Lewis B

You could well be right. I was just going by the descriptions provided in the Sano Museum Catalogue, where they quoted the specifications and some further details about each of the 50 or so blades in the 2002 exhibition. Rather than earliest Kamakura blacksmith, perhaps they should have said the earliest Kamakura blacksmith in the Soshuden style.

I think you've done REALLY well. I would make another thread in the nihonto section for the blade. I'm sure you will get a lot of feedback there. Take a full length photo of the bare blade against a dark background. Is there a signature on tsuba?

Consistency of koshi-bi horimono carving's on dated Shintogo tanto 1293 tanto (earliest dated blade by a Kamakura blacksmith and reason why Shintogo Kunimitsu is considered the founder of Kamakura blacksmithing). Image from the Sano museum Masamune: the genius of Japanese swords and his lineage exhibition catalogue. Length of koshi-bi is 37.4% of nagasa 1306 tanto which could be daimei-daisaku work by Yukimitsu Length of kochi-bi is 40.6% of nagasa 1308 tanto Length of koshi-bi is 37.3% of nagasa

I will give you that. But this one appears to be an early Etchu period blade and there are clear differences between his forging style there and later Mino output. The Etchu blades are far more appealing to me. There is clear a connection to the work of Go and Norishige in this blade with that more emphatic Midare hamon, a tighter forging style and the fully hardened kissaki.

950,000JPY for a particularly nice 70+cm TH example of a Tametsugu.... those were the days.

Yes, but they were issued in 2021 and 2022. Seller is still waiting to receive the 09/2025 papers as stated in the listing.

It passed TH 12/09/25. Seller posted the result but not the TH papers. 1953 Torokusho registration. Bidding up to 700k JPY でいますので振るってご入札ください。 「審査結果通知書」を見ていただくと分かる通り、つい先日審査に合格したばかりで、まだ鑑定書は出来上がっておりません。こちらに届き次第、郵送いたします。

The short woodworking tool is called a kiradashi.

Choose your executor carefully. Make sure they know what you have and the importance both historically and financially. Once that is made clear you would hope care will be taken.

Good question. I'm also curious, especially for higher end blades.

Morikuni was his later name. Earlier in his career he used Izumi no Kami Minamoto Morimasa. Maybe you can find something under Morimasa.

@Bruce PenningtonSame species as this example on an Ayakoji tsuba Nice cat scratch work on the fukurin. This piece has it all

Looks good on a tanto. Less is more.

He actually says it's the only example from Ko-Hoki that he was able to find with a fully hardened kissaki and suggests it was "a wild experiment or an accident."

Seller appears to be the same guy behind Komonjo or at least affiliated with him.

Rai school is known to have thin kawagane => Rai hada

I wonder if there has been some acid etchant used or other shenanigans to augment the features.

And Darcy stated that only a small proportion (~25%?) of blades attributed to Go have the iconic ichimai boshi, so its not a reliable kantei feature.

Not necessarily. A lot will depend on the togishi, how interested he is (some will bump other obligations if the blade is particularly exciting to them). I've heard of 6-12 months is possible for some top level Japanese polishers. Talk to Paul Kremers. https://tsuba.info/

Yes, Tensho koshirae are my favourite.

Ahh, the TH Sadatoshi listed 2 days ago. That was probably the one I had seen. Two Sadatoshi in 2 days just didn't compute.

And here's another Ayanokoji Sadatoshi. I saw it yesterday when it posted for 3.6mil JPY. Early Juyo papers too. I was seriously tempted and started looking closely to see why it was so cheap. Checked this morning and the price changed to 7.7mil JPY https://eirakudo.shop/232837

Sayonara Daimyos, konichiwa Shoguns

Assuming you purchased it in Japan, and it's still there, why not use a Japanese togishi? You will have far more options. btw welcome and it looks like you have a very interesting tanto. Does it have NBTHK papers?

Thanks John. I saw that thread when I searched gyakutagane. Interestingly there is very little discussion about this feature, but it could turn out to be a decisive argument, if confirmed, for daimei-daisaku by Norishige. The impression I get is that to be sure, the mei has to be examined in hand, since all we see in photos and oshigata are a 2D representation. A shadow effect for incised chiseling is often cited as being indicative of sakatagane but would depend on the direction of the light source and need to be off axis. To my uneducated eye the feature that shows promise are the numerous areas where the yokan-iro either side of the strike marks has been worn away because they are raised above the metal surface of the nakago.