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To help keep separated another post for the second blade, also a Wakizashi. It is remarkable shorter than the first one at 49,6 cm total length and 37,4 cm cutting length. It is not signed. The Koshirae is pretty simple (though I really LOVE that duotone Habaki! Very cool combination which I had not seen before). Please forgive me the cat hair on the kissaki area, noticed it after the pics were taken. Same question on this one, but since unsigned of course I would appreciate any guesses on period and maker as well as on potential value and simply anything else you could tell me on it. Thanks!

Unfortunately prior to Christmas a very dear friend of mine passed away. He was a (retired) gunsmith, the most honest person I had ever encountered in this business. I'm deeply missing him. For what he meant to me I told his son if I can be of any assistance he should ask me. While the family now cleared his workplace where he still drove nearly every day for a few hours just to be kept busy they called me and asked me if I can take a look at various items. Among the items that turned up were two Japanese Wakizashi, both in Koshirae. They are looking to sell these items and I know they surely will not be worth a lot, but I would appreciate any input on them. The first blade is the "longer" wakizashi with an overall blade length of 78,8 cm, cutting length 63,4 cm. It becomes noticeable thinner towards the kissaki (many previous polishes?). The Koshirae is quite unusual in it seems that nearly everything is wrapped in something that almost looks like snake or crocodile skin, including the Tsuba. Menuki appears to be an octopus? There is a signature on the nakago which unfortunately quite obviously has been rather crudely got cleaned. The signature is not very strong, so having a tough time with it. I would appreciate input on this blade, especially on what the signature reads (plus any potential information on the maker), to approx. when this blade dates and (more for personal interest) what the Koshirae is wrapped in, since I cannot recall seeing one like this before. Finally, any input on its value would also be appreciated.

Thanks for confirming my suspicion @Ray Singer! If not too much, would you mind elaborating what the documents are that come with the blade?

I'd kindly request opinions on the attached shown Wakizashi that to my best knowledge is signed "hizen no kuni mutsu no kami tadayoshi", but I do not feel able to tell whether gimei (my personal guess) or if original. Since it is accompanied by various papers as well of which I honestly have no idea what they are I'd also appreciate any input on what those are and maybe even what they are saying. Thanks in advance!

Considering what someone not into nihonto might understand by this sentence kept me laughing way more than it should! Looking forward to what your oil based cleaning can come up with. Keep us posted!

Hammer price was $ 85,000. The price listed above includes BP.

Robert, for a small fee Markus Sesko offers a full translation service for NBHTK certificates which comes to you as a PDF file that you can print and keep along with the certificate. This way you will not have to search for this thread in years and puzzle back the individual portions. Especially since we are talking on a Juyo blade I think it should be worth it. I'm sure he'd do the sayagaki as well.

It seems to me that the white balance is incorrect since your picture has lots of red in it. Make sure to have the correct setting and then re-take them; when reworking avoid using settings such as "auto tone" or "auto color". Additionally the outer border where the "black part" begins is extremely sharp, especially when looking at it in full resolution. The therefore extreme contrast from a white pixel whereas the next is dark and not even where it "jumps back a pixel in the row below" (tough to express things like that when not a native English speaker, I hope you nevertheless understand what I mean!) there is a single pixel that tries to smoothen this contrast, it simply looks like done in minecraft when looking at it in detail. I highlighted some of the later mentioned details in the attached picture, maybe this makes it easier to understand. You might also try experimenting with HDR pictures, especially since it anyway is a still picture.

Not my fingerprints since I did not touch any of the bare metal - didn't see them in person, otherwise would had wiped it though. Thanks for the translation of the tsuba signature! So this one is muromachi period?

Has anyone ever seen such a "dark line" within the blade before? Any possible explanation for this? Thanks for the translation @Toryu2020 - is this the full signature or do you think a part has been cut off? And which period does it date to?

@Geraint, once more thanks for the help! I missed to measure all blades individually, might be doing this next time. I was limited in time and during taking the blades apart and doing pictures the phone rang like every 5 minutes as well. Had not even had enough time to enjoy the blades myself! Noticed right now that I seemed to have missed to take an overall picture of this blade at all - damn, I should had done better.

@Grey Doffin, thanks for the translation! Would you mind telling me which Masatoshi this is? I got several results for smiths with this name, hence my question. @Geraint, the koshirae is very cool to look at, especially since additionally painted on. Re the length, for what I remember this one was slightly above 30cm, so very short.

Thanks for the feedback! Does anyone have an idea on the smith/can help with translation? @Bruce Pennington, I can at least tell from handling it that it really looked great for a WWII blade!

Last pictures for this blade and also last pictures of this collection.

Tsuba pictures are always of a larger file size, hence less pictures in this post.

Finally feel very sorry for having posted so much threads .. well, this now is the last thread! I think he had a passion for koshirae where the saya has red color on it since this one falls also into this scheme. This one here had an oddity which was tough to picture and the reason why I took so many pictures - having it in hands it seems there really is something black in the blade, right at the hamon. This is best visible in picture 13, 18 and 19 (will be later picture posts). This is how it really appears when having it in hands. It appears to have a bit of a signature on the very bottom which might had been (partially?) lost over the time.

Last two pictures attached which are basically closeup of the signature on the tang.

Tsuba is unsigned, but the blade has a signature on it. I'm also very keen to hear who made this blade!

This one is a very interesting blade to look at in person. It has a hamon which appeared flamboyant to my amateur eye. This was tough to picture using a mobile phone on a table only having the light through the windows, but I hope it is at least a bit visible in the pictures. This one was extremely heavy to handle, especially in comparison to the others. I really liked this one a lot. There is one bad though, the top mekugi ana seems to be drilled and I thought it was made to make it fit to the koshirae.

Couldn't fit the last one so a separate post. Sorry.

These here show the tsuba and the tang.

I already have a bad feeling for "spamming" this forum section, so please forgive me if I post all of the six blades individually. Knowing little to nothing (and that is even more than the owner knows!) I however had hoped to get more help in here. This one is unsigned and has a rather straight hamon. The Tsuba though has a signature on it - sorry if I pictured it upside down.

Well, it seems that I really liked this one very much since I took so many pictures of it that I have to do three posts to include all of them.

Additional pictures. Very keen to learn on what the signature on this one reads!

This one was very special to me. Not only the Koshirae was wonderful to look at with carps as an overall theme, but I also highly enjoyed the naginata shape with the hi.