YourBabyBjornBorg

No problem! But I'm afraid it's almost impossible to tell the blade's quality, style, or value through the pictures above. I wish I could be of more help, but I can't responsibly recommend or reject a sword with very limited pictures

Hi! This sword has an interesting Hitatsura, but the signature looks like 迷い鏨 (unsure chiseling by people who are not professional smiths) and very off to my amateur eyes. 4600 US dollars is way too high for a Gimei sword like this, even with Koshirae. For comparison, a Hozon Kunishige Wakizashi is sold for 943 dollars this month on Yahoo Auction. And a decently made Gimei Kunishige Katana with Koshirae, very new polishing, and an NBTHK green paper was sold for 1579 dollars last May. There were many more examples.

Hi! This is hard...... On the left is signature 雞谷一閑人, “a person of leisure in the valley of chicken”, perhaps a 雅号/Gago ("elegant/artistic pen name"). 閑人 is indeed very elegant in traditional Chinese and Japanese culture, like someone with cranes flying around them, and has pine trees around their hut. 以(?)宗近正志(?)慰模之 Imitated with the rightful aspiration of Munechika for consolation. (?)

In the original Kenwaroku by Imamura in 1912, it's 四つ胴落 Yondo Otoshi (four body cut). Compared to the Talking, there was indeed a typo. It's 裸身目方百六十匁にて手軽き刀 ("the naked sword weighs 601 grams, quite a light sword in hand") in the original Kenwaroku, and 裸身目方百六十匁にて手短き刀 ("the naked sword weighs 601 grams, quite a short sword in hand") in the Talking. 601 grams is very light for a sword like this, but 71.2cm is the standard length (Teisun). Makes one wonder if there were other errors in the text. A Mitsumasa‘s cutting test on Token and History issue 453 in 1970, Oshigata sent by Tanzan Sensei (then Tanobe Michihiro Sensei). Kunikiyo is also mentioned, 四ッ胴落 in this version. A Mumei Tametsugu with Mitsusama's cutting test from the 10th Juyo. Phew! That was a lot. Now, to McDonald's! (Here it's 8:00 PM now, and it's still not dark outside. Szechuen is much closer to Tibet than to Beijing.)

Wait, is this recorded in the famous Talking about Nihonto with Imamura and Becyaku? (「今村・別役刀剣講話」) (wait, what's べっちゃく in Romaji? Anyway...) It's even got the states. 71.2cm in length, 1cm of Sori, 601 grams of weight. One thing is different, though. It's 二ッ胴落 in the book, 貳胴落 on the sword. The Kanji for two is different (二/貳), and the character ッ is missing. This could be a copying error, of course. A Mitsumasa from my copy of 日本のかたな.

This looks like a legitimate 2nd or 3rd gen 山城守藤原国清 Yamashiro no Kami Fujiwara Kunikiyo with Tameshigiri Mei signed by 根津三郞兵衛尉光政 Nezu Saburobe no Jo Mitsumasa, a cutting tester in around Genroku (1688 to 1704). This could go more than 3 million yen in the Japanese market with Hozon or above, and even higher in the foreign market. (菊紋) 一 山城守藤原国清 (chrysanthemum crest) Ichi Yamashiro no Kami Fujiwara Kunikiyo 貳胴落 上一ノ胴元禄四辛未年三月日 下二ノ胴 根津三郞兵衛尉光政 (花押) Nido Otoshi, Ue Ichinodo in the 3rd month of the 4th year of Genroku, year of Shinbi in the sexagenary cycle, and Shita Ninodo, Nezu Saburobe no Jo Mitsumasa (Kao) A very similar sword from Kasyu Shinto Syu. This is only for rough reference because Kinzogan Mei like this can't be rubbed, so they imitate it with a pencil. From Thoughts on Nihonto.

This is weird, I can't find anything about a smith named 井戸兼弘 Ido Kanehiro as in the picture. This does look like a WWII sword if it's not a fake one, and there was a WWII smith named 兼弘 Kanehiro, so that might be the answer. Value is best estimated with sophisticated pictures, but a WWII sword like this without its fitting goes around 1000~2000 US dollars in the Japanese market...? Ah! There was a post talking about a similarly signed sword. https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/8498-ww2-sword/ The signature of your sword looks a little weaker than the one in that post, and that could be a sign of a counterfeit sword from, um, yeah...... But I'm not familiar with WWII swords, so this could still be genuine. May we see its fitting and the blade?

