Surfson

Thanks for the post Dale. I just bought your two books on tsuba in the Metropolitan museum when looking at this one!

The imozuru appears to be thick, continuous and long, like a vine. The sunagashi is usually several parallel lines that are often interrupted but maintain their parallel nature. I have always had a hard time distinguishing inazuma and Kinsuji, as both seem to run under the nioiguchi and tend to be of moderate length and on the thick side. i think that they may differ by level of darkness.

The kanji look to me like this (below), but I'm not sure what the reading is. Otsuki Yamasuke Roku? O Gassan Sukeroku? 大月山助六　 Sorry, that's the best I can do. Waiting to hear from Steve or Nobody....

Jussi and Michael, you guys are great. We all benefit from your diligence! By the way, Happy New Year to all. Bob

That was my presumption Michael, especially since there are no known examples of the work of his father as I understand it. It would be nice to finally find a sword in the weeds and have it go juyo!

Wow, 50 passes is encouraging Jussi, with 10 of them being recent. I haven't seen mine since Mishina San polished it, but I expect that it is quite beautiful and has tighter hada than the later Uda swords that we typically see. Since it was kantei'd as Uda Kunifusa from Nambokucho, does that by definition put it in the Ko-Uda attribution?

It's very odd that there are 10 of them, but none recently. I wonder if there were one or two Ko Uda lovers on the team that retired. Otherwise, it's hard to imagine why they would just stop.

I use Buyee too.

I am reawakening this thread since my best sword in the TH shinsa papered to Uda Kunifusa, who is thought to have trained with Norishige and, as discussed above, is one of the two de facto founders of the Uda school. As Jussi posted, these early Uda go juyo. Jussi, can you please tell me how many Uda Kunifusa there are that are juyo and above? I will be submitting this one for the next shinsa. I don't recall exactly, but believe that it is about 70 cm or so and is osuriage. It has a very nice bonji horimono and the nakago is very appealing with several ana, including one near the jiri.

It's also usually helpful to look for any evidence that a tsuba has been mounted. The seppa usually cause wear and protect the seppadai from corrosion, or cause corrosion in the seppadai, depending on the metals. There is no evidence that this tsuba was ever mounted. The plate also doesn't look like it was forged.

I agree, nice blades. There are a couple of different theories about Hirotsuna, according to Sesko, differing by whether he trained with Tadatsuna and is the same smith as Tsunbo Nagatsuna or whether he was also deaf and trained with Tadatsuna alongside Nagatsuna. He does beautiful work though, in either case. It appears that this sword was made with Namban Tetsu.

Probably made between 1500-1700 is my guess. Hard to guess the school in the current condition. It is my sense that it has been shortened, so the tang has been altered. Sometimes the shape of the tang can be helpful in determining the school when the steel and tempering is not visible.

You can buy a very nice sword for that price! Is your son already interested in Japanese swords? If so, it's a tremendous gift that I'm sure he will cherish. There are several American dealers that have very nice swords available in your price range. In addition to Ray Singer, who I agree is great, there is also Andy Quirt and Grey Doffin, who have nice websites. If you search for any of those names and Japanese Sword, you will likely find their sites.

A little hard to tell, but looks like a real wakizashi that has been neglected.

Excellent catch Curran! Did you pull that out of your mental database? Impressive.

By the size of the horimono, that must be a very thick kogatana.

The Omori guess sounds reasonable too. They quite liked shishi and botan (peony). https://yuhindo.com/omori-mitsutoki/

Might it also be Nagoyamono? Often done in the style of Mino Goto http://www.nihonto.us/NAGOYAMONO TSUBA.htm https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/14043/lot/6092/

OK, I will bite. 1. What I look at sequentially are the shape, the steel, the hataraki (hamon), the nakago and the signature (if present). 2. What is difficult to learn (not necessarily to understand) are the particularities of the various makers and schools. This requires often a lot of rote memorization to learn. 3. I would like to talk with any well established sword maker whose period of activity was in the late Kamakura period. I would like to ask whether the increase in the length and size of swords actually had anything to do with the Mongol invasions that occurred in 1274 and 1281, or whether that is a modern myth. Of course, I would need a translator that spoke Kamakura period Japanese and 21st century English!

Axel, I think that the ones you posted are called "ebi" saya. Ebi can be shrimp or lobster and I'm not sure which is being referred to.

Looks like a genuine Japanese wakizashi, and the shape and condition would agree with the time period the seller suggested. Can't tell much about condition or value without slightly better photos.

A hada appears to be clearly visible, leading to the belief that it is hand forged.

I distinctly remember looking at that sword at the Chicago show and liking it very much. I have even mentioned it in a conversation or two over the years, since it is not that often that we see masame hada executed that well on an older sword. (I remember seeing a mumei osuriage blade with that kind of masame at the auction following the Compton sale for Compton items that had either been accidentally omitted or for items that had not made reserve at the Compton sale, where the reserves were very high. In fact, I bought a few really nice Compton items at that poorly attended sale). For some reason, I recalled that this sword was owned by the late Paul Davidson when I saw it. Jim, did you get it from Paul? Either way, it is a beauty, and if it were mine, I would feel compelled to submit it for papers, regardless of what the search of mei examples yielded.

Beautiful work, well done!

Nice, Barry. I have a more traditional Ono like a cross between your top one and the one on Fred's site. I'm getting closer to being able to unpack all my fittings from the move and I will take a photo of it when I run across it.