eternal_newbie

Yes, Aoi's system has a standard 1000JPY minimum increment for all bids. If you up your bid, but the current bidder is still higher than you, it will record your maximum bid in there, and then set their bid to be 1000JPY higher than this. The increasing bid increment in auction houses is to keep the pace of bidding going faster and faster; this isn't an issue for online auctions because the system is able to handle multiple tiny bid increases within a single second and not skip a beat, unlike a human auctioneer who can only call out so many bids in a given timeframe. According to some of my friends in e-commerce, keeping a small increment apparently encourages bidders who are on the fence to jump in, on the off-chance that they might just happen to snap up the item with a tiny increment outbidding the current maximum. And once they do this, they get invested in the outcome and are more likely to raise their bid.

Hmm... I wonder how kosher those bids are. Wouldn't be surprised to see it show up again for sale, perhaps at a more reasonable price. Yes, it's ubu, zaimei, early Osafune... but 71M yen is well into Tokubetsu Juyo or Masamune territory.

Many of the swords people describe as "a good starter blade" or "an interesting study piece" are mediocre, in poor health and polish, and generally don't really offer anything to be learned from by examining them other than the experience of holding a Japanese sword. This, on the other hand, is the kind of blade I would have loved to start with; a maker of high skill and renown (considered the intermediate quality step between Tametsugu and Norishige, and with many blades that have earned Juyo), in good polish and health, and with plenty of activities in the hamon and ji. A blade like this will continue to reveal its secrets as you get better at viewing it and understanding what you're looking at, and in turn will continue to entice you to develop your skill and broaden your knowledge. Good luck with your sale!

I mentioned it in another thread but, if you really must upload your full-resolution high-quality blade photography (and by all means do so, we love some good eye candy on this board ) the best way to do this is by using an external hosting service (Google Drive, Dropbox, Photobucket, Zonerama etc.) and linking to it from your thread. This lets people access the full-quality files at their leisure, without taxing the NMB's resources unduly.

Upload space is limited and so uploaded photographs are downsampled automatically. If you have an image hosting account (e.g. Photobucket, Google Drive) people often provide a link to where the high resolution photos are stored so folks who want a closer look can get to them.

Here is a thread where the topic of modifying a koshirae to fit a different blade was discussed; in particular, I posted a picture in there of a saya rasp tool used to adjust the inside of the saya to fit the new blade:

備州長船 [ ][ ] - Bishu Osafune XX 祐國 Sukekuni perhaps? But as @Scogg has said, it's not a genuine sword so the signature is meaningless (purely there to mislead potential buyers).

Unfortunately Google "search" nowadays is somewhat more reliant on AI hallucinations than data analysis/indexation; please adjust your expectations and research methodology accordingly.

Looking forward to it - Shitahara work in katana, wakizashi and tanto is usually quite distinctive so it will be interesting to see what it looks like in a jumonji yari.

You're in good company; it is indeed the general consensus among connoisseurs and scholars that Sadamune is superior in jigane and sugata, while Masamune reigns in hamon, hataraki and application of nie in general. In fact, Sadamune is often described as having "the finest jigane in all of Japanese swordsmithing", outshining even Rai and Awataguchi.

There's chikei, and then there's chikei... And then there's Masamune chikei.

I really appreciate seeing people's own personal thoughts on exhibits and high-level blades like this. While I don't necessarily rely on them for my own personal evaluation of swords, it's always refreshing to see what kind of different personalities and preferences exist elsewhere in the nihonto world.

Congratulations on your sword going Tokubetsu Juyo! The English list of exhibits can be found here, and the English translation of the captions for the exhibits can be found here.

Assuming your polisher is a reputable and reliable sort, this is absolutely the case. They will likely also stress that there is no such thing as a perfectly safe polish (unless it's something very light like a shiage retouch) because even the healthiest looking blade could have a flaw revealed when some metal is removed.

