Surfson

Hi Justin et al. I just discovered this thread. Interestingly, it is after I bought this sword from Justin. It's great to have such a nice discourse on the sword. I imagine that the nakago has been extraordinarily well preserved over the years (I have some very early shinto that have nearly mint nakago and in which the yasurime is as if made last century). I must say that the hada is gorgeous on this blade. Cheers, Surf

Brian Tschernega is the only one that I know that can stand with the world's best.

Looks like a beautiful Choshu piece to me too. I'm afraid that there is some insect damage though.......

The kiku is 17 petal. This is surprising, as the imperial kiku is 16 petals.

I'm a big fan of ebay as both a buyer and seller. I have bought good swords from saijo and jojo makers and have sold many swords. Most of the ones that I have sold are under $3000. If I were to sell higher dollar sword, I would do it like Candelaria. Put a fairly big buy it now (BIN) price and include "or best offer". You can then sell for 60-70% of your BIN price and both you and the buyer will be pleased. There are some problems that can crop up; non paying bidders, buyers that try to shake you down with threat of negative feedback after the sale, buyers from countries that restrict import etc. You just need to phrase your ad to minimize these.

I have encountered many well made swords that are signed and for which there is no listing in the Nihonto Meikan or Hawley's. My belief in these cases is that none of the sword scholars and documentarians has ever encountered a sword made by those particular smiths. I believe that the sword study world has done a good, but not a perfect, job in documenting the sword makers that have worked over the last eight or nine centuries. But there is still much that has not been accounted for. Most descendants of samurai, like the samurai themselves, probably paid little attention to the students of the history of swordmaking. I'm sure that if the NBTHK had every sword on the planet in a large warehouse that they would find all sorts of things that were never known. Getting to the original point, even saying "none extant" is presumptuous that we know of the history of all swords out there. "No tanto are known to have been made by this smith" would be the most scientifically appropriate statement I would think. Having read the thread again, it seems that most of us agree that we really don't know the answer to this question with any authority at all!

Hoanh. As I told you previously, I got some opinions about it being saiba and retempered. We have other threads about how koto can be retempered and still paper at the NBTHK. Did the NBTHK say anything about it? I couldn't find a mizukage and was never convinced that it was saiba. As to school, I'm afraid that my kantei skills are not enough to warrant even a well educated guess. Cheers, Bob

Looks like penetrating rust to me. Tsuka may have been wet in one spot. B

Hey Hoanh. That looks like the blade that you bought from me. I'm glad that it papered! Cheers, Bob

Maybe a different blade, but here is one recent Sa discussion. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Japanes ... 7675.l2557

Chris, can you expand on the Hawley family comment? Sorry if it's been covered before. Cheers, Bob

Didn't trigger any excitement in me either. What is remarkable is the price that it brought.

I did't study this blade. If anybody on NMB has, do you think it is a genuine Sa? The price seems to indicate that somebody did! Cheers, Surf http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Japanes ... 7675.l2557

Jean, I didn't realize that Burawoy was no longer in the business, as your post implies. I visited him in Paris (I think) many years ago at his shop and picked up several wonderful posters and a couple copies of his tsuba book, which is really well done.

Jean, this has been a very enjoyable thread - I suspected this when I read your first post. And of course I knew very well that you are not a newbie! It has made me realize the stark differences between collecting in the US and collecting in Europe. The huge flux of swords to the US after the war did not occur in France, and probably occurred very little in the UK. If I am not mistaken, some war souvenir swords went to Australia. The swords brought back to the US after the war were nearly all in the hands of GIs that did not understand and often did not respect their importance to Japanese culture (I am speaking now of the genuine samurai swords that represented a small fraction of the war prizes. If anybody knows what percent of typical WWII military mounted Japanese swords were hand made blades of shinshinto period or earlier, I would love to know it. My guess is around 5% or so.). During the last 60+ years, it has been possible to find swords still in the possession of the family of the GI that brought it back. This has created a "treasure hunt" opportunity and made looking for such treasures fun. As I mentioned in my earlier post, these GI swords are now drying up. In the vast majority of cases, the families of the GI that brought them back are just not interested in keeping them. Many of the US collectors on the NMB can tell stories of running advertisements in local papers to find Japanese swords and visiting the GI himself or his family. In my own quest to find these, I have seen so many wonderful swords that had been ruined since they came to the US. I suspect that the kids of the GIs were often to blame for this (who would let their kid play with a supersharp Japanese sword!). In Europe, I imagine that most swords were purchased as collectibles or art, and have therefore at least been appreciated to be a valuable and expensive object to be cared for appropriately. In any case, I do hope that there is a flux of new collectors that come to appreciate the incredible art and craft of the Japanese sword. We need this to maintain the field. Interestingly, many of the newbies that post here are the son or grandson of the GI that brought a sword back, and a proportion of them seem to have acquired a genuine interest in the object beyond understanding its monetary value. Your post has raised a great number of important points for consideration for people with a new found interest in Japanese swords, and I thank you for it. Cheers, Bob

Looks fake to me too Henk-Jan. I would add to your list that the shinogi is not crisp at all. Sometimes one sees this when a sword is put on a buffing wheel, so it is not a perfect indicator. It also does not seem to have much of a hamachi or munemachi.

