Tsuku

Some people choose to share their collections and others do not. Everyone has their own reasons for making that choice. I don’t think it’s appropriate for anyone else to judge that. Separately, I think it is very natural to wonder “where do I fit in the collecting world.” The truth is that there is almost always a bigger fish. Collecting (anything) gets easier when you make your peace with that.

Yes exactly. I do not understand how we keep having this discussion either. I am not saying anything new. "I want an ko-nie like grains of perfect glittering sand and flowing sunagashi and inazuma and kinsuji and it should definitely have an ichimai-boshi and be ubu kenzen. But it's okay if it's not Juyo." — your problem is not that it's going to be juyo, it's that it's going to be juyo bunkazai. This is a failure of money or maybe understanding of market dynamics. "I bought this out of polish Muromachi suriage mumei wakizashi for $100 on eBay, tell me it's a great sword" — your problem is that there is little for this blade to teach you. This is a failure of studying. If you only have the budget for the second, that is totally fine. And anyone who sneers at you is misguided. There is always a bigger fish, unless you are Godzilla or maybe Mothra, and if you are a kaiju you are not on NMB and definitely not asking this question... Anyways, just don't confuse the first and the second.

I think it is necessary to distinguish between the intellectual/academic aspect of studying and the financial realities of collecting. Consider Rayhan's list, which I will paraphrase here: Suriage and/or mumei is okay in pre-Muromachi work and not afterwards. Buy swords in good polish. Make sure any koshirae fits. Buy swords and not papers, but consider papered blades first. Upgrade swords when you can. These rules are mostly about the financial aspect of collecting: bluntly, it is easier to re-sell a blade that meets these criteria. So now let us consider the intellectual/academic aspect. Suriage is less than desirable because it does two things: it changes the sugata and we lose material (both overall and potentially a mei). But if you wanted the "best" ko-Bizen, and you had your pick of every blade in existence, and price was absolutely no object — you would probably pick an ubu zaimei example. So really, from an academic perspective, suriage and mumei are NOT okay, REGARDLESS of the period. We want ubu zaimei. But here practical reality kicks in. We do not have the pick of every blade, we do not have infinite budget, and we have to make some compromises. People should buy the things they can afford and that they like. If someone wants to have a collection of kazu-uchimono, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that. The problem is when there is a misunderstanding of the commercial realities of the market or a gap in scholarship. If someone thinks a kazu-uchimono is on par from an academic/historical perspective with a Gojo Kanenaga or Tomonari or whatnot, I think this is a failing of their education. But that doesn't mean their kazu-uchimono collection doesn't have a story to tell. You do not have to spend a lot of money to have developed meaningful understanding. I have more than a few things that I bought because I liked them, not because they were "important." But that doesn't mean that I can't understand the nature of what "important" means and why something the example I own is not going to command the highest prices in the market.

An observation — all journeys come in stages. At the beginning, the work is hard, but it is also exciting. Growth is fast, and it feels like we make progress with every passing day. But eventually, we enter into the long slog of the intermediate learner, where progression slows down and it feels like a drag... the moments of reward are increasingly few and far between. And eventually, as advanced learners, we might spend hours (or years...) in work, just to advance our knowledge by what feels like a few millimeters. I don't think this means that the journey itself is dying, it means that our attitude towards it is changing. That can be both good and bad. If it's that feeling of treasure-hunting that you're after, I'm sure there are still gems out there in the dusty pawn shops. Maybe they are fewer and farther between, but doesn't that make them all the more precious? If it's learning, I think there is nothing to do but embrace the suck. If it's community, well, I'm sure someone else will have more productive advice than I.

From 吉田兼好の徒然草 — Yoshida Kenkō's "Essays in Idleness," written 1330-1332 — Some things never change.

At the risk of sounding Zen about it: if a puzzle does not have a certain answer, that does not mean it has nothing to teach you. It is the step between “not all puzzles have answers” and “no puzzles have true answers.”

