eternal_newbie

This one?

My understanding of Kaneie Art's position in the market is that they are a high-end Chinese producer; rather than turning out cheaper works for everyday use, or high-end works to fool buyers looking for cheap gendaito (although it's entirely possible that some of the komonjo-style swords are quietly sourced from them or one of their workshops), they focus on high-grade examples of Chinese swordsmithing in the Japanese style. Sort of a "check it out guys, this is how far we've come in rivalling Japanese shinsakuto". At the high end some of their custom swords are comparable in cost to, if not higher than, a commission from an actual contemporary Japanese tosho.

Do you mean the latest gendai smith (i.e. the most recent)? Or the earliest date in which papers were given out to a gendai smith?

Another early Nobukuni, where the NBTHK were even less certain which one it could be: https://yakiba.com/nobukuni-tanto/. Here they gave the attribution "Nobukuni (Nanbokucho)", effectively saying it could be either the shodai or the nidai. Ed notes that "In most instances the works of Nobukuni smiths are papered or attributed to a time period or era opposed to a specific generation." In the case of the blade being described here, I think the sugata (classic Enbun-Joji) places it in a firm period within Nanbokucho that makes it more certain that it's the work of the shodai, but that small amount of doubt over exactly which periods the shodai and nidai worked in leads to the "Den" in the absence of anything concrete (as well as the other factors that could lead one to attribute it to Yamato Shizu).

With Shodai and Nidai Nobukuni it's hard to distinguish between the two without a signature (see https://nihontoclub.com/schools/YamashiroNobukuni) so in this case a "Den" makes sense in the absence of any conclusive evidence (signature, provenance) proving it's the Shodai.

Beautiful, thanks for sharing

There are also a number of dealers who regularly post updates on this message board in the Dealer Showcase forum section: https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/forum/88-dealer-showcase/

Do not use the white powder (uchiko) if you have never used it before or are unsure of the quality/origin; if used improperly it will damage the polish and can leave long, unsightly lines on the steel. Spray it with some isopropyl alcohol (also called isopropanol), at least 99% pure. Then wipe it down several times with a microfiber cloth, the kind you use to clean eye glasses or a camera lens. Afterwards, apply a very thin coat of the oil to both sides of the blade to prevent new rust from forming.

Japanese equivalent of this phenomenon: https://web.archive.org/web/20210126050727/https://blog.yuhindo.com/your-swords-not-samurai-swords-daimyo-swords/

Nice. Still awesome to have a sword that was authenticated and recognized as high-tier work by two independent orgs!

Neat! If you don't mind me asking, what were the two attributions given by the organizations?

And it would be very cool to have a sword that's both Yushu-to and Juyo token; especially if they're two different attributions! Talk about a great conversation piece.

Interesting call, but a very good result regardless. Well done! An attribution to Shodai Nobukuni suggests that the NBTHK has a higher opinion of the jigane than the NTHK-NPO, while the latter were more impressed by the activities around the hamon and the presence of nagare. I agree with the dealer's opinion that this is worth a shot at Juyo; I wouldn't be too surprised to see it change attribution again if it passes, since there's apparently enough evidence to lean towards either Yamashiro or Yamato influence. Some information here about the complexities around the first two generations of Nobukuni: https://nihontoclub.com/schools/YamashiroNobukuni

https://www.samuraisword.com/about-swords/sword-and-smiths-rating-systems/ The Toko Taikan by the late Dr. Tokuno contains a value system based on the Japanese yen. They are given in “man yen”, which are increments of 10,000 yen and are considered to represent the value of a “perfect” sword by the smith; one that is ubu and unaltered, signed, in good polish and made at the height of the smith’s career. Toko Taikan ratings generally tend to be overly optimistic – except at the top end, where they are somewhat pessimistic (at least compared to recent market rates). For example, the best work of a random 2 million yen gendai tosho in pristine condition is unlikely to sell for anywhere near 2 million yen, whereas a pristine, signed, ubu work of Awataguchi Yoshimitsu would fetch far in excess of 30 million yen, if you could even put a price to such a thing.

Ah, maybe the koshirae makes that price more reasonable. And yes, that's Seiyudo's photography style.

Good catch, thanks; I updated my post

As is 44k for a TH Tadahiro (early shodai Tadayoshi) when a nice Juyo Shizu can be had for that price. Even the Ayanokoji is priced in "expected to sail through TokuJu shinsa with ease" range for a Juyo piece. Out of the high-end swords, the Den Osafune Kagemitsu is ironically (while still expensive for TH) the most reasonably priced, given the maker, health and general quality of the work, and is also my favourite of the items in that lot.

At least in Australia, if buying directly from Japan, the answer is "yes" - the same amount of AUD today will get you markedly more JPY value in a sword than this time a year ago, even accounting for inflation, postage, import duties and exchange costs.

Absolutely, if the quality is anything like his previous book it would be a must-buy for me.

Seems stable now (from Australia). I did notice the slowdown earlier at around the times @Bruce Pennington mentioned. Over the last week, I have noticed brief periods where leaving post feedback or a reply in a thread would take a very long time to go through but they generally seemed to resolve themselves after about 5 minutes or so; didn't mention it as they could just have easily been on my end since the internet isn't fantastic where I live.

A visual guide can be found here: https://www.jssus.org/nkp/fake_japanese_swords.html Further resources here: https://www.japaneseswordindex.com/realold.htm https://www.japaneseswordindex.com/repro.htm

Very interesting habaki design, and even more so that the tsunagi replicates it.

It also looks like because TIF is unsupported by the forum software, it didn't automatically resize the images to a smaller/lower-quality.

The inimitable Minamoto Kiyomaro (signing here as Minamoto Masayuki 源正行). Easy to see why he is, on average, among the top four highest-fetching makers of nihonto at dealers and auctions (the other three being Masamune, Go and Kotetsu).

Great work, thank you