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"shizu" Kiyomaro


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Hi Ken

Probably not, but a Kiyomaro today certainly would be. It is interesting to read about changes in taste and desirability. When the mei was removed Shizu (I assume they mean Shodai Yamato Shizu i.e. Kaneuji) was regarded as an almost equal to Masamune, certainly his best pupil. Some still hold that view and seeing his work you can understand why. If this was a copy of a Soshu blade then wanting it to be Yamato Shizu was a great compliment to the smiths skill.

Imagine the cost  today if the mei was still on it!!

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Some corrections...

 

1. Tsuruta has a theory.

 

2. Hirai Chiba and the NBTHK have an attribution. 

 

Shizu has been held in high regard but not as the highest of the Juttetsu. That is Go Yoshihiro, ever since "Nippon San Saku" which came about in the Momoyama times. After this it's Samonji and then Shizu. 

 

So, don't run too far with the ball trying to back up Tsuruta's theory.

 

If indeed this is a Kiyomaro then it's possible that it's an unsigned one to begin with. I have seen an unsigned Kiyondo from way, way, way back, my first visit to the San Fran show. Condell had it and it was a beautiful sword. Kiyondo is of course Kiyomaro's student. 

 

Kiyomaro left behind a lot of unfilled orders that Kiyondo is supposed to have taken care of. And Kiyomaro had a love/hate relationship with his craft. It is not beyond question that this was a mumei Shinshinto katana that looked a lot like Soshu den to someone who then converted it into a koto blade. 

 

It sounds less promising to a buyer, but I think it is a lot more simple than someone taking a signed Kiyomaro and wiping the signature off. Kiyomaro had a lot of popularity. There were like 100 unfulfilled orders? (someone correct me if it's wrong) when he killed himself. People knew who he was and highly respected his work and were waiting a long, long time. How long are you going to wait if you're number 100 on the list? 

 

Fujishiro is writing his book in the early 1900s and he has him down as Sai-jo saku which shows what the thinking was then and after. 

 

So, if you're in the habit of making fakes are you going to take a great perfect signed masterpiece by a famous smith of the day and hack it up to pass it off as a fake? You don't have to do that. There are plenty of other blades you can use to pass it off as a fake. You're better off taking a worthless blade and passing it off as a fake than taking a blade that has value by a known famous smith and killing it.

 

This though leaves a possible buyer of this blade with the "eww" feeling because it was mumei Shinshinto. So it's not a really good theory to use for marketing the blade. 

 

Any theory is fine, including the theory that it's not Kiyomaro. It's not possible to know now. I think though if it is Kiyomaro it's one that he never signed for whatever reason. Went out the back door of the shop, lasted past his death unsigned, whatever. And from there it got disconnected from its history so that all the faker had to do was clip the end of the nakago and refile it, drill a hole, and quick as you may like you have something that looks like koto Soshu den of some sort.

 

Keep in mind the length is 76cm so this blade did not lose its mei by suriage. 76cm is about the right length for a Kiyomaro on average. Someone just clipped the bare minimum from the end of the nakago, filed it to remove whatever filemarks were there and then aged the nakago. 

 

I think it's just a lot easier to think of that than someone destroying a signed Kiyomaro to do this because it allows them to be ignorant to what it is that they are messing with. 

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While Kiyomaro was highly rated even in his lifetime I acknowledge Tsuruta san explanation that Shinshinto smiths no matter how great back in their days are not rated as high as Koto masterpiece so the removal of signature even for Kiyomaro is entirely plausable. Even in 1930s Fujishiro noted Kiyomaro is worth much less than the likes of Tadayoshi 1st, Okimasa, Horikawa Kunihiro, Sukehiro, Shinkai, and on par with the likes of Kunikane, Kuniyasu, Yasuyo. It is a very different strory now. Whether this sword is truely a Kiyomaro one would never know 100% but if it is not it certertainly on par with his work.

