Norimitsu? What You Think

[vajo]

A friend of mine will sell that sword. 

It's a koto blade and it has a very short nakago. 

My guess is that this blade was part of a tachi and was broken. 

The signature could be Norimitsu?

 

What you think?

 

 

regards

Chris

[SwordGuyJoe]

I agree

[paulb]

Chris

look at the shape, the position of the mei and try and imagine the original size and shape before it was shortened. Going by the image and without dimensions itlooks too short to have been a tachi if the mei is original. So it was either a short sword by Norimitsu or the mei has been added later.

For me the regularity of the hamon doesnt match up to those Norimitsu I have seen (not many I admit)

My guess is that it is an old blade, muromachi (based on hamon) thatt is o-suirage and with the mei added later.

[vajo]

Thank you.

But why is the nakago so short? I didn't have it in hands but it seems not that this nakago is formed.

I thougt is it was a broken sword and the smith made a nakago trying to save so much from the blade lenght as he could.

Maybe it was a sword from norimitsu and the smith who made that nakago signed it with the mei of him.

 

The short nakago make no sense for me.

[ROKUJURO]

Chris,

the MEKUGI-ANA and the patina of the NAKAGO do not scream KOTO to me. It is KATANA-MEI, not TACHI-MEI, so if the signature was original, it was never a TACHI.
The NAKAGO has been cut, not broken - except the last few millimeters! It seems to be a very 'unprofessional' SURIAGE - no filing of the rough cut. This lets me believe that this was done very late in the life of the blade, and very likely not by a swordsmith!.   

[paulb]

I have sen several swords with what I would call carelessly done suriage. One of them I talked about a lot in the past was an O-suriage Enju blade.

In reality we can never know the answer but my guess is that they were shortened to make them meet a functional need and the aesthetic just didn't matter. I have seen two koto blades a Yamato Taima and a ko-Bizen sword both in military mounts and both of which appear to have had the end of the nakago lopped off  with no attempt to refinish.

[Stefan]

Gimei Norimitsu.

[vajo]

Ok so the conclulsion is badly done suriage gimei norimitsu?

 

The blade looks not so bad. What you think about the age? 

Lots of activity i see. Nicley forged. If the blade was cut later in his age the mekugi ana would be newer driiled?

[Stephen]

not if it was org wak, and shortened for new wak koshi

[paulb]

still thinking Muromachi. I agree the hada seems to have merit The hamon is a little too uniform for me but doesnt look badly done and it has activity running under it.

It looks to be an ok piece worth spending some time studying

[vajo]

Thanks all for your opinion.

[SAS]

I would like to have seen the entire nakago from  the machi without the habaki to the nakagojiri.......sometimes suriage occurs just to fit a certain koshirae, as Stephen and Paul and Jean said.  At any rate, an interesting sword.