I’m not personally the greatest fan of Kagemitsu. Awataguchi smiths, especially Yoshimitsu, the core Sōshū group (Yukimitsu, Norishige especially), and Samonji should all be mentioned here as well.

Against my better judgement — I posted this example earlier. Perhaps it was overlooked or an appropriately in-depth study was not made. This blade was Jūyō-tōken in the 44th shinsa. The NBTHK paperwork clearly attributes it as a 薙刀直し刀 naginata-naoshi katana, right there on the front of the certificate. A copy of the setsumei is attached. I will draw your attention to a few points. 形状 薙刀直し造 keijō naginata-naoshi zō 帽子 乱れ込み先小丸 bōshi midare-komi-saki kō-maru [kaeri] 茎 大磨上 nakago ō-suriage 説明 ... 本作は薙刀を磨上げて刀としたもので... honsaku wa naginata o suriagete katana to shita mo node... "Here we have a naginata which was shortened and made into a katana..." Thus: NBTHK calls this a naginata-naoshi and and describes the form as such. An intact boshi with kaeri remains. NBTHK specifically says in the setsumei that it originated as a naginata that was shortened.

Using a shintō Tadatsuna is inappropriate. Shintō naginata were not generally cut down and the shape of the naginata changed dramatically from kotō examples. In good faith, here is a side-by-side example that illustrates how this is possible. The left is a Shikkake naginata that went Tokuju in the 26th shinsa. The right is the oshigata for the Juyo Kunimune I linked earlier. Obviously the Kunimune started from a different blade, so it is not a dead-nuts match, but I think from this it is very clear how the boshi can be preserved in the course of naginata-naoshi.

Here is another example, this time a Saburo Kunimune. This very clearly shows the preserved kaeri and the NBTHK describes the boshi as simply "midare-komi with ko-maru-kaeri." There is no yokote and this is unquestionably a naginata-naoshi.

Be careful with getting gunk out of horimono. Old uchiko often accumulates there and it can be a source of scratches.

In a bit of a contemplative mood, and I had my first sword out earlier tonight. It still moves me just as much as it did the first time I studied it — Osafune Kanemitsu daitō with a Hon'ami Kōjō kinzogan-mei. As a student, I owe much to many, as I think we all do — but here a tremendous amount of credit goes to Darcy. Without his help, I would have simply kept reading by the water's edge instead of jumping into the ocean. One can get far with books, but the objects make the lessons real.

I do not mean to disparage anything shown here in the slightest — there has indeed been an exceptional blade that was recently, and very generously, shared here. But, in all honesty, I think you are selling some of the collections of your fellow NMB members rather short.

I just want to clarify this because I think the discussion has conflated things a bit. A tantō has a blade less than 1 shaku in length, 30.3 cm. A wakizashi has a blade length of between 1 and 2 shaku, and anything over 2 shaku is a katana or tachi. You said your blade has a length of 28 cm, so it is a tantō. An aikuchi koshirae is one that lacks a tsuba (example). A hamidashi koshirae in comparison has a small tsuba (example).

Kinpun-mei, like shu-mei, are lacquer signatures. This appears inset, so would be properly a ginzōgan-mei. The letter of the old Hon'ami regulations said that these should be applied to shortened blades made between Ōei (1394-1428) and Bunmei (1469-1487). There are a handful of blades at Jūyō with ginzōgan-mei, though, and some of them are substantially earlier or later than this time period. So... who knows?

Just as a FYI, the NBTHK Hozon/Tokubetsu Hozon certificates have an embossed stamp that passes over both the cardstock and the photograph. If you look closely at the altered certificate, you will see that there is no stamp on the photograph. This is a giant red flag. One should always inspect thoroughly and with a critical eye. I have even found modified Tanobe-sensei sayagaki in the wild.

