Shinshinto Okachiyama Nagasada Tanto, Maybe?

[Ron STL]

A hirazukuri Ō-tantō (12.3") signed: Nōshū ju Nagasada (濃州住永貞) and dated: Ansei 6(1859) was brought to me to examine a few days ago. I was impressed with the sugata, the hamon and clear and crisp nie, and the nice, tight forging of the blade. If correct as signed, this would be Mino smith Okachiyama Nagasada – Nihonto Koza SS, p.139; Fujishiro Shintohen; multiple pages in Shinshinto Taikan and Mino Taikan. While I am trying to convince myself this is a work of this smith, there are questions. (Apologies for the poor photos, but all I got at the time.)

Comparing the mei next to a book examples while holding the blade, I thought the mei looked (almost) correct. Questioned: 4^th stroke of shū is cut straight, not slightly curved; 3^rd stroke of Naga looked quite right to me. This is hard to see on the fuzzy photo.

But what most worried me about the nakago are the kiri yasurime. All of the book examples and descriptions say this fellow used sujikai-yasurime with keshō. Obviously this tanto’s nakago is not finished as it should be. I do realize this is not good. But maybe somebody out there has an explanation for this deviation from the norm. Perhaps Nagasada might have used kiri-yasurime in his very early years? It seems strange that as good as the tanto resembles Nagasada’s work, that such non-typical finishing would had been used on the nakago. A long shot…but I’ll ask the questions anyway. Always the optimist!

Ron STL

[george trotter]

I'm not sure if this is relevent to your Nagasada per se, but the change in yasurimei from early works to "established" works is sometimes seen...even sometimes for specially commissioned works at times.

Here are two oshigata of Kunishiro of Aomori. the first is from a Shinsakuto Exhib.  5th seat award in 1941 and is kiri-sujikai with a little kesho. The next oshigata is from a Feb 1944 RJT sword of his established work and is katte-sagari with kesho and this stays the same on his post-war work also.

 

It is also possible to see changes between daito and tanto yasurimei.

I have a katana by Nakata Kanehide which is the usual Seki taka-no-ha but a tanto of his is higaki, So, since yours is a tanto, be sure you check his other tanto oshigata also, in case he varied his yasuri between "types".

This is all based on my own observations...hope I am not misleading you.

 

Sorry for the poor quality oshigata.

[Ron STL]

Good thought, George. I'll search a bit further to see if a tanto can be found. There may be one illustrated in Shinshinto Taikan, I say that because of recalling a hamon (on a tanto?) looking very similar to my friend's tanto. Will check this out.

Ron STL

[Ron STL]

Found a couple illustrations of tanto and as expected, neither show kiri-yasuri, so either this Nagasada is unique or simply gimei, not as signed. It would had been interesting to hear from somebody who has handled on of this smith's work. From the books it sounds like he did beautiful work. I believe in the latest NBTHK  Token Bijutsu one of his swords, a katana, is discussed. Ron STL