Darcy

Henry, if you started waxing the blades with auto wax before you tried oiling it, that's likely why the oil is beading. Besides the waxes, there may be other additives in there that may not be very miscible with the mineral oil. Mineral oil will not dissolve wax as far as I know, though mineral spirits will dissolve both. So your mineral oil is probably rolling around on the surface of the wax rather than wetting the blade. "Breathing" is not something that your sword will need to do provided that it is dry through and through. On the flip side, wax is very transparent to water vapor... water beads on it, but water vapor goes straight through. So it is not preventing any "breathing" anyway... nor is it being very useful in preventing water vapor from getting to the steel. A thin coat of oil is a much better idea. But first you are going to have to get whatever junk you put on your sword, off your sword, if you want to get to a traditional form of maintenance. I would recommend this as you don't really know what you are putting on the blade with the wax, and now it's probably in your shirasaya too... Uchiko will over time probably remove most of what you have put on the blade, but you will really need a solvent to clean it. You should be using mineral spirits to dissolve the wax, don't use an alcohol. Do this in a well ventilated area and use latex gloves. Wet a rag, and rub the sword down, and keep turning the rag using a clean portion. Each time you do this you should strip some of the existing wax off. Do that for a while, then dry the sword, use uchiko to clean the sword as would normal, and then oil with an appropriate weight mineral oil (i.e. choji oil).

Oh just a note about Naoe Shizu, their hamon would never be so regular as this. It's a mix of gunome and midare with maybe some togariba mixed in, but they were too early for the regularized Mino hamon that came after. Naoe Shizu is still mostly in the style of the line founder, which is a mix of Soshu and Yamato. After this is when you see Mino evolving to the point that it is really its own thing.

Jacques, the ratio of space below the mei to above the mei is 3:5. This is usually inverted at the very least for a nijimei. Since the mei is not at or near the top, or at or near the middle, and not at the bottom, it makes it near the bottom. Or as I said, "down low." Brian, I think I shot this one a little dark as well. I haven't taken a serious print quality picture in a year, so I may be off my normal parameters. Your answer of "Soshu in Mino Tradition" was actually correct. The answer of Muramasa is wrong of course, but Kanesada is a more skillful smith than Muramasa. Kanesada (Nosada) is the top smith of the pure Mino tradition basically. Where this kantei is not very good is in not showing his typical work, it's a poor choice for kantei to pull that kind of blade, but part of why Kanemoto is an acceptable answer as that would be the logically derived one. I thought it an interesting blade to show though as it presents a learning point for Kanesada. Carlo, I mean to not provide any information so that your eyes have to do the work. When you are given a lot of textual information, the problem becomes one of looking up the smith in a series of tables and narrowing it down like that. I should provide the length and probably some other measurements would be good, and always forget, but the rest of it then is the same as if you find the blade yourself and have to come up with an answer.

The hamon on this sword is slightly irregular sanbonsugi with rounded tops. Sanbonsugi almost always points straight to the Kanemoto line in Mino. This should be the first consideration when you see sanbonsugi. The regularity of the hamon then guides you to a generation. Very regular and pointed, 3rd generation and on... irregular, or not fully formed, first or second generation. Looking at the overall quality of the kitae, it is excellently forged in ko-itame showing small chikei, and there is masame in the shinogi. Masame in the ha shows up with sunagashi making this nie deki. This all confirms Mino inheriting down through the Shizu line. It is fairly robust with the width staying fairly constant throughout. The center of the curvature is slightly above the middle. The clue in the nakago of a mei down low and on the tachi side, means that we have to consider a slightly shortened kodachi or else a katana with orikaeshi mei. If we were to move the machi down to the point where the mei would be well positioned, given the nagasa of 58cm, we're looking at a sword in the 65-70 cm range. So more likely a good sized uchigatana than a small tachi given the clear signs of Mino work. Deciding between say Kanemoto and Muramasa, this isn't a standard style of hamon for Muramasa, which is more short runs of suguba punctured by 3 or 4 clustered gunome in midareba. Muramasa does not tend to forge such fine kitae either, his fame is above his level of skill. So with the hamon unusual for Muramasa and the kitae too "nice", it's not the right road to go down. Given the sanbonsugi an answer of Kanemoto second generation would be quite excellent and would be given an atari. The first generation would not be expected to form this level of regularity in the hamon. However, it is not a Kanemoto and the key to getting away from Kanemoto is probably in the kitae which again shows a level of skill which isn't usually found on Kanemoto works. So an outside guess at who might be able to emulate a work of Kanemoto but make very fine kitae, would be the second generation Kanesada. This Kanesada worked closely with Magoroku Kanemoto and they adopted each other as brothers. This work bears a nijimei of "Kanesada" in "No-sada" style folded over due to shortening, and I think if mumei it probably would have been attributed to Magoroku Kanemoto... this is an extremely rare style for Nosada, it is the only one I have heard of or seen, and it supports the legend of them being adopted brothers. Perhaps it was even jointly made. The hamon is Soshu influenced, and I believe it is shown as an example of one of the styles of Nosada in the Nagayama book, and denoted as such (i.e. Soshu style) if I recall correctly. The beautiful polish is by Kenji Mishina.

