Showa Stamped Yoshikane; Opinions?

[Salvatori Moretto]

Recently purchased a showa stamped blade in mismatched civilian mounts and the signature reads Yoshikane, but I haven't been able to find anything about this smith. It came with a reaaaalllly nice signed hand carved brass tsuba in dragon motif with gold inlays that I posted on here trying to find a kashira for now, and what appears to be more of a handachi style saya. It had a completely poor fitting random low grade tsuka thrown on it that was obviously never on the nakago as it wiggles and moves around more than dutch shepherd at chow time. Blade over all looks pretty darn nice I think it may be tamahagane but i'm not sure.

So here are the questions:

-Anyone run across this smith before? How good was his work known to be?

-What's the value of this?  It's going to either be sold as it is now, or if it's worth it, I already found the matching fuchi for the tsuba, continue to look for the kashira and make a new tsuka for it. Either way I don't want to under or over charge.

-Is it tamahagane?

-Should I even consider using the dragon koshirae for this sword? I know those are higher quality and don't want to mount them to a lower quality project potentially.

 

Thanks for any and all help!!!!

Sal

[lonely panet]

its a showato, the names give's it away. Its a non-traditional made sword for ww2.

 

heaps of these on ebay in simular condition, mis-matched ETC. if your going to re-sell, I wouldn't spend any money as is a put togeather piece and the only market you can aim for is the beginner buyer. no serious collector buys this type of finished project.

 

regards hamish 

[Salvatori Moretto]

Should I just save the tsuba and fuchi for a more deserving piece? 

Thanks

[Stephen]

Maybe its just me they look to be repros to me ..the T&F

[Salvatori Moretto]

Nope, those I'm sure of  Just had my friend Wally Hostetter find the fuchi at the last show in San Fran

[Salvatori Moretto]

Still in need of more info! Trying to decide to mount in the dragon fittings or in lower cost iai fittings to make this into a user sword. Still no conclusive evidence about this smith in any way, just because it is showa doesn't actually tell me anything about this blade or the smith. I don't think this is a national treasure, I just want to know conclusively who this smith was and what type of work he was known for before I go further with this project in any direction.

[Kam A]

Save the fittings and if the blade reveals anything that appeals then shirasaya.

My lunch time opinion

[Salvatori Moretto]

Thanks Kam!