Sukaira

That is awesome, I haven't seen that one. Lot 1 from the book I have is a Ko-Bizen Tomonari from Oda Nobunaga, National Treasure (I think?): "Item 1 – National Treasure: A Ko-Bizen Tomonari tachi, measuring 2 shaku 3 sun 5 bu (approximately 71.2 cm). It is fitted with an Owari openwork tsuba and mounted as a silver kenuki-gata tachi with gold-powder lacquer and paulownia-crested raden decoration. According to its provenance, it was received from Lord Oda Nobunaga and was preserved in the Sō Count family's collection. The sword is accompanied by a period uchigatana mounting." And yes, koshirae is still fully intact and well kept! Attached, and seems to have a full Umetada set of fittings.

In 1937 an auction was held by The Tokyo Art Club containing most of Count Ito Miyoji's sword collection. Recently, I was able to purchase an Ichimonji katana that came from this auction and as part of my due diligence before purchasing, I obtained an original physical copy of the auction book from 1937. I went through and photographed all of the relevant pages and wanted to share them here, for anyone interested in the provenance and blades that were sold. I have already tracked a few of them down across the web, being on the open market at one point or another. I did not see this posted anywhere so hopefully it's not duplicated. I had my friend host the images on google drive. @Jussi Ekholm I was hoping this may help inform some of your Koto database as I only saw 1 or 2 Ito Miyoji denrai listings the last I checked. Anyway, enjoy and I hope it helps anyone interested. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Pkkx8QewayhjQnrPRAfXbVMO2TcUpgZP?usp=sharing

Yes, this is exactly it. Thanks @Lewis B

yeah I think the same. You can see what look like small forge pattern lines coming off of the main exposed area which signals to me just an old opening. It is about 1mm.

Normal kitae-ware? Blade is from around 1211, so it has seen a few polishes.

That is super weird, maybe a glitch? Also I thought Shigezane was the younger brother of Motoshige? Why does it say Shigemasa? In any case there is no way this sword is worth $71m JPY if Tsuruta or Takahashi started this auction at 6.5m...sure it's signed, but there are other very similar mumei Shigezane Juyo.

Oh, actually @Jussi Ekholm if it passed Juyo at 71, it was the same Yasumitsu that was on display at the 71st Juyo exhibition when I visited earlier this year. In that case, I have already seen it (I think?), and it already passed TokuJu. That is pretty awesome. That was a great sword indeed.

Anyone have pictures of the Yasumitsu? Every Yasumitsu I have seen displayed has been incredible.

@Prewar70 thank you

Yeah, my post was with the assumption that he would be working with Seiyudo for the in-person import. I have gone through the airport both ways and they definitely want to know who you are working with. At least they did for me. Some dealers don't go out of their way to submit for Juyo, even if there is profit potential. There are tradeoffs, and one of those is simply they have to lock up the blade for a long period of time with the real potential of profit loss via fees and time if it does not pass. I also spoke to Seiyudo about this in person and in general they are not huge on submitting things to Juyo unless there is a real reason. One example is a Ryokai blade I viewed in March while visiting their store. It was the only blade in the entire store they said they might submit, and when I asked if the price would change, they shrugged and said "maybe, maybe not". So that makes me think they simply price in Juyo if something is good enough at TokuHo and don't bother with submitting most of the time, unless it's a very clear slam dunk, even if it is a Juyo candidate in their eyes.

I agree. I thought as well that from the photos it seems like it has been polished down quite a bit already and those welds look ripe for opening up with further polish. It will probably be a bit of a risk to polish it further. That being said, I also don't agree that just because it came from a dealer like Seiyudo that it would be in top polish. I had this exact conversation with Seiyudo a few months ago and they do indeed stock and accept blades that - and I quote (from them) - "arrive in a spectrum of acceptable polish grades, and we do not always want to polish a blade since it wears down the blade more". So it is totally plausible that blade is in fact in not a great state of polish. If you want to see an example from this exact dealer, check my Taikei Naotane polishing post. I purchased that blade from them (Seiyudo) and it was in terrible polish. Moses Becerra polished it and it is now absolutely brilliant. Of course the Naotane was already very healthy and could take the polish without any issues.

Yeah it does take some time. In my experience it is the best way though as you can keep your blades in your possession and it’s way faster than them sitting in import limbo. But if you’re more comfortable with shipping, using an agent and them sitting in import warehouses, then that works as well.

You can do it at the airport, in fact you have to. But yeah it really is that easy if you can navigate the paperwork.

You should consult Seiyudo Ginza (next time, ideally before it leaves Japan). They know all the good people and can facilitate this, since I believe you purchased it from them. Unfortunately you'll have to take the sword back into Japan now, which is best done (in my experience, by flying there yourself with it). Alternatively there are other polishers, Andrew in Australia mentioned above, Moses Becerra in Florida (nihontoantiques.com) and also the Benson family in Hawaii (togishi.com).

On display in a case I imported from Keisuke at https://en.katana-case-shi.com/shop - you should check him out if you are searching for a nice display. They are not cheap, but have incredible build quality and engineering features, like light absorbing backing, non-reflect glass, museum quality light rails etc.

Goto tsuba and Nobuyoshi fuchikashira.

@RobDam I can share my Gorozaemon with you as well. This is 1537 in the full signature. I am also working on a koshirae for it. Next post is the fittings.

In any case, Mago or Goro, you can be assured it's a high level, well executed Kiyomitsu. "Does this place it above ordinary wartime production?" - I would generally say yes. Does not seem to be a kazuuchimono to me. It has been well kept, one mekugi ana, nakago is clean.

I have two Jûyô Tôken, from session 48 and session 12 in flawless polish from Japan and I can tell you the polish on this Naotane is easily, without hesitation on par with those. I also have a newly polished TokuHo hitatsura blade in Japan that was polished by Sugihara (mukansa) and I would say the Naotane is better, although the Naotane itself is just more of a masterpiece in general. Though, I did see @Rivkin post that he had seen a gradient of work from Moses, so maybe that is at play here.

There are posts around here that say Nisshu was great at polishing and not great at attribution and I am not sure of those sources, maybe someone can post them. I think either one of those things you proposed could be true - "workmanship strongly reminiscent of Gorōzaemon, or could he have been using the name more as a quality/style attribution rather than a strict chronological attribution". It would be interesting to see if anyone on the forum can produce a reference to a blade attributed to Gorozaemon by NBTHK or at the very least Tanobe, that has the more generic signature. I am not aware of any, but then again I haven't really dug into it.

If I recall correctly Fujishiro states in his section on Kiyomitsu that most good quality later era Kiyomitsu blades signed in the general signature are actually works of Magoemon. Totally possible it could be Goro but I’d bet that on Mago with that year and overall style.

Definitely. It is also a bit hard to grasp the current state of some of the items from the photos, in terms of polish, damage etc.

Looking for insight into this dealer. Trustworthy? I have seen them mentioned several times across the forum, mainly in reference, but has anyone bought from them or can anyone vouch for them? https://www.kusanaginosya.com

Thanks @klee I have something special in the works right now

Sword is on hold pending purchase