Is tachi mei the only reason the mei might appear on the tachi side?

The main problem I have with kantei, and I think other people may too, is that the brain seems to want to grab onto an idea pretty quickly, then starts looking for things to justify what has been decided... It's hard to keep your mind open for longer to continue to absorb details. The couple of details you just listed show the blade to be suriage and then kind of defeat the Shinto reading. Most shinto blades will have a nice middle sized round boshi as a standard feature. The boshi alone doesn't seal the deal, but should kind of shift the statistics. What you see in the nakago though makes the blade suriage, and the sugata has to be judged in that way. In particular though the big white square is on the nakago right there, and this is done to hide a mei in this kind of kantei. So you got some of the finer details, now consider the mei in context of the blade. There is some extra information that can be decoded just from knowing the mei is there. The box is low, so the mei is unusually low on the blade, which would confirm it is suriage... but surprisingly, it is on the tachi side. So low down and on the tachi side, what does this tell you? Also I forgot to mention that this blade is 58cm nagasa.

I have a lot of swords on hand right now for photography for the Soshu volume of the book series, which I am working on. This Norishige is one of them, it is mumei. The color photos I posted is a different Norishige. It is also mumei. I just took these pictures to show what I mean by the glowing hada in the right light. If you see this sword during the day and don't observe carefully it might slip by your notice. It's past is one of just exactly that, it sat on the table top of a collector at a sword show. Probably a lot of guys reading this now may have picked it up and put it down. Out of polish, unpapered, for sale and people passed it over. Cary Condell bought it, as he knew what he was looking at, and after polish and when you settle down for sword viewing in proper light, it looks like this. You just need the right angle and the right light, and it explodes into a light show.

Give me some observations on the nakago. What does a Shinto boshi usually look like?

OK, it's been a while and I've got my camera out for the first time in ages. Clicking on this image is going to bring up a very high res shot. Answer: 1. period 2. school 3. smith

Mike, the sword you posted, look at the chikei with a magnifying glass or try to take a very close up picture. The chikei should be made up of individual nie like they've been painted by Monet. The high class work looks like that. Sometimes it is possible with chemicals to make one of the steel layers react to something and the other not or less so, and it creates a great deal of contrast. It looks to me more like the one you are showing is a sword with a hada that stands out very clearly than a work of Norishige. The smith made his works in general to be very organic and they always have a natural feeling, and this is lacking in yours I think. You are on the right track though. I don't claim to be the be-all Norishige knowledge repository, I am just lucky that I have had five on hand to photograph and looked at others in person, including the famous "#1" tanto.

These pictures of a Norishige illustrate the "diamond dust" I am talking about. You can see how they go extremely bright when the light hits them. It's marvellous. That is visible in this particular style. The sword is not very good for kantei because everyone gets it right at first glance :-).

In that kokuho tanto you can see in the bottom half the large patterns of nie that come together to form the matsukawa patterns. They look like large burls. The jpeg compression though is high and masks them somewhat, they look kind of ghostly as a result.

Whew, dodged a bullet!