This sword has nothing to do with Yamato Tegai. It is zaimei, "Jitsu'a saku." Jitsu'a was the father of Sairen who was the father of Samonji (O-Sa), one of the students of Masamune. If I may offer two small pieces of advice — Tokubetsu Jūyō means "especially important" and not "especially nice sword." You have to be able to figure out why something is "especially important" to put it into context. That Jitsu'a is actually a good example of why context matters, Jitsu'a is a bit of a provincial smith. Also, one cannot say that just because blade A is Tokubetsu Jūyō now and blade B is "merely" Jūyō, blade A is "better" than blade B. That is not really how it works. You cannot even say that blade A is better than blade C where is "merely" Hozon. The reason why is simple: the paper is establishing a floor, not a ceiling. If you handed me a healthy signed Awataguchi Hisakuni (or Osafune Mitsutada, or... whatever, pick your top grandmaster of all time) and it only had Hozon papers, well, that blade would be easily worth more than several more mundane Tokuju put together. That zaimei absolute grandmaster blade is Tokuju already, the paperwork just hasn't caught up yet — and maybe never will, because why bother?

Here you are.

Here is an example of an itomaki-no-tachi koshirae which was formerly a possession of the Mōri clan.

The opposite is true. The first Jūyō session was in 1958. By the time 1971 rolls around and Tokubetsu Jūyō is introduced, we are up to Jūyō session 21 and almost 4,000 blades are Jūyō-tōken. To illustrate the difference, let's use this point as a dividing line and look at the blades that passed Jūyō before session 21 ("early") and after ("late") There are about 3,700 early blades and 8,600 late blades, but 14.7% of the early blades subsequently passed Tokubetsu Jūyō, and only 7.5% of the late blades did so. There are obviously stand-out great swords in every session, and due diligence should always be exercised, but the early sessions were very strong. None of this rationale should be applied to the old Kichō papers. That is a topic which has been beaten to death around here but I would be remiss if I did not mention it.

"Kunzan" is not a Hon'ami, he was Honma Junji-sensei, one of the founders of the NBTHK. He used 薫山, read as Kunzan, as his gō ("artistic name"), which literally means "fragrant mountain." This is a bit of an inside joke — Japanese uses a lot of onomatopoeia, and クンクン kunkun means "to sniff." Honma-sensei supposedly had the habit of sniffing loudly when he was inspecting blades, and one day one of his staff jokingly called him kun-san ("Mister Sniff"), and this was his inspiration for the gō. His successor, Kan'ichi Sato-sensei, used "Kanzan." (I forget the kanji off the top of my head.) Tanobe-sensei, the former head of research at the NBTHK and their student, uses 探⼭, read as Tanzan, which literally means "research mountain." Modern attributions are not really comparable to the old Hon'ami judges. There are strengths and weaknesses of both, a bit like apples and oranges. Honma-sensei's opinions, however, are generally well-regarded. He didn't do very many kinzogan-mei though, I think about ten at jūyō.