 

 

Wah

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From Kenji Mishina website. It is claim Kiyomaro was influenced by Shizu Kaneuji more so than Masamune. The cut down of very long sword to around 76cm in this particular sword by Kiyomaro was carried out by top student Kurihara Nobuhide after his teacher's death.

 

http://www007.upp.so-net.ne.jp/m-kenji/oshigata/shinshinto3.html

 

3.Minamoto_Masayuki.jpg

 

 

Wah

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From Kenji Mishina website. It is claim Kiyomaro was influenced by Shizu Kaneuji more so than Masamune. The cut down of very long sword to around 76cm in this particular sword by Kiyomaro was carried out by top student Kurihara Nobuhide after his teacher's death.

 

 

It's a good find but:

 

1. it's a Masayuki signature and there is indeed a difference

2. Nobuhide preserved the information, which shows that it was indeed considered a valuable thing and agrees with what I think rather than disagrees 

 

And even though it was one of his early period blades it was still considered important to retain the information. 

 

Just that whomever owned it wanted to use it and thought it was too long. 

 

Maybe this one is a Masayuki? Maybe that's an alternate explanation and whomever dummied it up wasn't aware that Masayuki became Kiyomaro. I would buy that ahead of someone killing a perfectly valid Kiyomaro.

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Even in 1930s Fujishiro noted Kiyomaro is worth much less than the likes of Tadayoshi 1st, Okimasa, Horikawa Kunihiro, Sukehiro, Shinkai, and on par with the likes of Kunikane, Kuniyasu, Yasuyo.

 

Not a single one of those smiths was considered a target for destruction. Whether he is more valuable or not, there are other things you can destroy if you want to make a fake. 

 

Here's the thing: we see gimei and fakes all the time. It's clear that the skill level is not there when you compare against the target. Therefore, anyone who wants to commit fraud seems to have been able to do it during the Edo period and thereafter (and it is still going on that people believe they are legit) without destroying perfectly good items. 

 

Say you have a real 4th gen Tadahiro and you have some other suguba thing by a nobody. You will make more money by dummying up the suguba by making it mumei and putting a kinzogan Rai Kunitoshi in there, and selling the two as a legit 4th gen Tadayoshi and as a fraudulent Rai. 

 

You don't go in and destroy your valuable things to make fakes. 

 

If you wanted to make a fake Patek Philippe you wouldn't go and destroy a Rolex to do so. You would use a super cheap Chinese mechanism and sell the Rolex as it is. 

 

As a fraud strategy it is a bad idea to go around and destroy all of your legitimate valuable items to turn them into fakes of other things. Because you just don't need the legitimate valuable thing, an expert is going to sound it out regardless. Fakes make headway based on people not having the expertise to know the difference. This one as a fake Shizu did not last very long. 

 

And if it was a really good idea to do this then people would have rounded up all the Kiyomaro and done it to all of them and made them all into Shizu and Masamune. 

 

Every point of view is valid, so I can't say that you're wrong, you may be completely right and Tsuruta may be completely right. But I think the simplest explanation is that the person who dummied it up did not perceive that it was anything of particular value in whatever state it was before the dummying up.

 

I can float another theory: if it was unusually big and if it had a hagire then whomever ended up with it may have had to deal with the fact it would need repair by suriage. Once made suriage it opens the question of what to do with it if it falls into the hands of a sword dealer. And that what to do could be make it into a Shizu where it will be more valuable than a suriage Kiyomaro. 

 

Ultimately we'll never know but I find it to be more believable when we don't have to have the person who did this perceive zero value in a perfectly intact and relatively brand new Kiyomaro. To me I have a lot of problems swallowing that belief when the evidence all seems contrary, that people did value them.

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Not a single one of those smiths was considered a target for destruction. Whether he is more valuable or not, there are other things you can destroy if you want to make a fake. 

