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Darcy

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Everything posted by Darcy

  1. Hi Mark, I think it might be nijuba... not sure though (even knowing the sword). Normally chikei is the same activity as inazuma, but in the ji instead. Chikei are usually dark steel that is very shiny. The chikei though follow the lines of the hada. Nijuba should follow similar to the hamon going through the grain, and be of similar structure and color, it is literally a second line of hamon.
  2. Well that's a bit better... still making my eyes pop out trying to focus on them. The tang is not suriage but it bent badly I guess... looks like 90 degrees? Ouch. I agree with Rich on the strokes on the mei, they look like gendaito. It is done in traditional Kanemoto style though, so is a nice piece to maybe fix up a bit. I would be really cautious about undoing that bend. I'd give it to a polisher to do, I don't know if that much bend can be undone.
  3. Hi Martin, The nakago looks older on this picture than on the others, but still there is that impression of a line where the patina stops and then sprays above it. So it nags me that it had a patination job at some point to make it look older. The length is kind of OK for Muromachi, it is a bit long but not too long. The Torokusho is the government registration paper. It is *not* an attribution. There are some people who sell things on ebay and use these as attribution papers and call them government papers or government origami. This is deceptive as they are only a description of the sword to identify it. If the sword had on the nakago it was made by Elvis and Jesus as a joint work by way of a time machine, then this would go on the Torokusho. I had one that said Masamune. That was only because the tanto bore a sumei to Masamune, and so it was dutifully recorded in the torokusho. It means something historically in this case and is useful for analysis, but when it papered to Juyo Token the NBTHK had already instructed the owner to remove the shumei and the tanto passed to Takagi Sadamune. The Torokusho is also supposed to be surrendered when it leaves Japan, as it gets deregistered. There is apparently some loophole that allows them to be preserved, and I don't know what it is. So sometimes some of these slip out, I have owned a couple and I like having them. But I think in the case of people who supply these as origami they may send them out as claimed authentication. Disclaimer: I do deal in swords, and there are some people out there who label things on their auctions that "other dealers may give you bad advice trying to derail my sales." That *does* happen and has happened to me, however *some* people will hide behind that kind of statement in order to deflect any criticism. Sorting out good criticism and bad items vs. bad criticism and good items is something that each person has to do on their own, the best way is by obtaining some degree of experience. So that is what you should aim for and why you should continue to research this tanto to get the best opinion possible. It gives you experience which is valuable even if the mei turns out no good. I would say with your tanto, that the mei is not so good and if I had to choose I would say gimei. From seeing the new picture and knowing the length am not prepared to rule it out as late Muromachi work. Do look at the kasane as I mentioned, and keep studying the piece. Remember the saying about opinions... everyone has one and with swords you will get a lot of varying opinions, some will be right and some wrong, and even very experienced people will make errors. Us more inexperienced people have to recognize our opinions are as likely to be faulty as to be correct. I think for you to satisfy yourself, you need to send this in to the NBTHK to try to get a paper, or else send to someone with a lot of experience who can give you good advice on it.
  4. You can go to the Nihonto Knowledge Base straight from the Nihonto Messageboard by clicking on the "Swordsmith Database" link on the top of the page, set up by Brian. After a long while of not touching it, I finally got around to hammering out some changes that should make it operate much better under Firefox, and so most likely all other browsers. IE has some really nice features for dealing with asian text that I was using, and since nobody else seems to have adopted the CSS3 standards to handle this I just gave in and recoded it to format all of the text by hand. I fixed some bugs in the code too that caused Firefox to be unhappy when editing and such. So if you were a Mac user or a Firefox user and didn't use the NKB because of the formatting issues, give it a shot now. I have not yet tested for Safari but it seems to work fine and I am happy with the layout under Firefox. If anyone spots any issues, please contact me through my website.
  5. What are the measurements of this tanto? In style it does not look like the typical Muromachi shape. You can see an example of that here: http://www.nihonto.ca/yosozamon-sukesada/ The "standard" shape is about 22cm of cutting edge, a longish looking nakago , with obvious uchi sori. You should consider getting it into the hands of someone like Bob Benson, who will tell you if it is worthwhile to submit for papers or not. The following is just my personal opinion and could be wrong. The nakago patina on your tanto also looks almost unnaturally uniform and the sharp line of distinction between the patinated area and fresh steel in the ji looks odd to me does not seem overall to be that old. Note the crisp edge of the mekugiana. A sword that is 500 years old will tend to have these sharp edges and flat surfaces become more organic through the action of time and rust. This is not a hard and fast rule, some are exceedingly well preserved (see below). This tanto though seems to me to be a shinshinto piece. Below: well preserved 720 year old nakago. Even still, imperfections and wear cause sharp lines to become rounded. 500 year old nakago: mekugiana still retain some crispness, but areas of deeper pitting become evident in the nakago, making the surface uneven. Note the organic contour between the patinated nakago and the beginning of the unrusted ji. Compare to the razor sharp line in your tanto. The spray of rust above this line on your piece is the natural process that is beginning to assert itself, and if all of that patina were natural I think that you would not see that black-and-white distinction over that line.
  6. Could you post more pictures, especially larger pictures of the nakago and mei? These are a bit of a mess. There are some numerals written onto the nakago that are used to match it up with WWII fittings being made for it. However, the style is completely typical for Muromachi period Kanemoto, and the sanbonsugi continues through the boshi which is also correct. If a WWII smith made it he copied the old style. The nakago though to me seems to be suriage, the bottom is cut off in the tiny picture that is there. That would seem to indicate it is older work that had the end of the nakago lopped off to fit with WWII koshirae. Basically I'd like to see something with enough resolution and clarity to make out yasurime and chisel strokes in the mei. Also hold the blade out, edge down, and measure the width of the nakago at its widest point. Then measure the kasane (thickness) of the sword about a half an inch above the machi. If this is a recently made blade they should be about equal, the sword not having seen many polishes. If it is 500 years old this should be visible by a narrowing of the kasane above the machi. So the nakago tends to be the widest part of an old sword as it has not been polished ever. Some blades though can be in a state of nearly perfect preservation so this is not a guaranteed technique... generally though it is a "rule in" for a blade being older vs. "ruling out" it being older. That is, if there is no loss of width, this by itself should be considered inconclusive unless it is supported by other observations.
  7. Darcy

