Sue-Bizen blade has 5.8 shaku radius so it's extremely curved. My Nambokucho tachi has 10,3 shaku radius so it's quite curved. Oei Bizen (9.4) and Sue-Bizen (9.6) have the deepest average curvature in the chart. Deepest shaku radius in the chart is one Sue-Bizen blade at 4.8, slightest curvature is by one Masahide pupil at 34. By quick eyeing the chart most Koto schools average around 10-12.5 while Shinto schools seem to average around 13-16. Of course there are expections to these guidelines.

I have to agree with John. I also have the BoD set and I'm very happy with it. And similarily the high quality was the thing that drew me to this project, of course we still haven't the consensus what high quality will contain. I would be up for super high end quality print that would give Markus good profit and be sold at high price. This would be like book collectors edition, but I understand very few would sign up for a book like this. I had my skeptism for 100$ set being possible, as there will be expenses, and as it appears it will be quite hard to accomplish. And I still think that even the BoD version of your book is a bargain for all the information it contains. For 260€ you get a ton of very valuable information. I don't think anyone could be mad for you lowering the price Markus. After all the work you have put in the book, you deserve to sell as many of these you can in this small market. I'm just kinda puzzled that people don't want to invest in this great reference. If the Lulu option (which in my mind might be very wise option) is chosen, then there would not be need for middlemen in countries as Lulu provides affordable shipping all over the world. I've ordered Markus's other books through Lulu and I remember the shipping costs being quite low.

Like Alex posted earlier this is the basic data I would like to see about a sword. Nagasa: Nakago: Motohaba: Sakihaba: Motokasane: Sakikasane: Sori: And if possible weights, bare blade and in koshirae (if it has). That numerical information will give me much information, and you can easily compare it in your mind to other swords.

What I've read in books says that Jigen ryu influenced both udenuki ana and shape of kaerizuno. Satsuma koshirae seem to have unique shaped kaerizuno, which I've read is due to rough and fast draws of Jigen ryu. Also the kurikata is special in Satsuma koshirae. Kaerizuno was shaped like so in Satsuma due to Jigen ryu draws that drew the whole saya out of obi. Udenuki ana were there due to Jigen ryu practice of tying the sword up so it could not be used too hastily and unnecessarily.

I originally said I would sign up for 5 copies for Finnish collectors, and we are having a Finnish nihonto meeting next weekend. I will bring Markus's Smith Index there so Finnish collectors can see the book, I bet many aren't even aware of it. After that I can say how many books we might order to Finland. I'll definately buy 2 for myself and maybe one extra to sell later on someone locally, but after hearing how many are intrested I can confirm some amount of books. I think Chris's idea about NBTHK European and US branchs involving is great. As I see a lot of difficulties, and Grey already addressed some of them. I would personally want to know an approximation of shipping costs for 5 sets to Finland (or even for 1 set), I would need it in order to calculate VAT per set + adding the possible shipping costs inside Finland. So I would have some kind of actual price that I could say to those who are intrested. I just browsed through my old US book purchase receipts and I roughly calculated that 2 sets might be 75$ shipping cost to Finland, one set would probably be around 40-50$. I'm sure 5 sets won't be 5X40$ but it'll surely be expensive as it will be so heavy. Now if NBTHK Europe would handle the shipping & VAT, I think we Europeans would save a lot as shipping big bulks within Europe is a lot cheaper than shipping overseas. I still think it's a great idea to offer this excellent book as low priced high quality copy.

Welcome Reggie. I would think that Takashi Iiyama who is a professional tsukamakishi and goes by the name kensen at http://www.thejapanesesword.com/forum/index.php could probably shed light on your question. In this topic he slightly touches ganpi maki while the topic is about cotton ito. http://www.thejapanesesword.com/forum/v ... f=29&t=144 Thomas Buck's tsukamaki book has 2 styles of ganpi maki listed. As far as I know ganpi is a vegetable which was made to paper in Japan. Ganpi kigami maki is done with two strips of paper and resembles like a kumiage maki. The paper can be given a surface work which gives a nice texture to it and it can often be mistaken for lacquered leather, as the paper maki has to go through heavy lacquering process. The book lists also kigami ganpi maki, which is like regular hineri maki but made in paper. The very complicated lacquering process is described a bit here.

Well as I've done some nightly reading I thought I should add to this thread some excellent general information found in the Koto-kantei book. There is a lot more info in that book regarding katate-uchi, I'll just quote a small bit. A small checklist would include: Blade length roughly between 1 shaku 8 sun to 2 shaku 2 sun Short to fairly short nakago Mihaba with little tapering Sakizori

Are you looking some specific information or general information on them? As you've noticed information in English on them is pretty scarce online. The couple threads on this forum and Shibui Swords are pretty much the only ones I'm aware of. However I have intrest of this type and have some literary sources which contain information about katate-uchi in English. You will want to check Koto-kantei by Markus Sesko, also Nihonto Koza and Yamanaka Newsletters. If you have some specific questions in mind I could try to seek the info from my books, but if it's general information you seek I can't help but to provide those above sources for your study.