 

Here's the thing: we see gimei and fakes all the time. It's clear that the skill level is not there when you compare against the target. Therefore, anyone who wants to commit fraud seems to have been able to do it during the Edo period and thereafter (and it is still going on that people believe they are legit) without destroying perfectly good items. 

 

Say you have a real 4th gen Tadahiro and you have some other suguba thing by a nobody. You will make more money by dummying up the suguba by making it mumei and putting a kinzogan Rai Kunitoshi in there, and selling the two as a legit 4th gen Tadayoshi and as a fraudulent Rai. 

 

You don't go in and destroy your valuable things to make fakes. 

 

If you wanted to make a fake Patek Philippe you wouldn't go and destroy a Rolex to do so. You would use a super cheap Chinese mechanism and sell the Rolex as it is. 

 

As a fraud strategy it is a bad idea to go around and destroy all of your legitimate valuable items to turn them into fakes of other things. Because you just don't need the legitimate valuable thing, an expert is going to sound it out regardless. Fakes make headway based on people not having the expertise to know the difference. This one as a fake Shizu did not last very long. 

 

And if it was a really good idea to do this then people would have rounded up all the Kiyomaro and done it to all of them and made them all into Shizu and Masamune. 

 

Every point of view is valid, so I can't say that you're wrong, you may be completely right and Tsuruta may be completely right. But I think the simplest explanation is that the person who dummied it up did not perceive that it was anything of particular value in whatever state it was before the dummying up.

 

I can float another theory: if it was unusually big and if it had a hagire then whomever ended up with it may have had to deal with the fact it would need repair by suriage. Once made suriage it opens the question of what to do with it if it falls into the hands of a sword dealer. And that what to do could be make it into a Shizu where it will be more valuable than a suriage Kiyomaro. 

 

Ultimately we'll never know but I find it to be more believable when we don't have to have the person who did this perceive zero value in a perfectly intact and relatively brand new Kiyomaro. To me I have a lot of problems swallowing that belief when the evidence all seems contrary, that people did value them.

 

 

Except that in the Shinshinto and Meiji period even the best Shinshinto blades are not prized as highly as they do now. At best Kiyomaro during those period was comparable to only the second tier Shinto era smiths, and even then with a few exceptions it is all about quality Koto pieces that connoisseurs really cared about. Certainly no Rolex more Sekonda. I imagine the same scenario would be collectors in postwar Japan think of WW2 era swords even the best ones by Horii, Gassan, Kasama and Yasukunito get poor rating.

 

Kiyomaro in the Meiji era was affordable, the workmanship was high. Will it get turned into a fake Koto masterpiece in Meiji era? With the Haito Rei, of course.

What were the alternative that is affordable and look convincing? Very few.

 

 

Wah

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Except that in the Shinshinto and Meiji period even the best Shinshinto blades are not prized as highly as they do now. At best Kiyomaro during those period was comparable to only the second tier Shinto era smiths, and even then with a few exceptions it is all about quality Koto pieces that connoisseurs really cared about. Certainly no Rolex more Sekonda. I imagine the same scenario would be collectors in postwar Japan think of WW2 era swords even the best ones by Horii, Gassan, Kasama and Yasukunito get poor rating.

 

Kiyomaro in the Meiji era was affordable, the workmanship was high. Will it get turned into a fake Koto masterpiece in Meiji era? With the Haito Rei, of course.

What were the alternative that is affordable and look convincing? Very few.

 

 

Wah

 

 

Yasukuni shrine blades and all the others mentioned were inferior to Kiyomaro then and are inferior to them now. Also inferior to the best modern smiths. And valued less I think, always. It's not automatic that because something gets older it gets valued higher. 

 

Consider now if you went and had Gassan Sadatoshi make you a custom blade. That blade has value even though it's "not valued as highly as Shizu." Would you go and cut up a Gassan Sadatoshi in order to make a fake koto Gassan blade or a fake koto Soshu blade?

 

No you wouldn't. You would never cut up the grand master of the day unless you had a very bad economic plan. So the point is one of how reasonable is this. If you had a run of the mill journeyman work then this is the one you would cut up to use as your fraud point.

