eternal_newbie

I didn't actually notice that until you mentioned it, I thought they were just creases in the leather. Clearly I need to have my glasses prescription updated...

Ah. If anything, that would make it more appealing to me, as I am trying to assemble a collection of different sugatas as well as schools, and one of the most renowned Sanekage blades is also a naginata naoshi (the Falling Leaf meito, which Hoshi and Markus Sesko wrote about here: https://nihontology.substack.com/p/the-falling-leaf).

I misspoke - it was in his follow-up post, not the original. Sanekage is a very nice smith, 1.8M for a Juyo is a steal, assuming there aren't some serious mitigating conditions. He's a step up from Tametsugu, and Juyo Tametsugu usually ranges from 3M to 4.5M in today's market. I too would have been sorely tempted, even if I didn't personally like the blade!

I suggest heading over to the Dealer Showcase (https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/forum/88-dealer-showcase/) and visiting a few of those websites; many of the dealers there have greatly informative writeups of the blades on offer, even if their photography isn't quite up to the standards of Unique Japan. In addition to the dealers listed in that forum, I strongly recommend Fred Weissberg's site nihonto.com - although he tends to specialize in items somewhat above your price range, he does offer a few more affordable gems now and then. More importantly, he has a great many archived swords and articles that are extremely educational for someone, such as yourself, who is looking to collect in the mid-to-high grade Tokubetsu Hozon level (which is what you should be aiming for with that budget).

If I'm reading Christopher's original post correctly, he does actually have a tanto and yari already - but this would be his first papered, good-quality purchase. Regardless, at least in the current economy I don't think you'd be able to get a Juyo-quality blade for 1.6M yen unless the seller doesn't know what they have (and if you find one, do let the rest of us know where you got it ).

That Kazuyoshi katana is a monster... 0.9mm motokasane is the type of dimension we usually see on a yoroidoshi, and here it's on a nearly 85cm blade! I can see why two mekugi would be needed.

Fair enough.

Care to elaborate? I'm curious to see how they compare to the previous two sessions, which had an extremely low (sub-10%) pass rate.

Lovely, thanks Andrew!

Nosyudo, 濃州堂 One of the highest quality iaito manufacturers in Japan, they are based in Seki (Gifu Prefecture) and much-loved by Westerners. https://nosyudo.jp/ Their English catalog: https://nosyudo.jp/catalogs/EnglishCatalog2025.pdf

For 1.6M yen you'll have plenty of good options for a first sword matching that list, even if you just limit yourself to koto Soshu. Take as much time as you need to better understand the market and your own preferences, and don't be afraid to post in the WTB forum here as well; there are many members who have, or have access to, blades that might interest you within those parameters and budget.

This sort of obfuscation is surprisingly common on Japanese dealer websites, more so than the English dealers who usually try to educate the buyer (eBay/auction sellers excepted, obviously). They'll put some verbiage about the most famous/sought after smith in the line that the blade belongs to, and leave it to the buyer to realize that the stated era the blade is from doesn't match said smith (or to read the attached papers and note the specified era or generation).

Ditto! For the record, here is the official translation of the sword's explanation plaque in the Sword Museum: Reading between the lines a little, one can infer that in the time since Kanzan's tenure, either more "early sword records" were found that describe precisely the sort of construction and hardening seen here as the work of Yukimitsu; or alternatively further research and deliberation have led the panel of experts to decide that the blade does indeed match the descriptions they already had.

Thanks for the pictures! They're going straight into my archive. Nice clean shot of the mei, too.

Mentioned here, along with links to an English writeup of the exhibits, if you didn't manage to find it yet: Aside from the Awataguchi blades, of personal interest to me is the Yukimitsu which is the only signed work of his that is also done in hitatsura and is thus a valuable data point for Soshu. That single blade allows the NBTHK to issue non-den attributions to Yukimitsu for works that match that hitatsura style, since there's a shoshin zaimei example as a reference.

Sounds like the best course of action is to make sure you can afford the tariff bill before ordering from overseas, then cross your fingers and hope you get lucky.

You are almost certainly correct - the general rule of thumb for Komonjo blades is, if they aren't papered, assume they won't paper, at least in their current state.

Nice find. High-resolution images of treasure swords are always worth a look!

Someone who's played baseball would probably try to hit it with the monouchi, like you would to get a good homer. But yeah - this is pretty much exactly what scratches from cutting look like. If it was a blade deemed important enough to test pre-war, it would likely have been given a light polish to remove the scuffing, if not the nicks - this is what leads me to believe it was done during the war, or after it. EDIT: one other possibility is that if the blade really is late Edo period, it could have been involved in a fight during the Bakumatsu era.

Before the war it would probably have been a family blade so this likely happened during the war - or after it (unfortunately not all owners of cool-looking antiquities can be trusted to not take a swing at a pool noodle, cardboard box or water jug). I've also seen anecdotes of treasure blades that were being used to trim weeds or chop unruly branches before someone knowledgeable managed to rescue them.

Very interesting, thank you for the insight!

There are also some schools where a specific type of shinae - shinae-ware, or small crack-like openings in the horizontal grain - are expected and not considered a flaw at all. In particular, the Hosho school's masame-hada has a tendency to produce these and it's even considered a kantei point for that school.

Generally shinae themselves aren't considered a structural integrity problem and are unlikely to develop into a bigger problem on their own - but they do indicate that the blade was abused or faced some serious stress in battle, and thus are a warning sign that internal structural weaknesses may have developed as a result. Think of it as seeing a giant dent in a car's side door; the dent itself likely has no bearing on the roadworthiness of the vehicle, but having received a perpendicular hit like that, you'd want to check that the suspension's not shot.

For a new blade, generally if it's not small enough to be ground out, the smith wouldn't sign the blade and forward it for polishing (especially given that they're only allowed to produce a limited number of blades each month). For older blades being touched up, it depends on how deep the flaw goes - usually the integrity of the blade is prioritized above a flawless topology, especially if you don't know exactly how much surface metal would need to be ground down to erase the flaw(s).

The answer is that nobody knows for sure, and there will be a great many lawsuits, class actions and appeals before any of this is even close to being sorted out. Until then, it will depend entirely on whomever is transporting and selling the goods you're interested in and how they choose to respond, and some element of luck regarding which customs agent ends up processing your package.