Vermithrax16

Have the papers translated by Sesko or others and maybe you will have a lead.

While I have not used his services as yet, I can vouch for Kelly as many of my fellow collectors use his service.

Super nice Ed!

Love Ko Uda! Great piece, good luck with sale. Should go quick.

Main theme is rabbit, but the moon rendering on this one is spectacular in hand.

I await Sword Guy Joe's input.

Was this for the July Shinsa? No opinion on the mei, work looks great. Goto mei are not a Friday night type of effort, they take a while

OMG!!!! I would have loved to get #2!!! Congrats to the buyers so far.

Been struggling with #2 and #3 last couple nights. But time to put in my best effort. Eyes are tired from sword study! Been skipping all posts on this thread so not to spoil my effort, but can't wait to post and read what some others have made as attributions! Kantei #1: Late sword, shinshinto. The smith was clearly trying very hard to make a Bizen style work, and did very well. Wildly long nagasa did not really help in my study, but hada work and nakago held more clues. Submission: 7th Gen Unjo Korekazu Kantei #2: Shinto blade and at first pass my thought was Hizen for sure. After more looks, started to waver as the hada is not really what I would call good Hizen hada. After debate I felt the shingane areas coming through argued again for Hizen. Submission: 2nd Gen Kawachi no Kami Masahiro Kantei #3: I am bad aweful at Koto kantei and this one was a black box for me. Early sword, maybe mid-late Nanbokucho? The only thing that registered to me as a hint was it looked like a Rai work, some smith in that line. Submission: Echizen Rai Kuniyasu

I wasn't happy

The one I mentioned above has been relisted for sale by Aoi: http://www.sword-auction.jp/en/content/as15776-%E5%88%80%EF%BC%9A%E7%84%A1%E9%8A%98-%E5%8F%A4%E5%AE%87%E5%A4%9A-katana-mumei-kouda-0

Glad I am a bad influence! Maybe someday you will want to move that Naotane waki, as I have the perfect katana to pair it with

I remember your sword very well Robert. I have high Hope's for the shinsa result. Just my opinion,but the one you bought has better, more active hada work and the hataraki are more varied.

Having just studied the Seijo line for another piece (that I sadly did not land) the later gens did work very much in iron. This to me looks like 4th gen work by the mei but I am not tsuba smart in any way. Places it at mid 1700's or so. Great piece, love it. Hopefully Curran and others will weigh in.

I didn't do a mei comp, but you said it was papered. NBTHK? Strokes are just one way to compare mei, I rely on style, depth, and placement.

Congrats on the new sword! LOVE the case, similar to how I have my setup:

Not well versed in Kunikane works (they rarely come up for sale or study it seems) so I would defer to your judgement. The mei pics are a bit hard to make out so I can't help much with a comparison work set. I agree masame, unless it's very pronounced, can be hard to see in anything but an excellent polish.

Not sure how I missed this post 1st time around but LOVE IT Robin! Well done.

Yes, very overwhelming!

Excellent John!

Great idea and looking forward to this thread!

Thanks StevenK, wish my phone, which does great on sword hada and all the rest, was better for smaller objects.

Sadly my menuki photo skills are miles behind my sword picture skills. They arrived today and really can't get good pics with my camera phone. Best I could do. I don't think these are epic pieces or high end, but they match the tsuba very well and look amazing in hand.

I was unable to find much out on this smith. Here is the tang flipped over to aid in anyone looking to check signature:

Robert, they are shakudo. Patrick, no era is stated on the Hozon paper, but from seller was listed as "Edo" period. I am not good enough with tosogu to estimate age.