I was looking for Terukado's real name (which is 武藤宗九郎/Muto Sokuro for all generations), and I saw this, a shrine sword (Honoto) in Haruhi Shrine from Minoto Daikan, signed "Zenjou Fujiwara Terukado, temple petitioner (like donating to a shrine to pray for good things to happen or protection) Muto Sozaro Yoshikado". (善定藤原照門 願主武藤宗三良嘉門) Eh, it's probably nothing. Also, the most famous 武藤宗右衛門 is Muto Kiyohide, a lord under Nobunaga, but he died in 1579.

Wow! Glad to see this old but difficult topic being discussed further. In retrospect, I did jump to the conclusion that this sword was Terukado without concrete evidence. In my defence, there is some circumstantial evidence, like (I think) the only smith we know using the prefix 善定正統 (Orthodox Zenjou school) is Terukado, and the overall style of Mei is quite similar to some of the Terukado we see (especially the way of writing 美 in 美濃/Mino), and the fixation of emphasizing using Jigane-Oroshi in Mino. Very few smiths do this, and one is Terukado. So if I were a gambling person (which I am not), I would say that Terukado of all smiths is the most likely one. Of course this could also be someone very close to Terukado, or someone's impression of Terukado, like Mr. Steve just pointed out. That Muto Soemon might remain a mystery...... Wait, I think I just found something.

Hi! This is the first time I realized that dated Tadayoshi and Tadahiro are quite rare! At least on the market, because I do recall pages of dated Hizen in the Hizento Daikan. Kanei 14. Kanei 15, 2nd month. Kanei 15, 8th month. This is weird, all three dated Tadahiro I can find in a jiffy are before Tadahiro's Juryo (for Ominodaijo) in Kanei 18. It does look like Tadahiro dated his swords more before and around his Juryo.

This is only my very amateur opinion, and judging only from pictures on a sword that may not have the best polishing condition can be very unreliable, but it does look more like o-hada or Shingane/Sumihada to me on the left side, with a large amount of space not showing enough patterns of Kitae like this, and with very white outlines, compared to the right side. Red zone is with Kitae's pattern, blue zone is without. Maybe it's better if we knew the Motogasane and Sakigasane (thickness) and weight. When I first see this, it strikes me as a somewhat tired sword. Regarding Utsuri, because Shingane/Sumihada(literally "ink skin" sometimes, described as a "black spots without Kitae's pattern/Muji, a kind of Shingane or weak Jigane like Rai-Hada") usually looks darker and more unreflective than regular Kawagane, so in this contrast, the non-Shingane part looks like Utsuri, which is kind of like glowing. Like this part retained most of this original Kawagane, and it looks like all of this part is with Utsuri, only the Chikei part is dark. Also, "Mumei Aoe" attribution from NBTHK might suggest this belongs to the Sue-Aoe from late Kamakura to Nanbokucho, and the sugata suggests the same, so around 1360 is very reasonable. (Nanbokucho swords are not supposed to be thick as an Okite in Kantei, so around 6.5mm of Motogasane is fine, but the mere number of Kasane can be misleading, so knowing its weight is very important. ) Again, I know very little about Kantei, and this is only my insignificant idea as a very young Nihonto student. Do please correct me on anything. Thank you.

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Hi! The first character is 紀/Ki, but I'm not sure what the second one is (it's not 内, maybe something with a 釒 on the left), and I can't do any guesswork because I know nothing about Tosogu

Hi! This is signed by Yoshinao, a smith born in 1908 (or 1906), so...... Full signature is 関藤原義尚作 Seki Fujiwara Yoshinao Saku, "made by Fujiwara Yoshinao in Seki".

I can't make out the whole of Yasurime in one picture, so I have to piece it out. Put the two together and it looks like Takanohane as shown below.

Yes, finally! 永延三年二月日 Eien 3 (989), a day in February, 友成 Tomonari. Very, very Gimei (false signature), unfortunately. This could be 永延五年 Eien 5, except there is no Eien 5, only 1 to 3. The earliest genuine date on a Japanese sword is said to be 平治元年八月二日 August 2nd., 1159 (really it's September 16th, 1159. it's a whole thing, Japanese traditional calendar vs Julian calendar and stuff), on a Juyo Bijutsuhin ("Important Art Objects") Ko-Naminohira. Ko-Bizen Tomonari is one of the most famous and well-regarded smiths of all time. I believe there are many information about him in English on the internet. Also, the Habaki on your sword is quite nice, which is usually a good sign of a sword's potential quality. It's what we call, sometimes facetiously, appraisal by Habaki (鎺鑑定, Habaki Kantei). It's very hard to see Hamon and Kitae in the current state of polishing. This is O-Gunome ("Big Gunome", these continuous and almost semicircular shapes), very rare, maybe Mino school, but not sure about the time period. Could be from late Muromachi all the way to WWII. The Yasurime (decorative file patterns on the tang) looks like Takanohane, which is also quite Mino.

