cabowen

Hattori Masahiro. A smith not known for traditional work.....As Mark mentions, a good Showa-to.....

This is not true, unless the law has been changed very recently. According to the JuToHo, the Japanese laws governing all things swords and firearms, Chapter 3, Article 1, the only requirement given for licensing a sword is that it has "artistic value", regardless of period of manufacture. I know this because I had to point it out to the Mombusho overseer at a toroku shinsa who told me I could not receive torokusho on any blade dated in the war years of the showa era. After he actually read the law (the NBTHK publishes a booklet which contains the complete text and I always take it with me to toroku shinsa for just this sort of situation), he gave the shinsa team "permission" to issue the license, if the blades met with their approval. They did. One of the blades was indeed a mumei, war era blade. It too received a torokusho. A quick web search yielded the following. It is a mumei tanto, with kantei-sho, attributed to Tsukamoto Okimasa (a showa smith) by the NBTHK. It is in Japan so it has been licensed. http://www.nipponto.co.jp/swords/KT114661.htm Further searches will produce more of the same. To summarize, you can indeed license and own a mumei Showa era blade in Japan and the NBTHK has issued kantei-sho for the same....

And nioi-gire....

Fortunate you didn't pay much because it is a reproduction.

I take a pragmatic approach.... To get a reasonably well rounded viewpoint, I recommend studying the art, history, use and craft of the sword. But before that, one needs the vocabulary and rudimentary Japanese skills to read dates and mei. So my recommendation starts with language and vocabulary: Yumoto's Handbook, for sword vocabulary Koop and Inada's "Japanese names and how to read them" or Nelson's for kanji. Next, Sato's for art and history Kapp, for craft maybe one of the martial artists can recommend a good english text on swordsmanship.....I don't remember the titles of the couple I have.... Once these are digested, more advanced material, such as Nagayama, followed by Nakahara. I would stress the importance of learning fundamental kanji as used for dates and mei. Once, you have those, you can start learning the kanji used in sword descriptions. This will open up another world. If you can not read these, you will be stuck in first gear....

The current trend is to find another field of employment. The last 20 years of recession have been catastrophic to the craft. I know many smiths who are not receiving orders and are basically out of business. There isn't much, if any, of a coming generation. We are truly seeing a crisis before our eyes. One might argue that the boom in the '80's brought in too many smiths and the consolidation seen now is only normal but the feeling I get is that it is much more than that. The mukansa smiths are still getting orders but the rest, not so much. Togi-shi and the rest of the craftsman are suffering too, though as would be expected, not as badly as the smiths. Several polishers I know have told me that they would like to train someone willing to work in the West but that viable candidates have eluded them. Part of the problem is that not everyone who starts, finishes. It takes some time to evaluate whether or not the student has what it takes to succeed. Sometimes a student is turned out after a year or two. I think they would have a tougher time doing that if it was a foreigner...

Sometimes these disappear, sometimes not. Sometimes they will go away and a new one will open up further down the seam. My luck has been about 1 in 4 or 5 that goes away completely. Location plays an important role. If it is in the shinogi ji, a bo-hi can do wonders. If it is in or near the hamon, forget it....The newer the blade, the better the odds. An older blade like this is probably a sucker bet.....I would probably leave it as is.....

There are several mukansa level polishers, you will not go wrong with any of them. Mishina, Fujishiro, they are well known in the west and certainly top shelf. My favorite of the mukansa is Yanagawa san. I know many of these people and can assist if need be. If you need any further info or help, email me privately.

For several years I spent a three day holiday in Nagano with a top polisher, habaki-shi, and saya-shi. We always spent a day at Miyairi Kei's home, which was also the forge of his father, the Ningen Kokuho tosho Miyairi Akihira. On one occasion, there were three polishers in total at Miyairi san's home, one a mukansa, two probably future mukansa and all former students of Ono Kokei (deceased Ningen Kokuho). In front of us were 6-7 blades made by Miyairi san that had been polished by each of these togi. For several hours they each analyzed the pros and cons of each polish, discussing why they had done what they had done, comparing and contrasting each blade. Much like Franco's experience, it was mind boggling to see the inner workings of a master togi's craft. After that afternoon I realized the chasm that exists between amateurs and professionals and how the judgment of a polish is no simple matter, and certainly something impossible to judge from photos.

