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Hello: The point was not to instead go and spend 3,000,000 JPY on a Juyo, but rather that for that much dough a more specific designation, when among the several Kanemoto that matters, seems like a reasonable expectation from the prospective buyers point of view. Jason asked a reasonable question and I tried to provide a reasonable answer. Arnold F.

Hello: A Hozon is not indicative of price in an mechanical way, however in Japan, where highly recognized shinsa are readily accessible, and for a name which is common and for which generation matters, and when the blade is priced at 3,000,000 JPY in today's market, yes, I think it is reasonable to say the price is "sort of stiff", not insane, just expensive. That prices gets into Juyo Token territory. Arnold F.

Hello: The jitetsu/jihada look encouraging to me. Hozon for 3,000,000 JPY at current exchange rates seems sort of stiff. The NBTHK, for reasons best known to them, seems to be more descriptively specific in recent years in their papers as to just who; perhaps if submitted for TH they would be for that sword. Arnold F.

Darcy: "Suguba is like a tuxedo or a glass of champagne." That is a Japanese sword characterization and quotation for the ages!!! Arnold F.

Hello Ken: I don't think it is quite that black and white. The linage discussions of Kanesada/Kanemoto are very complex and the "correct thread" is mostly a matter of the reference used. Going back and checking both Koza and Watson you will see, of course, that Izumi (no) Kami Kanesada and Mogoroku Kanemoto were both students of shodai Kanesada. You will see that there were multiple Nosada, and multiple Magoroku. You will also see in Watson that Magoroku as ".. the son of the first generation Kanemoto, called by the zokumei of Mogoroku, and for this reason is separately called the second generation Kanemoto, and the first generation Magaroku." (!) Take your choice. New students of the Japanese sword can rightly throw up their hands in despair when led into these spider web pathways. There is a time for that, but hardly as a derivation from what I thought was a helpful point being made, namely to study the all import sugata and jitetsu and jihada characteristics of a blade in question is important sources of information before going to the hamon when the issue of mei, right or wrong, is the object. Koto traditions are defined more by ji patterns than by hamon in my opinion. Arnold F.

Hello Jason: There can be substantial variation in any smith's execution of the hamon, and that includes the first generation Kanemoto, Magoroku. The most unlikely hamon variation is the highly stylized pattern usually referred to as later. I would suggest that prior to talking oneself into Magoroku or not by hamon , study the jigane/jihada characteristics associated with him as should be done with any smith, particularly koto ones. In the usual descriptions of blades in the literature you will usually find sugata, followed by jihada and then the yakiba/hamon. The jitetsu/jihada is the acid test. You will find descriptions might vary somewhat depending on writer, but the Hon'ami line, particularly from Koson, would say the following. Quoting from one of his students, Albert Yamanaka: "Mokume hada and masame had mixed. Due to the fact that the masame had has not been fused in places there will be hada wara in these areas. The masame hada in the shinogi ji is very strong. The overall effect of the steel is a little flat and drab." In my own experience the jihada will tend to distribute the masame-like effects pretty centrally along the ji, at least in substantial stretches. Well, what do you see? Arnold F.

Hello: Well the post wasn't meant to open the question of Kuniie's integrity, or that of any other particular smith for that matter, but merely to point out the extreme spread between a Yoshihara Kuniie sword's value and what would have been or is fetched for a Kiyomaro who is head and shoulders at the extreme of shinshinto sword values by contemporary measure. Whoever bought those Kiyomaro's were hardly sword novices one can assume. Arnold F.

Hello: I was just browsing through my copy of Japanese Swords in Dutch Collections (2003), written by the late and very much admired Han Bing Siong, and noted the most interesting comment in his discussion of Yoshihara Kuniie, not the contemporary Kuniie, but his much respected grandfather. Mr. Han writes: "This blade (referring to a Kuniie made in 1942) was part of the exhibition organized in honour of Ogasawara Nobuo sensei on 16 November 1982 in the National Museum for Cultural Anthropology in Leyden. According to the sensei, this smith succeeded in making such fine blades, that occasionally they were sold as blades made by the famous Kiyomaro." Ogasawara sensei was no lightweight, he being an extensively published sword scholar and one time head of the sword department at the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park. He should know of what he speaks. For those not so familiar with the "grandfather Kuniie", he was initially a tool maker and in 1932 became a student of the Nipponto Tanren Denshusho of Kunihara Hikosaburo where Kasama Shigetsugu was the instructor. The late Yoshihara Koen sensei speculated that Kuniie was a very fast study because of his tool making background, and at least one Yushu Saku certificate was issued to Kuniie when Koen headed the NTHK. In 1935 he became a smith, like Shigetsugu, on the estate of Toyama Mitsuru, a very influential ultra nationalist and a leading figure in the Black Dragon Society. In 1938 he became a swordsmith for the Army. I believe that many of the "star stamped" gendaito seen were the ones thus approved by Kuniie. He passed away in 1970. Anyway the observation by Ogasawara is really remarkable. I would guess that Kuniie would not be a direct participant in such faking, but perhaps some of his signed blades were "re-labeled", or perhaps some not as yet signed by Kuniie were diverted without his knowledge. We all know of the practice of some of the great smiths of the early Meiji times making convincing fakes of older blades, and I now wonder how common that was during later gendai times, or perhaps even today? Arnold F.

