cabowen

Isn't this Suzuki Munehide 宗榮, a shinto smith from Harima, circa Enpo (~1672)? Blade has been remounted a few times...Looks Shinto all day long.....

:lol:

onsen 温泉： wakimizu 湧き水：

So it would seem....smiths make blades now all year long, well, not so much in summer... Never seen that done...I never stuck my hand in the trough though, not wanting to get it cut off... :lol:

Wakimizu 湧き水, spring water, doesn't change temperature all that much throughout the year.

The document on the upper left is the torokusho, or registration card, issued by the government and to always be with the sword. When exported, as this one was (?), the card is supposed to be returned to the government and an export document issued. This rule was not always followed, as in this case. The document on the right is a receipt issued by the seller, Komino Token Ten (Komino Sword Shop), for a mumei (unsigned) sword with koshirae (mounting ) and togidai (polish I believe). The yen amount is indeed the sales price.

Yeah, I hear you Ron....I ran into this older fellow at a gun show about 20 years ago- I was reading the mei on a sword and he came up next to me. He struck up a conversation and asked if I would come by and see his collection and maybe read some mei for him....I said sure and we set a date. Turned out he had over 200 swords and couldn't read a single kanji....Could not believe it...

The blade looks typical for the smith. The saya looks to have been "GI'ed"....

伯州住源勝正作之 Hakushu Minamoto Katsumitsu saku kore From Shimane. Family name Kanaya.He was a good smith.

I have heard that lots of people in Japan are scanning books into digital form then selling the hard copies. With the small size of most Japanese homes/apts/"mansions", it makes a lot of sense...

Maybe a good question for the NBTHK-US.

I made a tanto in the US once with help from a Japanese smith, signed with my name in kanji. I told the shinsa'in that I had made it when he couldn't find the smith in his meikan :lol: ....it was registered in Tokyo without any issue. As I recall, all the Ju To Ho says regarding what can be registered is that it has to be an art work or have "value".

non-traditional.

I don't think there is any question that this blade has been shortened- the upper mekugi-ana looks very fresh compared to the lower one. There is some shingane showing through in one of the photos and that is pretty rare in a Shinto or later blade. My feeling is this is an o-suriage koto blade. The jigane looks to be rather nice (except for the shingane area as mentioned)...

Um, look at the preceding post....

Yasuki hagane 安来鋼

Both....

Should be rather simple to take an old, thought to be cast tsuba, section it, and check for spherical carbides to confirm it was converted to malleable cast iron.

Kory, I think there are a few reasons why you aren't getting a lot of feedback- -the photos don't really give a clear picture of the hamon or hada. I don't recall seeing a full length shot either. -it appears o-suriage and koto, but there isn't anything visible to grab onto and go much further... Having said that, it appears that it has a high shinogi (maybe just the photo angle?) and there seems to be masame flowing through the hamon with sunagashi. I would guess, based on these observations, that it may be something with at least one foot in Yamato-den. If there are togari in the hamon, then look toward Mino and its derivatives. If not, look more at Yamato centric groups. Hard to say much about the period other than Koto without the right photos but odds are later Koto...

The seller seems to dump lots of blades from Japan on Ebay. Many are sketchy at best and plain fakes when it comes to many of the gendaito/shinsakuto...I would be careful.

The first thing that one should notice is that the blade is suriage/o-suriage and the "Sa" signature is a latter addition. It looks very amateurish and I think most will recognize this for what it is straight away... Throw it in the trash? Nah, throw it on ebay!

Jimmy Hayashi, San Francisco. Fully trained professional. Takeo Seki, Vancouver, Canada. Fully trained professional. Either will do a proper job.

As I said, it is Sukesada. Please search kazuuchi-mono Bizen swords of the 16th century in google and see if the info fits. From these pictures, most people can not see enough detail to give you a definitive answer.

Depends on the atmosphere in which the decarb occurs...Cracking and loss of ductility are issues when it happens in a hydrogen environment and is called hydrogen attack. The real issue with this theory is that normal decarb is mostly a surface effect. It would be extremely difficult-some might say near impossible given the tech available-to decarb through the body of a tsuba plate.

acetone (fingernail polish remover) would be a good first attempt.