 

You're starting from the wrong point of view if you think Kiyomaro was not held in high regard. He was. He had a waiting list and his swords were not cheap. He killed himself with outstanding orders, maybe 100 blades. Consider what it will cost you to buy 100 shinsakuto from even a journeyman smith now. 

 

This is the inescapable problem with this thought that Kiyomaro is a target to destroy a blade to make a fake. Even if he was "relatively inexpensive" compared to a Shizu, there are even cheaper blades that were made during this time that would be perfectly fine to pass off as a Shizu not to mention any number of older ones. No matter how low you want to lay him, there are zero cost options. 

 

It's much more reasonable to assume someone "upgraded" a piece that had an issue rather than to assume they destroyed a perfectly fine blade by one of the top, if not the top makers of his period. And I have first hand evidence of unsigned Kiyondo. 

 

Why is it more reasonable to you that someone would select a perfect 100% excellent example to destroy instead of nice work that had a tragic issue? Generally what they have done in history is found ways to scavenge value out of otherwise dead pieces. 

 

There is a Juyo Awataguchi Hisakuni wakizashi. One could argue this same path that a wealthy merchant had it and wanted it cut down so he could wear it. On the other hand maybe it broke and they saved what they could.

 

There is so much evidence of them saving what they could out of valuable items. Nobody made this tanto below because they just wanted a tanto and took a nice blade to destroy to make it. The blade broke, and they salvaged it. 

 

satsumaage.jpg

 

I'd need to see a reasonable argument about why a perfectly intact blade is more reasonable to suspect than a blade that had an issue that was being salvaged. 

 

Markus relates this:

 

Kiyondo said later that he had to forge 30 blades just to pay off Kiyomaro’s debts which were 300 ryō in the form of advance payments for ordered swords.

 

So we have Kiyondo making 30 blades to cover a 300 gold coin debt. 10 Ryo per sword for Kiyondo, who is not Kiyomaro by any stretch, is not a cheap junker that nobody is going to care about. 

 

This is the point in the end, there is value there. You wouldn't cut down a Gassan Sadakatsu after WWII, and you wouldn't cut down a Gassan Sadatoshi now, and I have trouble believing you'd cut down a mint condition Kiyomaro for the purpose of making a fake. 

 

If it was cut down for use, and then afterwards dummied up, this is a different question than purposefully making a fake from an intact blade. There is no good fraud argument for destroying valuable things to make fakes. All through sword history it's either unsigned stuff that is upgraded by adding a signature which does not destroy the blade at all, or it's an inferior work that will only pass because someone doesn't know what they're looking at. The whole point is to deceive someone who doesn't know what they're looking at.

 

Nobody took a Rembrandt and sliced it up to pass it off as a part of a Da Vinci painting even when Rembrandt was making them. It's always inferior stuff. Kiyomaro was never inferior.

 

It's never going to be more reasonable to destroy something good when something not good will do the trick just as well, unless there is great ignorance involved (i.e. if the blade was shortened for a legit reason first, then dummied up after).

 

The weight of historical evidence is always toward salvage. There is an exception in making fake Masamune in that there is a reason to give those as gifts. If someone had put a kinzogan mei to Masamune into this one or it had a Masamune attribution there would be a little bit more reason to believe it may have been original. 

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What were the alternative that is affordable and look convincing? Very few.

 

The history of fakery is that 90% of the convincing is in the target's mind, and based on their greed. The evidence of fakes that it didn't take a lot of convincing, otherwise it's hard to explain all the bad fakes. 

 

And there is a case where Kano Natsuo was posted to this board as a "modern made" menuki that unfortunately was not for sale so it couldn't be used to mount a poster's low cost katana. Nobody picked up on it then, or since. So it's listed on this board as modern work. 

