Jon

Just wondering if anyone knows of any good shops in the Uk for papered Nihonto, there does not seem to be a lot around UK wise ? As I’m not sure I’m quite ready to import blades myself.

Don’t ever use anything on a blade in Polish, all you should ever do is oil it. There are lots of threads on cleaning and maintaining blades. But the general consensus is 1) remove old oil using the highest quality micro fibre cloth you can find, this should be a high end lens cleaning cloth NO a cheapo general cleaning cloth..in the US people suggest Microdear..but for Europeans like us the best option seems to be Zeiss. If you use the cloth and wipe the sword with isopropyl (IPA) 99%….do not use UCHIKO powder as unless you’re trained to use it as you can scratch the blade. 2) then using a lint free cotton apply your new thin coat of oil, you should not see any beading…it should really be invisible.

Just been looking at some cheaply auction blades and came across this really interesting kizu, but I’m not sure what it actually is apart something that looks really nasty.

I did see another picture of sword from this smith, the Mei looks the same ( from my very inexperienced eye). The smith would seem to be second/third generation Hiroshige , Kanbun Period, 1661-1673, FujishiroRanking: Chu Saku, Hawley Ranking: 15 points. Bushu (Tokyo and Saitama) Shitahara school. Province was Musashi ( Tokyo) Kanbun (1661-1673) era. from what I could find out it was the second generation Hiroshige that got the district title Sagami-no-kami. district title: Sagami-no-kami 相模守 clan Fujiwara 藤原 But then again it could all be completely wrong…but from looking that’s what I could find.

Indeed, that’s a great read, thanks both for the help, looks like he’s a pretty low average smith at best.

I’ve been trying to find the Shinto smith Gashu ju Fujiwara nagatsugu, (賀州住藤原長次) , but I cannot find him on any of the smith data bases anyone know anything about this smith ? cheers Jon

Hi John unfortunately it’s an internet sale, so I. Cannot get any better pictures. I have included the pictures of the blade that are available. I think I will just assume it’s a Gimei.

I’m assuming this is a Gimei, any thoughts ?

What do people think of this, I’m going to put in a sneaky bid. Unfortunately the auction house will not remove the Tsuka so no picture of the NAKAGO but the seller confirmed it’s a MUMEI. worth a modest bid as a gamble ( and I’m taking pocket money type modest ) ? finally what is that with the red leather around the top of the Saya ? Not something I have seen before.

Hi Sam, yes Thankyou, when you look an my blade you can clearly see there is no obvious ending of the Hamon, Matt linked in a couple of examples where you can clearly see the tapering off of the Hamon.

Hi Matt, brilliant Thankyou, yes you can see the Mei is far more central on these examples, you can also see the Hamon clearly ends in these pictures where as Sam noted there is no clear end to the Hamon on my blade. Jon

Indeed, I’m not doubting it’s Suriage, lots of wise people have said it is, but I’m trying to learn how to recognise it and especially how to spot machi okuri. In my simple mind I had assumed that two or more mekugi Ana = Suriage or Machi Okuri…now clearly I was being very simple in that understanding…so onward with the journey for knowledge, as the next blade I buy may say Ubu in the description but have 2 mekugi Ana and I want to be sure I know what I’m buying.

Hi Matt I find this bit fascinating and I’m trying to understand what makes it easy to recognise a machi okuri or Suriage. Now I assumed that two mekugi Ana means machi okuri or suriage..but I’m reading a number of papers that indicate this is not always the case. But I’ve been doing some reading and found a great article from the to-Ken society UK (Real Life Kantei of swords #16: About the position of the mekugi ana in the nakago W. B. Tanner and F. A. B. Coutinho) they highlight the following. (Yokoyama (1995)) the beginning of the Edo era. According to Yokoyama there was a change in the size of the sword fittings (kanagu) between these eras. In the kanagu of the latter part of the Muromachi and Momoyama periods, short fuchi with low koshi are conspicuous and thin tsuba are more prevalent. On the other hand, in the beginning of the Edo era, the koshi of the fuchi became long and the thickness of the tsuba increased. Therefore, the position of the mekugi ana was moved away from the imaginary line connecting the ha-machi to the mune-machi. Yokoyama presents several examples of swords with two mekugi ana but no sign of being machi okuri or suriage and he argues that the lower upper mekugi is the original one. In fact, in one of his examples the upper mekugi is plugged. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule since the styles of koshirae varied. Fimio (1991)) draws attention to an observation he made at gun shows in the USA in the eighties. There was an abundance Shinto swords, of not great quality, unpolished, mumei, and having two mekugi ana but with no trace of being machi okuri or suriage. Thay also go on to comment that during the Edo period sword hardware (kanagu) was standardized. The kashira was required to be of a square shape and most of the hardware had to be made of shakudo nanako alloy metal including the tsuba. As a result of this, much of the sword ornamentation during the Edo period was standardized in shape and fitment. In examining multiple swords with two or more meguki ana, it was discovered that the majority of tanto had two hole spaced approximately 1cm apart. For wakizashi and katana, the spacing was generally 2 cm apart. This consistancy in spacing could easily be attributed to the fact that tanto may have multiple mounts, such as an aikuchi koshirae and a chisagatana koshirae. The addition of a tsuba and seppa to an aikuchi style mount would require the 1cm of additional spacing. For wakizashi and katana, the additional 2cm of spacing could also be attributed to the change and standardization of sword fittings in the Edo period. so to be sure it’s machi okuri or Suriage there needs to something about the NAKAGO to make it clearly suriage, but in my hand I cannot see what that would be as the Mei is complete and it’s seemingly a very well shaped NAKAGO, with the total lenght of the blade and NAKAGO being 95.5 cm which. Is a pretty good length as I understand it. ( blade being 70.2cm) Any advice as spotting suriage and machi okuri seems to be a skill one needs.

The blade is In perfect Polish any marks or discolour is just poor picture taking.

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I know I’ve posted a fair but this week but it’s been an exciting and now spiritual time purchasing and now finally getting in my hand my first papered and in Polish Nihonto ( and as a 50 year old emergency department department bod and developer of emergency care systems who’s seen everything that’s saying something). So was I happy with investing in this blade…to right, as I said I did not quite realise how uplifting it would be to own this little piece of human history and art. so the unboxing pictures ( it’s my baby and I don’t feel guilty in bombing this pictures. May I present my Yoshimasa.

cheers Jean, that’s really helpful I was worried everything looked a bit to clean and the NAKAGO not quite the colour I would expect ( in my very inexperienced eye) , but that gives reassurance as I’m not so bothered about the TSUKA-ITO being replaced or the age of the blade, It was more to make sure it was all genuine. It just look so Pretty, that as long as it genuine I would like it for my glass display cabinet (locked) as a discussion piece ( not hidden away like my other blades ).

I was hoping everyone would think the fitttings were genuine as I really like this Koshirae a lot and was planning to put down a low four figure bid.

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I was wondering what people think of this blade and Koshirae. I do really like the koshirae, but they look very shiny and new ? It’s in an auction with almost no information other than it’s a Shinto blade.