Hi Chris, I'll respectfully disagree with your statement in part, on one hand what you say can be true most of the time but there are times where it is not true (there are almost always exceptions to any rule, almost), in the case of some tired blades or blades that have seen very poor polishes in the past and some other circumstances. With a very tired blade or tired blade with a previous poor foundation polish, (like so many wartime polished blades, or previous poor amateur polishes from Japan or the west, or old swords etc.) it is not always the practice to correct the shape so much that they have the perfect shape (the light bulb test you refer to), the result could be a sword whose life has been ended or drastically shortened just to make a perfect shape. Your statement that it will be a poor polish is correct though - but perhaps it could not be avoided in some circumstances. To sacrifice the life of the sword to make a correct shape would not be proper is what I was told when questioning this very subject years ago. Thank you for mentioning this. I planned to edit my original post to add that there are circumstances, mostly with older blades, where damage has been removed and left the surfaces/shape less than perfect and to correct it would do more harm that good...simply forgot to do it.... Knowing when this is the situation is something that needs to be recognized before polish and discussed with the polisher. The problem is nearly all amateurs do not have the correct technique and will induce a wavey, improper surface, no matter what. A professional will recognize corrected damage in an old blade and do the right thing. An amateur usually has no clue. They will usually make things worse and can not correctly shape the blade in the first place. WWII blades can and should have their foundation polishes corrected. They are plenty healthy in general. The light bulb test is simply to determine if the foundation work has been done correctly. Generally, it is the most important part of polishing and one that must be done correctly if everything else is to follow well. If a polisher can not correctly set the shape of the blade, odds are they are not good at their craft. It weeds out the incompetent. Obviously there is a lot more to correct polishing. Half of the blame for the profusion of amateur polishers falls on collectors and dealers who supply them out of their own inability to judge a correct polish. If this simply test helps them to understand what a proper foundation should look like, I think it is of value. No doubt a polisher looks at at blade differently and can evaluate a polish on a whole different level. That does not mean a non-polisher can not understand a good polish if taught what to look for. A race car driver does not need to build his own car to know when his car is performing properly.... Sure, you can see the finishing and quickly notice if the hamon has been acid etched, if the kissaki has been properly shaped, and other points, provided the lighting and photos are good. This is only the beginning. These can look respectable in a photo but a blade is a three dimensional object-you will never be able to tell from a two dimensional photograph if everything has been done correctly and thus if the polish has been done properly. A photo can only give a superficial impression. It can weed out the obvious poor polishes but not all...I have seen women who look great in a photo and much less so in person. It is simply impossible to judge in toto the quality of a polish from a photo. I appreciate your input as it has better defined the problem....

Don't worry, this is not the start of a trend....There will be future shinsa by other teams. Resubmit.

Sorry, can't help with the hardware....

Joe- I understand your motives and appreciate you sharing, however, I think it is important for those without a lot of experience to understand exactly what constitutes a proper polish. As I have said, pictures do not tell the whole story. Simply putting up pictures such as these without any sort of critique or constructive criticism of the work has the real potential to lead people astray. Full disclosure leads to well informed consumers and ultimately, proper preservation of swords.

It may have been mounted that way originally as an iai-to in the early Showa period.

Yes, that is indeed a Seki stamp. Noshu Seki ju Hattori Masahiro Saku Non-traditionally made. WWII era.

関後藤兼光 Seki Goto Kanemitsu Made by Goto Kanemitsu of Seki Showa stamp indicates a non-traditionally made blade. This blade was mounted as an iai-to, not a military mounting.

Please forgive my crude attempt at illustrating the inconvenience of having to read something that is not posted in the correct orientation. The maker is Kanetada.....

Many of those around.... You are welcome.... Thanks for sharing these interesting blades.

a d a t e n a k Showa stamp. Non-traditionally made WWII era gunto. Seki.

That depends on the smith and what his custom was. Some smiths routinely dated their work and it would be odd to come across an undated example. Others never, or very rarely, dated. I have seen many fakes with a date, so not so sure a faker would avoid adding a date if it was normal in the real smith's work.... Generally speaking, the later a blade, the more they were dated. One sees most shinshinto dated, and all better gendai. In fact, when it comes to gendai, I would not in most cases own one that was not dated....

I don't think it matters much what it may have been. What is important is what it is now....

If Mishina san confirmed the tanto, I would be comfortable with that. Generally speaking, and it is of course not always true, blades with long mei such as these two are usually not the work of a faker. All those extra kanji are simply more data to judge by.... They may be daimei, but that is probably not that big of an issue. Daimei are a standing tradition in the Gassan school and nothing that detracts...

I could not begin to make that kind of judgment without a good collection of oshigata at hand as I am not a specialist in the Gassan tradition. Unfortunately most of my library is still in storage pending the move into the new house... The Sadakazu work is late so it is possible that the mei was cut by Sadakatsu. The Sadayoshi, not so much so, so it should in most cases be his mei, not Sadakazu's... Why are you asking this? Have you been told the mei are not good?

And you are welcome as always... PS- Go Brett!

Can't say anything definitive from internet photos, but nothing jumps out at me screaming "GIMEI!"....It could be the photos, but it may well benefit from a polish... It would seem you have had the trifecta of Gassan smiths, something few can claim....I didn't see much more than a small section of the Sadakazu blade, but based on what I have seen of the three blades, I would say the Sadakatsu is my favorite. I generally do not care much for the o-hada as seen in the Sadakazu, though I have seen enough Sadakazu blades to know he was a fantastic smith with a much deserved reputation....