 

I've handed a Shintogo Kunimitsu tachi to a collector, the blade being Tokuju and signed, and he had no idea it was particularly special. He shrugged and handed it back to me, "nice blade." Yes nice, like a million dollars nice. 

 

Almost all faking is about the label that's on it and then taking advantage of someone's ignorance. There is never any shortage of ignorance, this is why you don't take an excellent thing and destroy it to make a fake. An inferior "unconvincing" from the NMB armchair standpoint with 100% hindsight is actually perfectly acceptable, so says the gimei blades that still turn up today, that still get posted to this board, that are still obviously unacceptable, but people keep buying them. And they will never ever stop, because basically people are almost always too afraid to disclose their "score" to someone in advance to get them to vet it, in case they get it swept out from under them, and people want to believe they can buy gold coins but pay a silver price. Even if it's from a dealer. So too good to be true is actually perceived as their good luck. 

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Markus wrote a good article about Kiyomaro a few years ago:

 

https://markussesko.com/2013/08/14/the-case-of-kiyomaro/

 

And to quote:

 

"Shortly before the end of the Edo period the samurai of this fief were so worried that they constantly sharpened their blades in fear of an imminent seppuku. This lead to a kind of contest of who had the sharpest blade. The poorer samurai were jealous because they were not able to keep up with fancy swords but Kiyomaro had compassion for them and forged them durable and sharp blades for a cheap price. Of course they were no art swords and because this was a secret he had to leave them unsigned. One of the „customers“ was Kiyokawa Hachirō (清河八郎, 1830-1863, see picture 3), a very patriotic samurai, student of the old classics, and master of the Hakushin-Ittō-ryū (北辰一刀流) (sic! I think Hokushin Itto ryu?) of swordsmanship. Kiyokawa was a sword lover too and was not very fond of having a „cutter“ so he asked Kiyomaro to forge him a slightly superior blade than for the others. In addition, he asked him to sign the tang at least with red lacquer so that his sword stood out from the others."

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  • 3 months later...

This is a very interesting topic, and I apologies in advance for "thread necromancy" - I do not know if it acceptable practice on this board. 

 

I think Darcy makes a good case, which is relevant to my investigation. 

 

Darcy wrote on the topic of mumei Kyomaro passed off as Koto work : 

 

No you wouldn't. You would never cut up the grand master of the day unless you had a very bad economic plan. So the point is one of how reasonable is this. If you had a run of the mill journeyman work then this is the one you would cut up to use as your fraud point.

 

 

There is however a counter-argument that I am struggling with. 

 

Assuming the fraud was to pass as a rare and very valuable Koto-era sword. Wouldn't the buyer ask for appraisal by the Hon'ami before spending a fortune of gold coin? Hence, the goal of high-level fraudsters would be to induce Hon'ami in error, and this would require high-level work that was deliberately made to imitate and old master's style. You can't just take an "of the mill journeyman" to do this, you would need someone of significant skill. 

 

There are of course variation around fraud transactions, just as in the painting world. Some fakes are sold off feigning the urgent need for a "quick buck" - this is where greed kicks in and terrible fakes are exchanged. Other masterwork frauds go through rounds of appraisals by experts before being exchanged as the real thing. Different business models. High-volume low-margin / low-volume high-margin.  

 

Thank you 

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

Assuming the fraud was to pass as a rare and very valuable Koto-era sword. Wouldn't the buyer ask for appraisal by the Hon'ami before spending a fortune of gold coin? Hence, the goal of high-level fraudsters would be to induce Hon'ami in error, and this would require high-level work that was deliberately made to imitate and old master's style. You can't just take an "of the mill journeyman" to do this, you would need someone of significant skill. 

 

There are of course variation around fraud transactions, just as in the painting world. Some fakes are sold off feigning the urgent need for a "quick buck" - this is where greed kicks in and terrible fakes are exchanged. Other masterwork frauds go through rounds of appraisals by experts before being exchanged as the real thing. Different business models. High-volume low-margin / low-volume high-margin.  