The mistake here is that Norishige has a wide ranging style that evolved, and showed that the smith worked hard to push the boundaries. A work like the one you show is something that possibly another smith of similar great skill could match. But it is earlier work for him and it is wrong to assume that all his work looks like this. What you are mistaking for more "strong" chikei is just chikei done in a tighter jigane, and in this style they tend to appear black, in the later style they are bright and sparkling, appearing like crushed diamonds. The style that shows the vibrant glowing chikei in o-itame is one that nobody could match. Norishige stands alone in making those. Many tried but they couldn't get it right. So it is a trap, actually a trap for most of the good smiths, to use one sword to rule another out... one sword might rule another in but the converse doesn't work because of wide range of style. My own guess on the Norishige that you put up would have been Go Yoshihiro, because with the tight jihada and the lack of the o-itame and large chikei I'd have turned away from Norishige. It is very clearly his work even outside the signature just goes into the early part of his career, and there is always some interchange between Go and Norishige. Anyway back to the sword in question, consider this comparison: On the left is a Tokubetsu Juyo Norishige that is one of, if not the best work of this smith that is not Kokuho. O-itame (*), vibrant large chikei full of nie (*) in matsukawa hada (*) that intertwine with the hamon, making border between hamon and hataraki of the ji difficult to find if not blurred in many/most areas (*) -> all dominant traits of the smith. The earlier work is based more on Ko-Bizen and you see exquisite forging and sedate hamon, this evolves over time to produce these works with the bright and shining matsukawa hada and I believe this is the finished style of Norishige. If you look at these in the right angle to the light they glow like they are lit within (I am not being poetic, they're embedded in the ji like ground diamond dust, and that's the best way to describe it I guess). The Tegai work you linked, is this a yari or moroha-zukuri tanto? It is a nice piece, but the scale is wrong (this sword is o-itame, and this yari I think it is, , and I fail to see any resemblance to the large patterns of nie that form the chikei in the pattern of matsukawa hada... the hada is very fine grained. The bit of activity shown in one spot in the hamon resembles some of this sword, but in taking postage stamps of koto blades hamon it is going to be very difficult to make progress if this is the basis for comparison :-).

Here is my picture of ayasugi hada. This is the ideal and perfected form. Gassan Sadakatsu

Hi Jacques, That is what I am talking about... the sword is displaying very strong and vivid matsukawa hada, so I am curious about what you are looking at in the picture that makes you think it is not matsukawa hada?

Jacques, can you expand on your exact criticism in regards to the matsukawa hada? I personally fail to see a resemblance to Shinto work. It may be a danger zone to approach with a preconceived notion that Matsukawa Hada must contain or must not contain certain elements. The effect of the nie and the broad strokes in which they are drawn, and the organic patterns that they follow are the most important factors I find when looking for matsukawa hada. Furthermore, Norishige was successful in intertwining the activities of hamon and jihada, the two move together throughout the picture and that confirms what is seen in the jihada in detecting the hand of Norishige. This is one of the key hallmarks of the smith that nobody else really quite established. It is really unquestionably Norishige work in my eye. Through different periods he also pursued different forms, early on he was more influenced by ko-Bizen works and later on pushed more forward with his unique style. Because of his tremendous skill, long work period and what seems to be an endless drive to refine his style, it's difficult to put him in a small box in any way. I have owned five Norishige, they show a full spectrum of work, but they also show one after another that each blade seems to be a technological advancement on one of the others in some way though the earliest was probably the best preserved and one of the most beautiful in its elegance.

Ayasugi hada the waves should stay synchronized. That is, troughs and valleys line up. In this case there is just a section of the hada where they line up, then they go counterpoint, and in some areas go flat or turn into burls. So it is more organic than mechanical... hint hint.

The sword I think is Mino-den. It is Muromachi period, and shows some traits of the Kanesada school in the gunome and sunagashi. Also noting some whiteness in the jihada as a Mino trait, and I feel like I see some shirake utsuri in a thin line along the shinogi-ji but not sure. There were some large swords still made in the Muromachi. The sword would have to have a proper polish to evaluate the quality of the jihada I think. I would put it somewhere middle to end of Muromachi. Earlier Mino looks more like Soshu with some Yamato mixed in, and what we see in this sword looks like the Kanesada style instead of the Kanemoto style, that comes after the Naoe Shizu step of the evolution. That's my guess on it.

The kiku in the new picture looks kind of wobbly, which is not a positive thing.

Sukenori. But looks like it's too late. Was in very difficult condition anyway.

The Japanese sale is at Christie's on November 5th. For UK board members not buying, it's still a chance to get up close and personal with some great blades. My Kanemitsu will be there. This is one of the very best swords I've ever had in my hands.... http://www.nihonto.ca/kanemitsu/ worthwhile to handle and enjoy before it vanishes from public sight into a Russian collection :-). As well one of my clients will be selling the remainder of his collection, which contains a Juyo Taima and Juyo Ryumon Nobuyoshi. I'm not aware of the other blades in the auction other than these three right now, but I'm sure there will be some other interesting pieces.

It looks like a well made sword. The polish makes me scratch my head though, the shinogiji is highly emphasized, makes me think that it was wiped down with an acid at some point.

Thanks for the clarification... I was referring back to something I had read in an older book on silversmithing which must have given me the wrong idea.

Absolutely fax this paper back to the NBTHK and arrange for a replacement. A buyer will look at it with skepticism, rightfully so. I believe that it was probably set aside to add the measurements, then might have been shifted into the wrong pile and sent out before they were added. Just a human error, but you should see to it while this is fresh that the paper is replaced and the nagasa properly stated. Best way to contact them is on the fax line that Moriyama san put up.