reinhard

Supposed this blade was a ko-dachi, its mei should be on the haki-omote. Unfortunately it is not. reinhard

I can't see any "high end" here. It looks more like "end" than "high". - Whenever you go to Kasuga Taisha in Nara you'll find a small museum on the left just before entering the main temple area. Go in there. It is worthwhile. It is containing some real "high end" armour. The small museum being part of the Tsurugaoka Hachiman Gu in Kamakura also displays some real "high-end" armour. reinhard

This is what made the "catalyst" going. Remember? After some more or less entertaining salti and pirouettes I'd like to go back to this particular statement. It is suggesting there is something like a "textbook MITSUYO". - Very little is known about the MITSUYO working around late Heian/early Kamakura period. Actually "O-Tenta MITSUYO" (treasured by the Maeda) and "Miike MITSUYO" (treasured by Kunozan Toshogu) are the only two reliable examples we can refer to. At least one of them must be known (i.e. studied in hand) to make a valid statement. Anything else is just ridiculous. - You can read all the books and study all the hi-res pics in the world. They are just preparing you for what's to come. No less and no more. They are no substitutes for the real thing. A few things can be said about the pictures of the nakago however and Guido pointed them out very well. reinhard

What did you expect? Appreciation of NihonTo is a harsh way to go. It was never meant to be a cozy place for everybody. reinhard

That's why "99.999% of the members" better shut up when it comes to big name blades. reinhard

There's something I've never really understood: Why is Nakadai starting to bleed while Mifune's sword is still hanging in the air? Akira Kurosawa was very eager for making action look realistic. Thank god SFX improved in the meantime. reinhard

This sounds familiar to me. Didn't we have a similar thing like that before? I don't have the time to search through the archives, but maybe someone else has. reinhard

Wrong question. Wrong answer Reinhard..."I am not sure how many swords you've seen"...is not a question. Implicitly it is. Nevermind, it's not the number that counts, but that's another thread. Mr.Hicks comments started like this: "It's textbook Mitsuyo (very interesting habaki similar mon as on O-Tenta)". Remember? Then there was a group-hug and many congratulations. First of all I congratulate Mr.Hicks on being one of the very few experts on Miike MITSUYO. He must have seen most of them in hand in order to call this blade a "textbook Mitsuyo". As for the habaki: "O-Tenta" was given to Maeda Toshiie by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and became one of the most treasured possessions of the Maeda family and still is. That's where the mon comes from! The present mountings of O-Tenta were made on the orders of Hon'ami Koho during the time of Maeda Toshitsune (1593-1658). - There is, of course, a very small, almost non-existent possibility the Maeda family possessed another MITSUYO blade, kept it in secret and told nobody about it. reinhard

Wrong question. reinhard

Franco, this is, of course, exactly where this blade is pointing to. Being one of the five Tenka Go Ken, "O-Tenta" is one of Japan's most famous swords. Even less educated sword-lovers (and most fakers) heard of this sword. It is published in almost every beginner's book about NihonTo. - Now, and all of a sudden, its "twin brother" pops up out of nowhere... and even with a similar habaki! - It's like an acryl-painting of the Mona Lisa within an old-style frame from Ikea appearing just like that and some people are wondering: "Could this be the real thing?" It's not the amount of mekugi-ana that matters. It is their quality and their placement. On this particular example the intervals are too regular all over the nakago. Somebody tried to fulfill certain expectations without knowing much about the history of shortening blades. He succeded to some extent as it seems. reinhard

Remember the golden rule: It takes one mekugi-ana for Hozon Token two mekugi-ana for Tokubetsu Hozon Token three mekugi-ana for Juyo Token four mekugi-ana for Tokubetsu Juyo Token five mekugi-ana for Bijutsuhin six mekugi-ana for Bunkazai seven mekugi-ana for Kokuho But seriously: This nakago is a laugh. Not because of the number of mekugi-ana but because of their shapes and placement. Old nakago don't look like this. BTW the kinzogan-mei is quite new and the habaki looks brand-new to me and not even of Japanese origin from a distance. reinhard

This seems to be very rare group of smiths almost forgotten. Meikan says: reinhard