 

Thank you 

 

 

Getting an appraisal from the Honami is going to cost you a fortune in gold coin. There are 13,000 Juyo blades. Juyo blades. 468 of those have some sort of Honami authentication. Honami were *not* used by everyone who had a good blade. Even if we can consider half of the original attributions lost, we're still talking below 10%. That means a huge culture of people who had daimyo quality blades who were not using the Honami. 

 

And, from our world, if you find a blade with a kinzogan mei Masamune how much research are you going to do while it sits there and looks pretty and other people might find out about it? Just about zero. Since none of us here really know a lot about swords and very few have studied Masamune (I have had a Juyo Bunkazai in my hands, one of the Kyoho Meibutsu Cho in my hands, one of the best tanto works of Masamune in my hands, a Juyo one and another Juyo one that looked like Ko-Bizen... that does not make me an exert in Masamune but helps in being an expert in not-Masamune). But from experience, everyone wants to do this:

 

1. I think this is valuable.

2. The seller thinks it is not valuable.

3. I want to score.

4. I am afraid that I'm not right.

5. I need to steal knowledge from someone else so I can steal this sword from this sucker.

 

But ultimately this is a test of their greed. Their greed and fear of missing out will make them take the leap. It's just human nature, people speculate on something that will get them a leg up. Sometimes it works and you find a gold mine. Sometimes it doesn't and you lose a bit of money. 

 

So no they would not take it to the Honami.

 

But if they *did* take it to the Honami and they already bought it as a Masamune and if it comes back Hojoji, then if that guy was a Big Mojo guy he's going to have the Honami in for a chat. There's a record of one blade getting upgraded three times until it was a Masamune. As this guy bought it as. 

 

So... really if you guys don't want to believe me... just look at ebay. That is what it takes to defraud your average guy. Really, really bad crap. The problem is, you can't defraud the scholar, he knows what he's looking at. You can defraud the average guy with almost anything as long as he thinks he will turn it for profit he's in. His greed is larger than his knowledge. 

 

Still don't believe? Look at all the beautiful girls on Instagram. Fake fake fake. These instagram models send their selfies out to retouchers in Eastern Europe who will do a portrait for $25 and send it back on the same day for those girls to post their natural beauty to the world. 

 

Still don't believe? Google up what celebs look like without their makeup.

 

Still don't believe? Go to Las Vegas and pick up one of those flappy cards and look at the supermodel on the card and call her to your room and report back on what comes in.

 

You do not need to work to defraud these people. They see it as low risk high reward so they do it because they're operating off of greed. 

 

So you don't actually get the super model to try to defraud the guy looking for an escort. You don't actually get the most beautiful girls in the world posting their natural beauty on instragram if you want to run an instagram agency. You don't get the most beautiful people in the world to be hollywood stars. They are just those that rose to the top and learned how to beat they game for the most part. 

 

Edit: note to self, don't type in caps. Also, the point I'm trying to make here with very little grace is that in cases of fraud you are tapping into someone's greed and hoping it trumps their common sense. Presenting a perfectly healthy Shinshinto sword as a Kamakura period sword is such an attempt at fraud. Fraud is easy, you try enough, you will succeed. Add to the above the Nigerian scams where they get people to wire them money in order to receive a larger wire back. Or, you won a trip to Hawaii, you just need to send us $300 to cover the taxes. People fall for it. You will succeed ultimately, 999 people will hang up on you but one will listen. If you take a valuable asset though, like using palladium to make fake platinum, you're causing yourself an economic injury as the first step of your fraud. If using silver will work instead, you'd use silver because you will still succeed in the end. If you can use aluminum and lead, even better. The argument can continue based on the interpretation: "Was Kiyomaro in his time, lead or precious metal?" I think he was precious metal. I don't buy the argument that he was a throwaway smith because of the demand for his blades, the patronage he received, the price of getting Kiyondo to replace his unfulfilled orders and so on. But ultimately if someone wants to believe he was a garbage throwaway smith who's work you'd order and sit in line behind 100 guys, receive the work, take it straight over to the hacksaw and cut off the nakago... that's a place that you get to on faith and it's impossible to say it didn't happen for sure. I just think given the alternatives there is a much more reasonable and easier to swallo explanation. 