Some possibilities for 記 based on the rough appearance of the kanji surrounding it: 南記重国 Nanki Shigekuni 英記直宗 Hideki Naomune 武州住内記康重 Bushu [Shitahara] ju Naiki Yasushige

Yes, looks like it was chiseled around the nakago-ana, which is generally not something you ever see, especially on older blades.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this blade sailed through the 29th Tokubetsu Juyo token session, and will be on display at the Sword Museum (again) over the next few weeks. You can find the English list of exhibits here, and the English translation of the exhibition setsumei here. Something interesting to note: The explanation for exhibit #11 now quite clearly states that the designation of "Shizu" refers to a group of smiths, among which Kaneuji is considered the leading smith. So it looks as if we have officially exited the period in which an attribution to Shizu should automatically be considered a work of Shizu Saburo Kaneuji (which has been the official position of the NBTHK during Tanobe-sensei's tenure), unless the setsumei specifically mentions that the blade shows his particular workmanship.

@Jo92 Unfortunately, the person you are responding to is no longer with us (may he—along with your ancestors—rest in peace).

This should be in its own separate topic as it is unrelated to the original poster's sword. That aside, the mei (inscription) reads: 小池貞信作 (Koike Sadanobu saku, "Made by Koike Sadanobu") 文久二年七月日 (Bunkyū ni-nen nana-gatsu hi, "The seventh month of Bunkyū 2 [i.e. July, 1862]") I have only managed to find one other example of a sword by this smith: https://www.nipponto.co.jp/swords6/KY331877.htm (this one was made in February, 1863). The Japanese text in the listing of this sword says that this is an alternative signature of Gassan Unryushi Sadanobu (月山雲龍子貞信), however I do not know enough about the Gassan lineage of smiths to confirm this.

Some say that the sword finds the owner, and not the other way around...

Thank you for your insights; it's great to hear from someone with more experience of Sōden-Bizen than myself. That mumei blade is also a beauty – very much kenzen, as the Juyo panel likes to say in its writeups. A serious collector would be proud to own either, but as you say: they each offer different things to the connoisseur. As for me, when it comes to Sōden-Bizen my favourite smith remains (Enbun) Kanemitsu and the dream is to own a daitō by him someday, even if the prestige of the smith and my relatively modest means dictate that it's likely to remain just that – a dream.

On the English-speaking side, Andrew Ickeringill is a polisher who has won awards in Japan and polished many Juyo and TokuJu-level blades, including some by Go Yoshihiro. You can view examples of his work and find his contact details at his website: https://touken-togishi.com/ Unless you are a purist who only likes one specific polishing style, it's generally best to let the polisher decide, or at least suggest, what kind of polish would suit the blade's style and activities best; sometimes they may leave the decision to you when it could go either way (e.g. if both the jigane and hamon are excellent, you might need to choose between highlighting one or the other, or somewhere in between).

Among modern Japanese koshirae (iaito, shinken) there seem to be two main styles - the standard tsuka type which is the slightly curved but otherwise near-uniform width form that you dislike, and the other is Higo-style, which is the slimmer, more dramatically waisted form seen on your wakizashi. I also favour the latter and ask for it when ordering iaito (and for my commissioned iai shinsakuto), even though it tends to be more expensive than the thicker "default". Among Chinese copies the problem is even worse; believe it or not, your Hanwei is one of the better tsuka from that early age of production blades. Most of them suffered from what we called "axe-handle syndrome" where the tsuka was (in addition to being far longer and wider than traditional katana) completely straight and of an entirely uniform width from fuchi to kashira, resembling the handle of a polearm or chopping weapon rather than a blade made for slashing and slicing.

Agreed, for this reason I cross-referenced the signature dates with the actual era dates and intentionally avoided translating anything not directly related to the historical significance of the blade. If there are any errors in what I wrote, I would welcome any corrections or suggestions.

Another part of this is that the way swords are used today is different; particularly the dominance of Toyama-ryu style tameshigiri and ZNKR-style iaido (which has strong ties to kendo, and thus also favours a longer tsuka). Ease of manipulation and single-handed use take a back seat to cutting power and "proper" form according to the mainstream martial arts.