Well I've been doing some small scale studying of Tensho koshirae bit by accident. On many days I've found myself looking at the pictures again and again. I've found the Uchigatana no Koshirae book being a fountain of knowledge in form of high quality pictures and koshirae book by Markus offers literal help, along with this thread and few other book & Internet resources. So much great information on this thread and I'll ask again few questions, along with bit of text for discussion. About the pictures Jacques posted earlier in this page I would say none of them are Tensho koshirae, and I'll give my reasoning, more experienced please correct if I'm wrong. 1st pic Juyo Bunkasai daisho is actually Momoyama koshirae, made in flamboyant style typical to this style. The daisho is number 36 in Uchigatana no Koshirae and number 54-55. in Kanzan Sato's book The Japanese Sword. On one Japanese book it's described as Unryu makie shuzaya daisho. 3rd pic daisho is Banzashi-daisho, which was evolved due to Tokugawa regulations. This exact example is featured on many koshirae books. I would say 2nd and last pic are not Tensho koshirae, as they lack many typical features that have already been listed here. Then my questions of Tensho koshirae start. I know that Jean mentioned that not all koshirae made during Tensho are Tensho koshirae. I would like to ask about the rarer forms of Tensho koshirae, and how they will classify, of course you can't (nor you should) classify everything in tight boxes but as a novice it helps a lot. I would classify all 3 of these above koshirae as Tensho koshirae, would that be wrong? 1st Gangi-maki example is not the most typical in regards of tsuka but saya seems to be as it is in more traditional Tensho koshirae, or does it indeed pre-date Tensho koshirae? 2nd Akechi koshirae is usually classified as subtype of Tensho koshirae I believe? And 3rd one is more typical Tensho koshirae although the saya color is bit bolder than usual. Then about aikuchi uchigatana koshirae, I would say 1st is Momoyama koshirae, 2nd and 3rd are Tensho koshirae, would that be correct? About the tsukamaki styles used in Tensho koshirae, I believe it's usually tsumami-maki in leather or doeskin and I believe according to Zusetsu Nihonto Yogo Jiten the openings are style of chubishi or nagarebishi. But there are some examples done in different tsukamaki styles. For those intrested in Tensho koshirae, I would recommend Uchigatana no Koshirae by Tokyo National Museum, as it is stunning reference book for period koshirae.

Hoping to score bit under 5k mark, possibly bit over it after the taxes I will have to pay, but most likely I can't afford a purchase this year (hopefully next year). Well as a student this is a lot more than I should spend on swords but you just can't fight the passion. The upside of taking a lot of time to save for a piece is that I make a lot of choosing and studying on the meantime. I currently have a "wishlist" of about 5-6 different swords that I keep an eye out for. Hoping that they will still be around when I have saved enough. Of course during the saving some drop off the list when I find to me more appealing swords. But I agree there are so many good deals to my eyes around, that given the financial opportunity I would immidiately snatch one of those swords in my list. Choosing which one of those I'd actually want would be another tricky thing, so many good swords around.

Well I can't help at identifying it as I know next to nothing on tsuba but I can provide a picture of fairly similar design. And if you look at Skip Holbrook tsuba at Grey's site there is also on quite similar design: http://www.japaneseswordbooksandtsuba.c ... ata-hikozo I kinda like simple designs like this.

Unfortunately, even I knew who would be the seller when reading the OP, and I'm a novice who does not focus on gendaito... I agree with Lee, there are lots of very skilled smiths in China, and their work sells for very little money (apart from the few big names). Some Japanese smiths have been teaching Chinese smiths in the art, and of course skilled artisans can make very good work. Lots of forges in China have recently started to make their own "tamahagane" swords as there is a demand for these in the western market. Some of these are very good based from the pictures (I have not seen one in person as they cost more than I would spend on Chinese made replica), and for some of them they issue their own certifications in China. When the forge says for the smith to sign in traditional manner, he writes the mei like Japanese, I've seen Chinese made custom tamahagane swords being signed for Heisei (and to be honest I was very confused to find a mei that had Japanese name, saku and dated to Heisei, when the sword was made by Chinese forge). When Japanese smiths have taught the skills to good Chinese smiths, it's no wonder we get good Japanese style swords from China too. Of course now the possibility of fresh gimei swords is maybe bit higher. And as the paycheck of an average Chinese smith is very little, yet they are well skilled. I could easily see the good Chinese smiths making some gimei swords. There are good smiths in Japan, Europe, USA, China etc. the only difference is that good smith earns a lot less in China. Like I said the work of the very few top Chinese swordsmiths sell for very high prices, but there are plenty of good smiths who don't get much. Of course the cost of living in these countries is very different but I strongly feel that good Chinese swordsmiths are much underpaid to relation to good smiths in higher cost of living countries. I'm not saying anything on the seller referred in the OP as I do not know him.

Some info can also be found on The Connoisseurs Book of Japanese Sword, and Yamanaka Newsletters provide the most excellent data about sword lenghts in different eras and schools. There are other good books as well. You might also enjoy this article by Alexander Takeuchi (hopelly the link comes out correctly as I type with my phone) http://www.buildingthepride.com/faculty ... of_wak.htm