Sorry, it still says "the requested page could not be found", what am I doing wrong

Hi! Sorry, every time I enter https://imgur.com/a/7nzxFej, it just sends me back to https://imgur.com/, so I can't see any of the pictures.

Hi! This is signed 佐渡守國富元嘉 Sado no Kami Kunitomi Motoyoshi(?). 元喜 (also reads as Motoyoshi) is incorrect in this case, although it's Kunitomi's another name. (There is even a Hozon paper that wrote the third way, 元善/Motoyoshi, but I don't think that's right) http://www.nipponto.co.jp/upload/img31/2011_0627_74a.jpg This is weird. None of the Kunitomi I can find is signed with this 元嘉 version. All 佐渡守國富元喜 or just 佐渡守國富. But the record of 元嘉 can be found in all kinds of books. So this is harder for us to try to tell if this signature is genuine or not. It also doesn't help with his signature style/font changes frequently. We can still try to compare the 佐渡守國富 part, of course. All of the below are Hozon or better. (Recorded in Toukou Jiten counts as Hozon or better, right...?) (This one is really good! Definitely the best in all of these. Wait, this doesn't have Hozon! Only NTHK paper. Eh, no one in their right mind would make a Gimei Kunitomi on this kind of sword. This could easily pass as a pretty good Mishina.)

This makes a lot of sense! I've heard some cases where scammers just post some swords with pictures on the internet to get people interested. They come to ask about the sword and pay for it, and the scammers just come up with all kinds of excuses to explain why the sword still isn't here after 2 years......or just block the buyer the second they get the money. I mean what are the buyers going to do, call the police and say "Help! I paid someone to smuggle in an illegal foreign Restricted Blade Weapon, and he ghosted me!"? Not likely......

I think they are just regular intermediaries that go between Chinese collectors and Japanese sellers. Japanese swords are kind of in a gray area in China, and they can't come directly into the Chinese market through customs (except for Hong Kong), also international wiring is quite difficult with everyone's miserly 10K US dollar maximum per year. So there must be some kind of intermediaries with "connection" in Chinese customs and the ability to "exchange" Chinese currency to Japanese Yen. It's not 100% legal and above ground, so Chinese collectors can hardly sue these people even if they got scammed, and they get scammed a lot. All my top collector friends here complain about not knowing any intermediary honest and trustworthy enough to buy very expensive swords with. So yes, some of them are......quite scammy.

Hi! This is not an NBTHK Certificate, but a Firearm and Sword Possession Registration Certificate (銃砲刀剣類登録証, what we call Torokusho) issued by the local government. Every legal Japanese sword in Japan must have one. The signature written on it is the same as what's on the sword. The signature is 井上真改 Inoue Shinkai on one side, (菊紋) 延寶七年八月日 (Chrysanthemum Crest) Enpo 7 (1679), a day in August, on the other side. There is no need for payment, for I'm happy to do this for free. It's really nothing anyway. I'm afraid this is an obvious and low-effort fake signature (Gimei), but this still could be a genuine Japanese sword and hold artistic value. Also, Torokusho (in most cases) only faithfully records the signature, regardless of its authenticity.

Hi! This looks like 後藤光孝(花押) Goto Mitsutaka (Kao).

After talking about this with my Nihonto friends in China, we found that the only two lines of comments are in Japanese, but I doubt this kind of behaviour is actually from a Japanese person, perhaps a smokescreen/camouflage. Also apparently there are already some Chinese brokers who want to build this kind of website with AI, so please don't let it be actually one of them......

Yes! I searched "大和守藤原国行" (Yamato no Kami Fujiwara Kuniyuki) on Google, and this page popped up. https://www.katana24.com/ichiba/3bc48704-bbcb-4f0f-8bb1-4f2f90218250 Some of its "articles" are dated in March 2026, but I'm not sure if it's that old, because I do this kind of search quite often, and this is the first time I'm seeing this website.