 

The one thing fraud all has in common is that the audience wants to be gullible. Once you have that, you put in min resources and get max results. Edit: That is, the target is your accomplice, their mentality is what makes the fraud work. Not so much the object at hand. If it were not like this then ebay would not be littered with Chinese fakes. And for every one of those fake Chinese swords that to us stands out screaming, there are fakes in other domains that we do not have the knowledge to sort out (and others may). I could not separate a fake Louis Vuitton bag from a real one at three steps away. Girls who own them can. For me if someone were to approach me to sell one that "fell off the back of a truck" then if I let greed lead me I'd fall for it, but if I let common sense lead me, I'd have to guess it's a fake because those are the odds. How good the fake is is not a question, because I don't know what a real one really looks like. So as long as it's not laughable, it is "good enough" to get me possibly, or if not me, then the person after me. They would not be lining the streets of Rome at night with fake designer bags if people did not fall into it. And as usual, 999 will pass by but they know they will eventually get one.

 

For the love of god you don't start smashing diamonds in order to make a fake diamond of twice the weight to try to sell to someone. You will get the same results with glass. Keep the diamonds for yourself, use the glass.

 

In the time of Kiyomaro you had no end of Kajihei fakes of all sorts that were convincing.

 

Who says now that this blade is not a Kajihei fake of Kiyomaro that got the mei cut and became Shizu and then Kiyomaro again?

 

Who knows.

 

The only thing I balk at in this is that anyone who knows anything is going to blow up a Kiyomaro on a hollywood style heist. "but Tsuruta san said he was not that valued..." yadayada. Why is the guy dying with 100 unfilfilled orders and his student can sell the students work at 10 gold per pop to cover the bills. If I had more time I'd dig into what Kiyomaro charged.

 

I'll never believe that blade was a completely problem free Kiyomaro that someone took an axe to. That narrative helped only one thing, getting the blade sold. Occam's razor just says it's simply either not a Kiyomaro or else it was a something-wrong Kiyomaro that would have low value because of the something wrong.

 

Hagire is a very easy answer. Now you have an o-suriage Kiyomaro with no original nakago (near worthless) or a signed Kiyomaro with hagire (worthless) and standard response for 1000 years is to break the sword and make a new nakago. Now after that, they scratch their head and say yea, looks like koto doesn't it? That to me is plausible, the typical turning lemons into lemonaide story and doesn't have to involve someone doing something stupid in order for the plot to unfold. 

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Darcy you should write a book. Your answer was informative, especially the part pertaining to the Honami and Kyomaro. I recall an article about blade prices on Markus Sesko's website (link) where it mentions the prices of other shinshinto smiths (Masahide 7.5 ryo, Naotane 5 ryo). I surmise that given Kyomaro's notorious talent and productivity issues, his prices could have been far steeper than those of Masahide. 

 

On a side note, I wonder how Kyomaro incurred so much debt during his lifetime (which is one of the theory about his suicide). Unless he had shark lenders taking a big chunk of his income, or was visiting high-end prostitutes every second night, you can't just drink away all of that gold in sake. 

 

On the buyer/seller incentives and the Honami : 

 

I get from this that the buyer had no incentive to request identification papers from the Honami in the first place. If his payoff is "perception" - in the sense of owning a prestigious blade to heighten his social status, there is a clear rational to go for a good fake at a bargain, rather than incurring the certainty premium + Honami fee. While the economic incentives are completely different for the seller. 

 

Hence, I suspect most of Honami's clients were prospective sellers, or owners of significant collections to ascertain the worth of their assets. Those with the status to request "favors" however, must have constituted the vast majority of his "repeat customers". 

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