Hello: Please don't put me in the "its wrong camp" (if there is one), but I would be curious to read what someone thoroughly familiar with written kanji on nakago thinks of the mei. I think it needs some careful looking at. In comparison with the mei in Kishida's book, there seem to be some differences with those shown there, and I wonder about what appear to be delaminations in the nakago steel. Yasukuni smiths were particularly careful and quality conscious in all respects. I am probably wrong, just curious. Arnold F.

Hello: I believe that many, if not all, of the unsold items went to Mike Clark, Houston, for sale. Some, perhaps many, may still be with Mike. He had brought quite a few to the Tampa show this year. Arnold F.

Hello: Thank you once again Darcy for your digression, in indubitable style, on cutting ability and its relation to the assessment of swords. I do think though that there is a disjunction between cutting ability in the stylized tameshirgiri sense and the paper awarding ladder process for any of the major paper issuing organizations in Japan. The six characteristics you mention are of course relevant to assessing cutting ability. My curiosity is simply one of the relationship between the functional qualities of a sword qua sword, and the additional qualities any given sword might carry along the lines of rarity, aesthetic qualities, age, reputation, ownership history and how these things contribute to the rungs of the paper quest ladder. Obviously the proportionate mix probably varies by the height of the rung; such extraneous features probably meaning nothing at the Hozon level, and perhaps almost everything at the level of a Kokuho. To use a little economic jargon, the marginal rate of substitution between the functional attributes of a sword and the extra-functional characteristics, if I could coin a term, varies in its designation level, Hozon to Kokuho, in terms of the slope of the iso function for that level of paper. I can hardly imagine the empirical data required to be able to plot those relations, but the result would be fascinating. Interestingly the inclination to substitute among the foregoing certainly would vary between issuing organizations or origami and sayagaki writing individuals. Some would emphasize the functional blade and others would give much weight to associations of one kind or another. To quote Albert Yamanaka from the Nihonto News-Letter (April, 1969), p. 31: "We are certain that no swordsmith made or forged swords with the intention of turning out a great work of 'art', though he certainly tried his best to turn out a very 'keen' blade." More recently Nobuo Nakahara in his Facts and Fundamentals of Japanese Swords (2010), p. 114, writes: "What I am really trying to say is please do not treat swords as pretty pieces of steel. They are supposed to also be fully functional weapons." It seems to me that in the ladder climbing exercise we all participate in, a lot of attention is given to things that are tangential because those who evaluate have their preferences. My curiosity is directed to how much they do weigh in and how that varies with the level of certification and approval, and I know that cannot be answered in a concrete way. The NBTKK and the NTHK doubtless have different critia for their top papers, and of course standards change with time. The recent NTHK (NPO) issued Yushu volume (Heisei 27), illustrates at least one late Showa maker, Nankai Taro Masataka's blade dated Showa 48 (1973), and that blade could never have been intended for any combat function that almost all pre-war blades might have been expected to possibly encounter. Arnold F.

Hello: Fred Geyer, a Member of the KTK published a really ground breaking essay in the 2006 catalogue of that group and comes very close to illustrating the exact tsuba you show. I would say, based on that essay and other similar things Fred has published that the answer is yes. There might not be universal agreement with Fred, but for me the issue is settled that such "clock gear" tsuba are really Christian tsuba and made directly to signal that association. Arnold F.

Hello: Great "ramble" Darcy! It really addresses the predicate value of having the right mix in the pre-sorted Juyo group prior to the next step from there going on for Tokuju, and your laying out of implicit weights of age, rarity and identification with elite owners seems right on. What still lingers as an unknown for me is the transformation rate of substituting the loss of a little functional cutting quality for a gain in the aforementioned elite identifiers. I am thinking here of a single valued iso-function on a map of ascending iso-functions or bars; or to put it another way, how quickly or slowly does one give up cutting ability for a little gain in those harder to identify, but still valued, features of a Japanese sword, such as rarity, past ownership, etc.? I think that you might say that the NBTHK leans fairly heavily on the art historical context of the factors mentioned above in separating the sheep from the goats. There would certainly not be anything wrong with that approach, and it is the way museums and similar institutions appear to see their roles. That is what makes museum displays different from contemporary craft shows. Arnold F. PS: Just as an addition for clarification, when I mention cutting quality it is to image a sword's characteristics that maximize its efficiency as sword qua sword, ignoring any qualities that might reference its "beauty" or anything not directly related to its function as a sword. Needless to say, if signed, that signature would have to be recognized as actually being correct for advancement up the ladder.