After all the "I like.... because of...."- babble, it might be interesting to know what a person, who really knows what he's talking about, has to say about this matter. Mr. Nobuo Ogasawara, retired Head Conservator of the Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan in Tokyo, held a lecture about "MEITO or What Makes a Masterpiece?" in 2002 in Solingen, Germany. Text (ger. and engl.) can be found in: "Ausgewählte Japanische Kunstschwerter"/"Selected Fine Japanese Swords" published by NBTHK-EB and the Klingenmuseum in Solingen. If you want to understand what makes a slim and elegant Rai KUNITOSHI tachi a MeiTo and a 300'000 US$ blade and what makes a huge and heavy Bungo Takada-sword from later Muromachi-period with impressive, long kissaki just a simple weapon worth only a couple of grands, I strongly advice this lecture. Appreciation of NihonTo won't come to you easily. You have to go there, sacrifices included. reinhard

Keep it up, Carlo. You are on the right track. Neither swords nor tosogu nor any other kind of Japan's old culture allow short-cuts. "Fresh, unconventional, new" approaches to old Japan's culture (usually sermonized from a Western point of view) have old tradition, going back to Meiji-days and before. They are leading serious students to nowhere. reinhard

Here you go. My guess would be: "Tenmei shichi-nen/ hinoto-hitsuji fuyu" on one side. This was translated already. "Sasshu Ka-Fu/ Kawakami (or Kawaue) TAKEYOSHI tsukuru" on the other side. Meaning "Kawakami/Kawaue (family name) TAKEYOSHI made this in Kagoshima prefecture in Satsuma province" reinhard

Do we have a new moderator? BTW he should work on his orthography. reinhard

"Sarcastic" is correct, "bitter" is definitely wrong, "old" is disputable and depends on the perspective. I'm 48 years old. But seriously: If you don't want to make a complete fool out of yourself you better pick up some reliable books about history and stop making insinuations. This is neither about (plain) attitude nor about samurai-romantisiscm. It is about knowledge. reinhard

Conclusion of a very simple mind or a primitive way of provoking? Frankly, I don't really care. reinhard

And therefore people hear what they want to hear and all efforts are in vain. reinhard

Relax. All i'm saying is: "Years of experience" is a very stretchy term. I've come across quite a few people claiming to have "years of experience". Digging deeper, it turned out many of them had never gained a higher level of knowledge nor had they ever held works from top-class smiths in their hands but had dealt with dozens or hundreds of bad blades. Those who did acquire a higher level of knowledge are usually aware of their still limited abilities. What Tanobe-san has to say about shoshin and gimei f.e. is representing a level of expertise most people will never reach. Kantei in Japan on a regular basis or not. You see, it's nothing personal for I don't know you and you don't know me either. BTW your surmise is not quite right. I'm spending time in Japan every year and am lucky to study (not only kantei) swords most people never have the opportunity to lay hands on. Some of them can be found in Nippon To Taikan. regards reinhard

"Years of experience" of what? Of handling second and third grade swords?

First of all you are suggesting that every Japanese soldier descended from a samurai family and had some "family relic" at hand. This is sheer nonsense of course, but it is in perfect accordance with the militaristic doctrine of that time. Sons of peasants and kulis were told: "We are all samurai". This was just propaganda and it will probably take some more time to get this crap out all heads, especially the smaller ones. Even many of the subaltern officers who had to carry swords were not of samurai origin. They had to get their swords and mountings from elsewhere. Secondly, the use of swords as weapons plays a minor role during WWII (politely said). Thirdly and most important: Japan's ideology during WWII was not a continuation of samurai-culture, but its perversion in the first degree. reinhard

Strange colors on nakago are most often pointing towards yaki-naoshi (retempering). By (accidental) over-heating and shock-cooling the nakago will eventually display a strange color afterwards. Heating steel to F 410° and plunging it into water its color will stop at a light yellow. Rapid cooling at higher temperatures will result in tones from straw (F440°) to bronze (F510°). I even remember a dark blue nakago I saw once. - This might be a possible explanation. reinhard

This is exactly what uneducated dealers are dreaming of. reinhard

A Kao indeed. reinhard