    kantei

    Henry you're entirely right. I hadn't posted one in a long time so I forgot some of the basics that should be supplied.
  8. Darcy

    kantei

    Yukimitsu: Taima:
  9. Darcy

    kantei

    Grr. I got kicked out to the front page again. Yes, my website was down. There's something wrong with my server, and it's gone flaky for the last month. I've asked them to move me to a more reliable machine. Anyway, since there seems to be no action on giving a kantei for this piece, I will provide the answer. The shape in torii-zori with a consistent and graceful curvature is associated with the late Kamakura period. Muromachi period swords do recall this shape sometimes and so it can be hard to tell the difference between an o-suriage Kamakura and a longer Muromachi unshortened piece. Though the typical Muromachi sword would be more saki-zori, there are many exceptions. Because the sword is o-suriage, you won't see fumbari, but you should note the slow and graceful taper. Less taper would make it middle Kamakura or middle Muromachi period. Bohi might help you towards an earlier sword that is o-suriage, since the bohi are there to lighten the piece and the shorter made muromachi swords have less need for them. So it might help you think the sword may have been made larger. Especially since the hi continue on into the nakago with no interruption, where mostly hi will terminate above the machi (again, exceptions where some are made with hi that go through the nakago). This is about looking for clues that seem to add up into a sensible pattern. Chu-kissaki is right for the late Kamakura as well. Large patterned itame should always be evaluated against Soshu den. If there are large and visible chikei, this is a good sign that we are looking at Soshu. These two combined should always make you think this first, while Sue Bizen is something that you would be thinking if you saw ko-itame without any visible chikei (again, there are always exceptions, these statements are about playing the odds). In the late Kamakura period we see suguba being produced in the four traditions existing at the time. Itame is also in the same four traditions, but you would see ko-itame in Yamashiro, and a smaller pattern than this in Osafune work. So from looking at the o-itame you would have to accept Soshu or possibly Yamato (most importantly Taima). From the hamon in suguba in those four traditions, Osafune is tending towards nioi at this point, so nie as is visible in this sword would not be right. Yamashiro would be more elegant, with a tight hamon and then small ashi without the brash sunagashi and thick nie of this sword. Taima did make swords like this as well so again we're in a difficult place between Taima and Soshu. Looking at the hamon, there is not so much evidence of hotsure and uchinoke, but moreover the nie are sublime and soft, rather than bold and harsh. This is the inheritence of Awataguchi in Soshu, this control over the nie and is the hallmark of the top Soshu smiths to be able to do this. So from this we give the nod to Soshu. The sense that it could go to Taima also helps point the way to the smith... one Soshu smith is very famous for working in suguba, and this is Yukimitsu. He is the earliest of the three late Kamakura grand-masters, the other two being Norishige and Masamune, neither of which is known for suguba work. All three are taught by Shintogo Kunimitsu who also specializes in suguba, and Yukimitsu being older than the other two may have more reason then to be working in suguba, with the midareba coming on halfway through his career. The best work of Taima is sometimes confused for work of Yukimitsu and in this case that can help confirm where we arrive at. The sword is Soshu Yukimitsu. There's a Taima on my website, it can be illustrative to look at the photos there and examine the larger and harsher nie present on the sword. Now I have to finish my listing since the Yukimitsu is up for sale :-).
  10. Darcy

    kantei

    The length of the cutting edge is 70cm. About the link, I tested it in the preview. It worked fine then, and then I posted... I don't know if it got added somehow in the preview process. I usually do this on the old board by typing in my own HTML but HTML is turned off on this board, so I had to use BBCode. If you can enable HTML that is a better option, but it can be abused by posters... generally with Nihonto guys this has never been the case on the old board so it is probably OK. Another odd thing is that the first time I tried to reply to something I got kicked out to the main page. Just now I tried to quote Brian and got kicked out to the main page again. Bit strange. With the length of the sword in hand you can now properly evaluate your decisions on period. A couple of further hints: 1. Reading the sword as a large patterned itame is correct. Re-confirm what patterns Sue Bizen is usually associated with. 2. The hamon is suguba with ashi forming gunome and choji shapes in places, but all based within suguba.
  11. Darcy

    kantei

    I will start out the content with a kantei. Click on the image for a large version. Answer: 1. period 2. tradition 3. swordsmith
  12. Thanks to the previous torch holders, and the current torch holder for taking up the burden. Good job! I say keep the dirty tsuba lovers away from us honest hard working god fearing sword enthusiasts!
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