Surfson

Thank you Morita San, this is very helpful! The sword has two shallow kizu on the ha which appear to be from sword strikes. Does the paper mention these wounds? My poor translation of the paper didn't seem to identify any mention of them, but the owner states that it says that they are considered honorable and not a flaw. Any opinions on this from you or any NMB members would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Bob

hi All. I am looking into a Magoroku Kanemoto sword that has this old origami associated with it. The Kao doesn't appear to be any of the typical Honami that I have stumbled across. I can make out that it is for Kanemoto and is worth 100 gold pieces, and appears to be an early Showa date, but I'm unclear as to the other information about the sword. Any help translating the appraisal would be appreciated, and I'm particularly interested in finding out who did the appraisal. Cheers, Bob

Thanks for the link. It's all been said already!

The mounts look very questionable to me. Sword looks better.

Is it possible that this tachi is made in China or some place other than Japan? Every part of it looks suspect to me, yet it went for $10K. http://www.ebay.com/itm/ANTIQUE-FINE-KO ... 218wt_1167

I totally agree with you. Sarute are going for $75-150 bucks! Gunto menuki are $50-75. Individual parts seem to be worth more than complete koshirae when it comes to guntos right now.

I suspect this is due to the same arcane rule that has led to the major problems that Gibson guitars has been having. As I understand it, it originally started from a law that was written in the twenties or thirties to stop the importation of fancy feathers that women were wearing during the flapper era!

I'm going to guess Bishu Osafune Kiyomitsu, but it looks to possibly be saiba to me.

Yes, looks like hitatsura hamon on a shobu zukuri blade with tokugawa mons on the mounts. Very nice.

You said that you didn't notice the hagire until your polisher brought it to your attention. I would guess that that means that it is not a very obvious crack, which raises the possibility that neither Daishobohi nor the original seller knew about it. Once the sword has been in your hands for a considerable amount of time (at least enough for you to show or send it to your polisher), then it enters a gray area I would think, since it has traveled and may have acquired the hagire during this period. If you didn't know about it, it is hard to insist that he did. I'm not taking sides on this, but just pointing out that things may not be as cut and dried as you suggest.

Hi Franco. Off the top of my head, I just remember the length, which is just over 25". Cheers, Bob

I agree that it is 373. There appears to be another symbol, but I can't see it.

A friend of mine and I got "back room passes" at the Walters years ago and essentially passed several hours looking at a fraction of their sword collection. It had been superficially cataloged by another friend of ours, but most of it was uncataloged. There were many many beautiful pieces - both swords and kodogu. I specifically remember an incredible Soshu Sadamune in amazing mounts. He trained with Masamune and trained Nobukuni. It's great that these photos have been released.

Thanks again Grey, I will try your method next time. As to the nakago ana, does anybody know how to properly fill a hole with lead? One sees this often in older swords, and this might be a satisfying way to deal with the new ana. Cheers, Bob

Henk-Jan, you are correct about that nakago ana. My guess is that it was drilled during the war, as it is quite fresh and on the small size. That is the hole that is used to mount the tsuka. I am uncertain about whether the tsuka was mounted during the war or not. I suppose that it is remotely possible that it was taken off another gunto and mounted after the war, though this seems unlikely since it didn't have a saya and still had what appeared to be very old cosmoline oil coating the blade. I'm not too worried about it, as I plan to submit it to the NTHK, and if it papers I will send it to Japan for a shirasaya, habaki and polish as well as NBTHK papers. If it doesn't paper, and if it is because it is gimei, then I will look into finding somebody to remove the mei prior to submitting it again. After working on it for a couple of days, I have to say that it is quite beautiful, with a very attractive nioiguchi with many many ko-ashi running all the way along. The kitae is marvelous, and lacking the many ware or ohada that seems to be common with the nagamaki naoshi that I have seen in the past. I would appreciate any estimates as to age. It is my understanding that production of such blades stopped in the early muromachi period. Grey, I will try your suggestion next time I run into some tough oil coating a blade - it makes perfect sense. Though a few good passes with uchiko after Nevr dull seems to bring out the hada quite nicely. Cheers, Bob

Maybe using Gan instead of Ichi is because ichi is too presumptuous (meaning that there will be more years to follow). Sort of like introducing your wife as "my first wife". Might it be this type of convention?

The mei is poorly cut, and the steel is aged there. When I looked through the koto Fujishiro, it's amazing how the pre muromachi meis were almost all poorly cut. It's as if they didn't have the hardened chisels for the job and the characters are cut very thinly and not very deep. How do you remove oil that has been dried on for 60 years Grey? I've used acetone in the past, and that works, but I get so high doing it that I'm sure I'm losing brain cells! It's actually looking very nice after several rounds of uchiko. I have a before side and an after side, and they are worlds apart. Cheers, Bob

I just bought this sword, that appears to be a nagamaki naoshi, from ebay. I have enjoyed the several threads about nagamaki and naginata, and how they differ etc. I invite NMB members to have a look at the ebay photos and render their opinions about the blade. I have just started to work on it with Neverdull, and there is a very fine and very old coating of oil on it that is coming off and leaving behind a blade in reasonable polish with very interesting hada and a nice hamon. My main question is about the mei and the positioning of the hole that goes right through the second character. There are many koto mei that have very weak and scribbly nijimei like this, but I haven't studied this mei very carefully. To me, it looks like a sukesada (or possibly a sukeshige). I would value any opinions, either positive or negative, about the mei translation and whether it is likely to be shoshin. This could have relevance to the question of whether to leave it or have it removed during restoration. I am uncertain about the relative placement of the original ana and the mei in a nagamaki. Is the mei usually above the original ana? Thanks in advance for any opinions. Cheers, Bob http://www.ebay.com/itm/280848336190?ss ... 500wt_1369

Leave it alone - it's insignificant. Trick is to not let it affect your enjoyment if you really are a absolute perfectionist. Swords are like Persian rugs - there is almost always a noticeable flaw.

Is a kaiken primarily for self defense or for jigai? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigai

Not that it will make you feel better, but I've heard tell of a collector who had several hundred sets of papers in a large shopping bag and a new cleaning lady threw them out. Ouch!

Even if the "munegiri" is not fatal, which I agree it is, all of the other flaws put the blade in the ICU if not the morgue.

i agree, tembo/tempo. The hammer marks/indentations are the main clue that I am aware of for these.

Paper looks ok to me, other than the appearance that it has been used as a table cloth for a picnic. :lol:

At $1500, and based only on the photos, it is a wonderful first sword in my opinion. You won't tire of it for quite a while, there are no obvious ware or other flaws in the blade. You will easily be able to resell the blade when you do decide to sell it. Compared to some of the real dogs that newbies come up with, this is a genuine and quite attractive sword. All the above assumes that the papers are genuine and there are no flaws not shown. It looks like it was shortened fairly recently.