deadoscillate

Hey Mal, I don't have it in hand so I'm not sure how long the nakago is. I can get that next week when I pick it up. The two mekugi do correspond to holes in the nakago. I believe it uses the bottom two for the gunto tsuka. This is why I thought the blade was older because of the one at the top, it looked like the bottom two were either drilled for the conversion or at the very least the middle hole was drilled and it had two originally. When I get it in hand, I'll take some closeup pictures of the holes and we should be able to tell which were drilled.

Hey BaZZa thanks for your input! Yeah I'm pretty happy with it in either case. Like I said earlier this would be the first in my collection so I think I'm going to snag it. Maybe it's a little high at $1400 but seeing comparable Gunto at that price I feel like this is a good deal for the quality. Thanks everyone for your help in narrowing this down. It's either one of two smith's signing Shige in this way. They wouldn't be more than one generation apart in either case and at the very least it's Gendaito. Hopefully now I can snag some more books and learn more about Nihonto in general because I would really love to own something pre Tokugawa.

Ha! Doh! I completely missed it. I'm still very new to nihonto, this would be the first in my collection, so I'm grasping for information a bit 😅 thanks for catching that. I think this is enough to go on for me to pull the trigger on the purchase. I just wanted to make sure it was actually nihonto or at the very least gendaito.

I did find this listing, this could be similar. https://nihontoart.com/shop/kogarasu-maru-katana-by-shigemitsu/ Let me know what y'all think?

Hey thank you so much for spending some time researching this one. Is the difference in signatures just the province he worked in? Would make sense if he moved around, but same I haven't been able to find any other examples of his or other information. @Shugyosha @Bruce Penningtondo you think this piece might be a good candidate for Shinsa if polished?

Right? The lower two holes to my eyes seem to be more inline with each other leading me to believe it originally just had the top one above the mei.

Nakago pictures are above, do they give yall any insight as to age?

Okay everyone just got the full nakago pictures, both sides. Attaching below @Bruce Pennington @Shugyosha @PNSSHOGUN @mecox

Right I don't recall seeing anything on the other side.

Thank you for sharing this, this is solid information. I guess I just don't understand if this is Suetsugu why his mitsu kanji is so different than all of the other mei attributed to him. Screenshots below for comparison. This piece: Extant examples of Suetsugu Shigemitsu: For character

Okay cool. Seller will get me the additional nakago pictures on Monday, I'll update as soon as I get them. Is there anything else you'd like to see while I'm getting more photos?

That does help a lot thank you for the info! Oh I see, that would make sense. Knowing that, do y'all think this was possibly an older unsigned blade and the Showa smith simply signed it for the gunto conversion? Can't imagine the odds that the Genji era Shigemitsu blade ended up in the hands of the Showa Shigemitsu, or that if it is the earlier Shigemitsu that the Showa smith who performed the conversion didn't sign it at all.

Oh okay I see that makes sense. I looked into Suetsugu Shigemitsu, the extant mei examples don't really match up to this one in terms of style. I would bet its still most likely one of his, but kinda holding out hope on an earlier Shigemitsu. I'll upload the full nakago pictures as soon as I get them.

Working on getting additional pictures, its being held for me by the seller. What is the significance of having 2 mekugi? There are 3 ana in the nakago, my guess is two of them were made for the gunto fittings?

Hello! Would love some opinions on this piece. No arsenal stamp, two kanji Mei which I think is Shigemitsu, correct me if I'm wrong. Trying to determine if it is traditionally made and rough age if possible. Thank you Chris H.