Yes, kinzogan-mei were very expensive. If a blade had a Hon'ami kinzogan-mei, especially from an old judge, it was almost certainly the collection of a daimyō (though which family specifically is often lost). And in general you are correct, that kinzogan-mei were only applied to mumei nakago. But there are examples where the Hon'ami applied kinzogan-mei to ubu blades. It is exceptionally rare and all the examples I can think of are from Kōtoku (more on him in a moment). Hon'ami Kōsatsu was in charge of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's sword maintenance. But the appraisal process really seems to have started started with Hon'ami Kōtoku around 1600, which the shōgun granted the Hon'ami family a copper seal to authenticate their origami. This continued through a long and convoluted family structure until the modern day. Old Hon'ami records — kinzogan-mei, origami, etc. — are very, very rarely overturned by the NBTHK. Part of the reason is respect for the old judgements, and part of it is that the old judges had access to original signatures that have long since been lost to us through suriage. Anyways the first five judges are the most important. (The Hon'ami family was around for a long time before this, but this is the important part of the lineage for our discussion here.) 光徳 Kōtoku (1554-1619) has about 10 jūyō, but a mind-blowing 13 jūyō bunkazai 光室 Kōshitsu (1583-1625) and 光温 Kōon (1603-1667) have about 10 jūyō and 2 jūyō bunkazai apiece 光常 Kōjō (1643-1710) has 120 jūyō and 2 jūyō bunkazai 光忠 Kōchū (Hon’ami head 1697-1725) has 200 jūyō and 3 jūyō bunkazai 光勇 Kōyū (1704-1770) has 35 jūyō Kōtoku's judgements are absolutely ironclad. You will almost never see any of his kinzogan-mei on the market, they are priceless. Kōchū and Kōjō are probably #1 and #2 that you will see commercially available, and they are both extremely reputable and legitimate appraisals are almost never overturned. After Kōyū the appraisals start to get weaker... The short version is yes, attributions by later Hon'ami judges are much less reliable than earlier judges. Outright forgery was fairly rare, but inflation of appraisals happened — if you need a Masamune for a gift for the shōgun, but you don't have one or don't want to give yours up, maybe you can pay the Hon'ami fee in advance and get a Shizu re-appraised as a Masamune after "very careful appraisal." Or turn a Naoe Shizu into a Shizu Kaneuji, etc. You do also need to be aware of fake origami. There are quite a few floating around and some of them are very good forgeries. The best ways to tell are a malformed seal stamp on the back, a misshapen kao, or the paper not feeling right. The paper was very tightly controlled and quite consistent, and it has a particular feel to it. The gold (ha) standard reference book on this is Markus Sesko's history of the Hon'ami family, and I would encourage you to buy a copy — it's a great reference.

There are ~12,000 Juyo, but Tsuruta-san alone has 15 Juyo for sale right now. There is way more turnover than 100 a year. Tokuju is a different matter, but there are 10x fewer of those.

There are other kinds of inlaid gold inscriptions (generally, kinzogan-mei), but yes, this is a saidan-mei which records that the blade cut through a body at the chest on a particular day on Kanbun 6 (1666). A blade, just like anything else, is worth what someone else will pay for it. I don't think there is any real "formula" by which one can compute what a given sword is worth in an objective sense. NBTHK papers swords in four levels and a blade has to go through them in order. They have some defined criteria: here they are. The first two, Hozon ("worthy of preservation") and Tokubetsu Hozon ("especially worthy of preservation") are more "mechanical," in that if a blade meets the criteria, it will pass. Juyo ("important") and Tokubetsu Juyo ("especially important") are more like competitions; a blade is competing not only with the other works of that smith, but with the other blades submitted to that session. It is not unusual to have an excellent blade fail because a slightly better one was submitted, etc. The selection process can be a bit inscrutable and lead to some head-scratching... so nobody can give you a list of the things that will certainly guarantee Juyo or Tokubetsu Juyo in any meaningful or realistic way. The Hon'ami were an old Japanese family that had a historical connection with sword polishing and appraisal. They held this role for the Tokugawa shōguns. Markus Sesko wrote a fantastic history of the Hon'ami that goes into a great amount of detail. Sometimes the Hon'ami just appraised blades (writing the results on wooden tags or origami), sometimes they also gave them values (daizuke), sometimes they left kinzogan-mei on the nakago of blades. The greatest Hon'ami appraiser is Kōtoku, of whom we have very few blades left and only a tiny handful that can be privately sold — the rest are important cultural property and cannot leave Japan. The next two most important are Kōchu and Kōjo, and we do find blades with their records still intact occasionally. As I mentioned earlier they are often forged so you need to validate them carefully.... Later on the Hon'ami judgements became a bit more suspect in a sort of grade inflation. Wazamono was an Edo period ranking of swords and then swordsmiths for sharpness. The saijo-saku ("grandmaster"), jojo-saku ("very high skill"), jo-saku ("high skill"), etc. ratings are for swordsmiths and come from Fujishiro. The most important thing about Fujishiro is that his ratings are also by period. That is, you cannot say a saijo-saku smith from the Kamakura era is comparable to a saijo-saku smith from the Muromachi period, like Magoroku Kanemoto. Kanemoto was a great smith and a standout for his time, but he is not playing the same ball game as Hisakuni, Tomonari, Masamune, etc. Hope that helps.