Ray Singer

The date is unclear, but may be Enpo 7 (a lucky day in the eight month of 1679).

Heianjo Kuni ___ (suriage)

I believe this zodiac date of Showa hinoe-uma translates as 1966.

It's all down to personal taste. For me, a Tensho koshirae in the style seen in the Uesugi collection (including the Sanchomo koshirae).

Whether the mei is authentic or not, the nakago looks genuinely quite old. I would advise having an evaluation done (and madoake if necessary) to research further.

永延 period Eien gannen hachi gatsu __ (the eight month of the year 987)

Bizen no kuni Kanehira

I'm not sure if I understand your question with regards to treating a katana as a tachi. If you're talking about for example a 70cm o-suriage mumei Kamakura blade, it is a katana (in the eyes of the NBTHK). It was once a tachi and is now a katana, unless it has been placed into tachi koshirae and is being used as a tachi again. Sometimes blades are papered at juyo and above alongside their koshirae, and I believe there are edge cases where the NBTHK wouid call such a blade a tachi when paired at shinsa with its koshirae. However separate from the organization, dealers like to call osuriage mumei koto daito tachi because it helps with marketing their swords (improves sellability, by making the piece sound more desirable). In my opinion you should look at what is written on the papers and use that for the description.

Please share a photo of the papers.

The NBTHK does not generally categorize daito as tachi if they are osuriage mumei, even if they were made at a time before katana were produced. Ie. An o-suriage mumei katana from the Kamakura period would generally be papered as a katana. However, being signed tachi-mei or being ubu from that time period will steer towards categorization as a tachi.

Fujita Akiyoshi.

Type 3 gunto koshirae. http://ohmura-study.net/952.html

By the gendai smith Akiyoshi and dated May 1942

Older than Showa.

This swords keep making the rounds (it has been posted to Reddit, Facebook, etc and I continue to receive inquiries from collectors asking my thoughts). 1. this is a torokusho, a license document and does not authentic the mei in any way. https://www.jssus.or...nese_sword_laws.html 2. the nakago looks very much like one that was o-suriage, and has had a mei added and the nakago reshaped to look like an ubu, Soshu, tanagobara nakago (consistent with what you want to see from a mei of Masahiro) 3. as far as 'susposed to be Tamahagne", yes it is likely that any antique Japanese sword is made predominantly from traditional materials. I would not base a buying decision on that fact, it's simply what it is and you don't need to generally worry about whether traditional materials were used until you start differentiating between WWII era gendaito and showato.

Omi Daijo Fujiwara Tadahiro https://hizento.com/...eration-tadahiro.php

Examples below. https://www.nipponto...swords8/NT332015.htm

備前岡山住國宗 - Bizen Okayama ju Kunimune

Ansei ni nen hachi gatsu hi (a day in the eighth month of 1855)

Kōzuke (no) Kuni Hasebe Yoshishige (上野国長谷部義重)

Omi (no) kami ___ (suriage) I believe the next kanji after Kami is Fuji: https://nihontoclub.com/view/smiths/meisearch?type=All&mei_op=contains&mei=近江守藤

Ishihara Kanenao. https://www.google.c...rome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Perhaps 長州住二王清作 Choshu ju Nio Kiyonari

I recently had the surprise of seeing that the NBTHK is now awarding Tokubetsu Hozon to osuriage mumei Muromachi blades with only a school attribution, not even to a specific smith, so some of the advice that I've given in the past about how high a mumei Muromachi period blade can achieve needs to evolve.

The blade looks like a nice Sue-Bizen tanto with attractive shape. I don't typically recommend investing in restoring mumei Sue-Koto, but I would not completely discount it and it certainly looks too nice to classify only as a tsunagi. Perhaps a madoake is in order, to evaluate the workmanship and health, and decide from there.