NotANinja

My thoughts exactly!

I reckon it is Jizo, but I think you've got a lot of information already so it probably won't add all that much!

Yes he and I discussed it and both decided it wasn't worth putting a full polish on it as there's a few even bigger chips close to the hamachi, but we decided on a window as I still wanted to see if I can narrow down the smith. At a later date I think I'll get a polish that preserves the chips to show it some respect however.

Hi all! I've recently received my Shigemitsu wakizashi back from Les who very kindly put a window polish into the kissaki and a bit to show off the hada. The hada is quite interesting to my eyes but I'm struggling with identifying the boshi, it doesn't look much like anything I can see in my copy of Nagayama, and the number of blades I've seen in person is so far very low. Does anyone have any insight or recognise this type at all? I'll also attach a picture of the hada for prosperity. Many thanks in advance!

Hi Marcus, Seems like you've got a lot of information in this post already so I'll just add one thing about the boshi. Do you have a connoisseurs book handy? Because I forget the name but it reminds me of a specific type of boshi meant to look like one of the Buddha, or a statue of, and it has a specific name and allocation. I don't have my book to hand right now given I'm currently in bed haha. Will look again in the morning. Rob.

As another has said in this thread he is Les Stewart and he's a great bloke, I've had the pleasure of meeting him and he has done some work for me recently. If you check my profile I've posted recently about a wakizashi he put a window polish into that was, like yours, stored improperly. I won't give his details as it's not for me to give them out but if you contact the token society of great britain they might be able to help you.

It's really hard to get features properly when the blade is in a sorry state. Fills me with great sadness to know that this has potentially been around for 800 years being cared for only to end up rotting away in someone's shed in the last 50 years of it's life.

I've taken some better photos trying to capture as much of the hada as I possibly can and ill add them here. To me it looks like a tight ko-itame/masame hada? Difficult to see. With my research the most similar blade I could find in terms of sugata, mune, hada, hamon, kissaki and tapering of the blade is this kamakura piece sold recently at sothebys. But I am fully aware this may be massive wishful thinking on my part: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2025/important-Japanese-swords-and-armour-from-the-paul-l-davidson-collection/a-katana-attributed-to-awataguchi-kuniyasu-heian

Additional photos. More can be provided if needed.

Hi all, I picked up this wakizashi as my first nihonto at auction for very cheap as they mistook it as un-signed when it is in fact signed 'shigemitsu'. Sadly it's not in the best condition, and the previous owner obviously took sandpaper or an angle grinder to the nakago. The nijimei still survives which is good, but not much else. I was hoping to get as much information about it as possible but understand that's quite difficult given the lack of any hada, hamon etc. The specs are as follows: Overall length 59cm Nagasa 46.5 Nakago 12 Sori 1.8 Kissaki 2.3 Motohaba 2.5 Sakihaba 1.7 Motokasane 0.5 Sakikasane 0.35 ish From the parts of the nakago they didn't sand I can see it used to be basically black with rust, and quite deteriorated from presumably age. There's not much meat to it so it has been polished in it's past however many times. It is extremely difficult to see but in extremely specific oblique lighting it looks like there could be a hamon, and if there is its comprised of some pretty large grains. Finally it has a mitsumune. From the swordsmiths index there aren't that many shigemitsu's known, and most of them are nanbokucho. Do you think it could be this old? I'll hopefully be getting a window polish on it soon to see if there's anything under the surface which might help. Ill update the thread if anything comes from it in the coming months/years... Cheers!

Aaaah I see, that makes a lot of sense thank you. It's a good pointer towards authenticity then!