Hello: Thank you Darcy for the excellent presentation of the various cross-tabs represented in the latest Tokubetsu Juyo designations. It is really educational. The underlying strategy of starting with a Juyo set of options that have the highest pay off in terms of getting a Tokuju, which is derived from the leverage beyond that point exhibited by Kamakura and Nanbokucho Bizen, Soshu and Yamashiro swords, makes a lot of sense if Tokuju is the goal. There is a certain causal circularity, almost an identity problem between being in the population coming from those three groups on the one hand, and having certain characteristics for which those groups are noted on the other. There is no criticism, just an uncertainty in my mind, about the determinants that matter for sorting at the Tokuju level. Aside from the issue of what it is about blades in those three groups that are so qualitatively superior, in comparison say with Yamato and Mino (staying within the Gokaden paradigm), which could be an entirely different thread? One feature that does seem to matter is connection with different Shogunal groups through time and of course with the Daimyo families. One hears that, in comparison with some of the other certification issuing groups, the art historical, particularly the "historical", matters a lot to the NBTHK, given some minimum level of qualitative perfection of the blade. Can we suppose that is so at the Tokuju level in particular? Perhaps you would care to digress on just what makes the blades qua blades of Bizen, Soshu and Yamashiro so favored, though perhaps that has another place for consideration. Arnold F.

Hello: Many considerations would have to fall in place for it to be called Zenjo and the bump is a well known kantei point, however I believe it is a bump, like a small abrupt mound, and not a gradual swell as the image seems to depict. I could be wrong of course and in all such situations a shinsa is called for. Arnold F

Hello Randy: Regarding the sale of Unjo Meiran taizen, it may seem as if 15 generation of Tokugawa Shoguns would be nobility (kuge), but they were not. After the restoration of Imperial authority in Meiji in 1868 the then Shogun Yoshinobu lived in retirement and and eventually received the title of Duke in 1902. Some other members of the Sogunal establishment were also ennobled, but not until after the Restoration. While only of the samurai class the Tokugawa were very high caliber to put it mildly. Arnold F.

Hello: Jean is entirely correct. There is no dogmatic single measure of sori. The most thorough analysis of the special characteristic of the Japanese sword that determines its proverbial cutting prowess is found in Sam C. Saunders, "Shape and Cutting Efficiency: The Unique Nihonto Curvature", Newsletter (Japanese Sword Society of the United States), Vol. 33, No. 7 (Dec., 2001), pp. 20-30. Dr. Saunders is a retired Professor of Pure Mathematics, Washington State University, and his analysis of the special equi-angular shape of the Japanese sword which involves several measures of sori, is simply stunning. Arnold F.

Hello Ryan: There is a Japanese sword show in Chicago next weekend at the Hyatt Regency Woodfield, Schaumburg, on the 29th from noon to 9, Sat. 9-9, and Sunday 9-3. People will be there from all over the US and Canada, and perhaps some from Europe and Japan. If you have the time it is an eye-opener and by all means bring your sword and talk to several folks about it. If you ask around all your questions will be more or less answered. Arnold F.

Hello: Thanks for posting as they are terrific. Some are seen in various books on old photography in Japan, for example the young Meiji and the Empress, along with the guys with the three polearms, but others I don't recall seeing. I am sure we would like to see more if you would care to post. Arnold F.

Hello: IMHO to compare and rank this blade as on the same level or superior to the top blades from the Yasukuni Jinja, or the Minatogawa Jinga for that matter, is beyond the preposterous. Times change and to paper gendaito and blades close to 1946 may reflect market changes related to price changes derived from increasing scarcity of top gendai, and thus it is partially a reflection of the market, however Yasukuni blade are loaded with a history, a cultural weight and a tradition of superb koto models that puts them light years beyond the dubious origin of Emura blades of any sort. At the very least such blades are the collective output of a mostly unknown group of smiths who would hardly be in the same ballpark as those who worked at the Yasukuni Jinja. Arnold F.

Hello: Congratulations Mike. Out of the ball park! Arnold F.

Hello: Han Bing Siong it is Grey. For those interested in a further example of the scholarship of the late Mr. Han, see Japanese Swords in Dutch Collections. The Netherlands Token Society, 2003. Arnold F.

Hello: I think he was a smith of some note and a member of the Royal Family. Arnold F.

Hello: Shibata san, who I believe passed away not that long ago, had a shop, published a monthly journal of things for sale, and issued both papers and hakogake on fittings boxes, at least he did quite a number of the latter on a tour of the US quite a few years ago. I know nothing about them that is negative. Arnold F.

Hello: I don't recall any earlier discussion and I hope it pans out for you, however entirely disregarding the jihada which looks uncharacteristically coarse, the yakiba that seems rather atypical, and the horimono which is not crisp, consider the mei chisel marks. Compare them with a good photograph of a known example and I think you will see in the contrast that the subject blade has marks that seem to be corrections to bring the character back into a smooth execution and in particular the strength of the hammering varies within a kanji and the space intervals between the chisel marks appear to vary. Sadakazu was a meticulous smith in all regards, but of course applications can vary blade to blade. The question is whether or not variations in all of the above are outside his parameters. For that you need a professional opinion. Arnold F.