Jean, I realize that I may have misunderstood your rules. Do you follow these rules yourself, or are they just for newbies? I had assumed that these rules are ones that you adhere to in your own collecting. There is another issue worth mentioning, though perhaps not of relevance to the novice collector. If one only buys papered and polished blades, then one is not directly contributing to the preservation of the Japanese sword. By that I mean that I feel some drive to identify blades worthy of preservation, confirm that view by NTHK shinsa, and then have the blade properly restored. Both NTHK and NBTHK have the "hozon" in their names, emphasizing the importance of preservation. It is very satisfying to have found a wonderful blade in a poor condition and have it restored, realizing that by so doing you may have saved it for literally centuries to come. Just some random observations, and of little immediate value to the newbies that you originally posted for. But today's newbies become those who maintain the field tomorrow.

Clive, I saw the online calendar, and you are right, there are some very interesting pieces. As to the wash out of good swords from the primary collectors in the US, this is an interesting phenomenon that a good economist, such as Arnold Frenzel, might have a bit of fun analyzing. The primary US collectors developed real selectivity, so much of what is coming out in this manner is likely to be at the top end of the war trophy swords brought back. I do wonder whether there will be a little bit of a outflow of such collections in the next decade.

This is a real conversation starter Jean! My views about your rules: Buy the best. I agree with this, though it is a long evolution for most collectors to arrive to this view. No unpolished blades. It depends on what you mean by unpolished. There are many blades in good old polish that one can enjoy. In addition, it is possible to pick up unpolished blades with famous names or osuriage that turn out to be good. Most of the best blades in my collection were bought in an unpolished state. No shortened blades after muromachi. I totally agree. I avoid cut down shinto in nearly all cases. Every now and then you can pick up a blade by a wonderful maker (Tadayoshi, Yasutsugu, etc.) that is suriage and therefore a fraction of the cost. Papers when signed. My solution to this has been to build a great reference library. Unpapered blades can be very real and relatively cheap. The ebay swords that I have bought (after careful study of the mei) have papered in nearly every case. A recent example of this is a great Kanesada wakizashi that we discussed on the NMB (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15329&st=0&sk=t&sd=a). I haven't yet submitted this one, but have no doubt that it will paper. Another example is a Mutsu Tadayoshi wakizashi that went dirt cheap at the starting bid and has since papered. There are dozens of examples of this. The kind of study that we did (after the fact) on the Terukane/Kanesada above is what is required though, and one must have access to the blade in hand or great photos. It does relate to your rule on polish though. The blade should be in a state of polish good enough to get NTHK papers prior to making the dive to send it to Japan for restoration, in my view. Avoid ebay if not an expert. I partially agree with this statement, yet, I have bought the bulk of my collection on ebay and defend it as a source for great blades over the last decade or so as the last of the GIs went to their maker. It has clearly dried up of late though. I don't consider myself an expert however, and have certainly made some costly mistakes on ebay. On balance, it has been great.

i believe that I bought a sword from this guy a couple of years ago. If it is the one I am thinking of, he is more an expert in Chinese art, but carries some Japanese swords. He is in Canada, and I had no problem with the transaction. I have no opinion about the Korekazu. Cheers, Bob

Thanks Adam. I looked hard for utsuri, but none jumped out at me. Nearly all of the other features of the description that you posted apply to this blade. The kokissaki, small kaeri and komaru, the "lively gunome choji" (with ashi) are all present and accounted for. What really sold me is the quality of the forging of the blade. The polish leaves something to be desired, with some irregularities, and may have some influence on the ability to visualize utsuri. Cheers, Bob

Morioka?

Well, I bit the bullet and bought it at the auction, even though the one example that Markus and Jacques found differs in the mei from the one I bought. My hopeful guess is that they are different generations. I am in Japan right now but will try to take some photos and post them so we can have some more study with this blade. I'm hoping that it is shoshin (funny that the Apple word processor keeps wanting to change this to shoeshine!), but I will have to await a shinsa to get a more highly accredited opinion than mine (it looks to be very well made, in the style of late nambokucho biizen and quite healthy). Cheers, Bob

Thanks again Markus and Jacques, this is great information. The link from Jacques - is that an auction or sales catalog? The date looks nearly identical. Both examples from both of you are signed tachi mei, so this is also quite encouraging. The mei looks pretty good to me. Cheers, Bob

Thanks a lot Jacques and Markus. I had come to the same conclusion that you have made, and have found variants of Ko-o different from the ones listed in Hawley and similar to those on the nengo. I looked through the Bizen Taikan last night and couldn't find any examples of either generation. If either of you or anybody else on the NMB has access to books with oshigata of Iyemori that can help establish whether this example is shoshin, I would be very grateful. This appears to be a well regarded line, and it is hard to know whether his work was copied. I sometimes take comfort when faced with a sword having a mei that I think was unlikely to have been faked at the time or later. Cheers, Bob