pcfarrar

Tetsu Kai group, the jist of it is he's from a group of smiths who worked under Amatsu Masakiyo with no connection to the Minatogawa jinja. The kikusi is a later addition.

This sword was discussed on Facebook it's not a minatogawa smith or sword.

I've got #3 although I don't really want to sell it

I've definitely seen it before but I expect it was on the sword Ian now owns.

The jigane looks good, nice tight ko-itame with chikei. Wouldn't cost much to get the tsuka sorted in the UK either.

What auction house did you buy it from as they generally don't accept returns. £950 isn't too bad in the UK, you should be able to trade it in at a militaria fair and get your money back.

Doesn't that calculate to being in August not July.

Payment sent

https://camp-fire.jp/projects/view/4665?token=3guphrey Looks good but I'm guessing most people here don't have an Oculus Rift or a PC capable of running one. I will certainly give it a try on mine though when it's available.

It looks to be a modern cast fake sorry....

Yes I'm in

I will take a copy.

Of relevance to this thread, Bill Tagg is planning to list a mint condition shinbu-to for sale on his website Liverpool militaria. These are like mantetsu and designed for cold climates but much rarer (only 2000-3000 made). I checked out Bill's today and it was a very interesting blade far nicer than any mantetsu. It has a visible hada and could easily be mistaken for a gendaito. It will be well worth checking out for anyone interested in these swords. ohmura has an article on them: http://ohmura-study.net/207.html Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the blade but here is the signature.

I recently came into possession of this sword and found this thread by random chance from a Google search of nobukuni. It's an interesting katana well made with suguha hamon and some decent activity going on above the hamon. At first glance it looks very much like a hizen-to and has a nice ko-itame hada. I was unable to find any examples of this signature in books but the workmanship in the blade seems consistent for the Chikuzen Nobukuni school....

It's lost all the gold unfortunately so there isn't much you can do for it. It's very hard to attribute Jakushi school work to a generation with just a niji mei. It's most likely later work, the early ones depict trees differently and have more detailed figures.

Yes it's Jakushi, quite poor condition unfortunately.

Is the mizukage the only reason you think the blade is saiha (retempered) ? Did it fail shinsa etc.

I received my prize last week and was very pleased with it.

Yes I think late muromachi seki, the shape, length, short stubby original size nakago all point that way. But as you say will be impossible to pin to a smith.

Updated nakago image and a photo showing the sori. The original yasurimei are really hard to see and it looks like possibly higaki or takahona. Plenty of tsuba wear on the nakago so its definitely seen some use. I've also added a photo of the gunto koshirae for Dave.

Sorry I was planning to put up better photos but didn't get chance yet. Hopefully tonight.

I recently acquired a wakizashi signed Kanemori. It has a 23" nagasa and an active mino style gunome midare hamon. I can't figure out which smith it could be. There are loads in Seki around the muromachi period, a Bungo smith and a smith in Musashi that worked around 1670s. The fact that the sword is slightly machi okuri, giving an original size in the classic uchigatana length does suggest to me late muromachi. Anyone have any thoughts? It's mounted in WW2 gunto koshirae. Thanks, Peter

Nice matching set of Jakushi school fittings.

Donation sent.

Sorry I can't remember exactly what happened to it, I think it barely survived the polish, was very tired and not much hamon left.