Gimei Swords.

[Bencld]

Hello all. This may have been covered before and apologies if it has. I did do a search and didn't come up with much.

 

I was just wondering peoples opinions regarding keeping/collecting gimei swords ? I have a couple but when I first saw them, they spoke to me and I really like the sugata, hada and hamon and enjoy them very much.

 

I realise that some of the artists that faked some of the master painters over the centuries were very accomplished artists and I am assuming that some of the sword smiths that make/made gimei blades were probably very accomplished smiths themselves. Does this hold up ?

 

Just wondering is all !

Chris D.

 

[dominnimod]

Judge and enjoy the blade, not the signature, gimei blades might bother some people, as they can be seen as something not sincere, depends on the eye of the beholder

[Vermithrax16]

It depends on the person. Some go by the qualities of the blade first and can look past a gimei signature ( I fall into this category). Some see it as a real issue and maybe as dominnimod said above, not sincere.

 

Also I am 90% sure a gimei will not be eligible for shinsa, but I am not 100% sure so if that means something to the person, then there is that to consider.

[Ken-Hawaii]

I'm not sure that I would collect them, but if I found out through shinsa that one of my blades was gimei, I probably wouldn't be in any rush to get rid of it.

 

Ken

 

[Vermithrax16]

My burning questions is what is the thinking on gimei signatures as to:

1. put on when forged new by smith

2. put on at some later date after forging 

3. how can we tell?

[Jim P]

Hi Jeremiah, No burning question why would you care when a gimei signature was put on ? Chris, I think if I had a gimei signature but liked the sword I would have it taken off as soon as it’s been confirmed so then it can be papered and no longer has that stigma?Then it’s all about the sword, most collectors don’t like them. For me the fewer in the pool the better but it’s a personal choice the NBTHK and the others do not paper them so that is a good indication of where they stand on this issue. Do a search of the board is has been discussed many times

[Dr Fox]

Most collectors cannot read signatures on the spot. So its only from later assistance that the kanji is read.

An attractive blade can initiate the 'buy' senses, the nakago many times, is sighted after that impulse.

A good friend of mine offered me a blade in shirasaya, having already warned me the signature was gi-mei.

I bought the blade, the mei was not a feature in the sale.

Would I consider its removal, no, its not that big a deal.

 

Stories of 'suspect' mei being removed, and then accredited to that very smith, are out there.

[nagamaki - Franco]

At one point in a discussion of great copiers there was an image posted of a big name gimei by a very well known copier, who in his own right was an excellent sword smith. My thought was what an excellent sword, wouldn't mind coming across one. And at this time I would never think about removing the false mei, as the false mei although the incorrect makers name would in fact be a signature.

[SAS]

The Japanese had their own reasons for gimei, that were very different from Western assumptions......to some extent, these attitudes are still held today in other areas of life. A good sword is still a good sword, even if gimei, though for documentation purposes the attribution must be removed. Sometimes swords held to be gimei and had signatures removed were later attributed to the maker who had signed.

[Dave R]

Old school advice,"buy the blade, not the signature"!

[GARY WORTHAM]

After a few shinsa, where great looking swords with signatures, are pronounced as gimei.

 

I watched the shinsa team as they studied the swords with their books !!!!!!!

 

It became apparent that they looked to find the correct signature, but when " not in their book ", it was pronounced as gimei.

 

Her lies the most critical of evaluation !!!!

 

You have a great quality sword, a signature [ by smith, student, attribution ]; yet designated as gimei. 

 

I feel we are wrong to cut and paste an absolute where we can not see the past.

 

The shinsa team should be honest, say they don't know and just give an evaluation of the sword itself..

[Jean]

Attribution is not considered as gimei

[paulb]

I am a little surprised that you appear to find a shinsa panel referring to their books as a negative Gary. When at one of the Uk shinsa's some years ago the lack of reference material was criticised. I see no issue at all in looking to compare a mei with a published example. The judges arent necessarily looking for the mei that is in front of them they are comparing to other authenticated examples.

We revisit this topic often and I dont think the basic approach has changed. The mei should be the last thing that is looked at and should confirm what the sword is already telling you.

Buying the sword not the siganture is reasonable advice provided you arent paying a premium for the mei.

I have studied any number of swords which have turned out to be gimei. There are two poles in this. There are those blades made by very skilled smiths as a copy, or yes a fraudulent piece, which have been made in the style of the named smith and with sufficient skill to mislead a potential buyer. These are generally good quality pieces.

Then there are those that have just had a famous mei added to try and obtain a high price from an unsuspecting buyer. Often these have none of the features one might expect to see in the named smiths work.

As always we come back to the same points. Study, identify what you like, buy a sword because you like it not because of the mei. And finally if you buy an unauthenticated signed work dont pay full price buy it as though it was mumei.

[paul griff]

Hello Chris,

Interesting topic...I have what I would consider a really nice shin-gunto signed Tadayoshi...a Gimei of the 9th generation and signed Hizen Kuni Tadayoshi..A beautiful shinshinto hizen-to-tachi with a graceful and slender shinogi-zukuri tachi sugata with suguha hamon.Nakago is unusual with one mekugi-ana...The gunto fittings are all custom made and high quality then assembled in the arsenal ( red assembly paint on the nakago ).Probably made in the 1930's at a considerable cost ! As Dave highlighted .... buy the blade not he signature ! Gimei doesn't bother me in this case because I liked the sword and the history that accompanied it plus,and importantly for me...the price was right...! But,if I was paying what I would consider big money for big names and found it was a Gimei I don't think I'd be so positive..! Copies can be better than originals but I feel they will always be resigned to the 'second division',be it sword,car or watch....Just my opinion of course .....

Regards,

Paul..

[Dr Fox]

Paul/Paul.

 

Floats my boat!

[SwordGuyJoe]

I don't want to sidetrack the conversation, but I know the NTHK groups provide some info if they pink a blade. Has anyone come across a blade by a big name that was "attributed" to any of the Ikkansai group from Showa? It is rumored that when times got tough a few of them would fake a big name sword. Apparently they were quite good at it.

[PNSSHOGUN]

This lovely story about gimei and Admiral Yamamotos sword still makes me smile. 

http://www.nihontocraft.com/Yamamoto_NBTHK.html

 

 

After Mukden Incident in September 1931 and the following "January 28 Incident" in Shanghai in 1932, various patriotic movements broke out at every place in Japan. The Veterans Association of Japan not only donated warplanes to the Japanese government by themselves but also they promoted donation of swords from civilians. In Echigo, there were wealthy farmers collecting antiques as their hobby for generations. They proudly donated their sword collections; one individual provided to the commander of the local Army regiment more than one hundred swords including ones with inscription of famous sword smiths. Eiichi Sorimachi, the chairman of Nagaoka Veterans Association, was appointed to be in charge of wielding the valuable swords. He brought the story to the Minister of Education, Sadao Araki, an army general. Araki dispatched Junji Honma, a sword expert, as an appraiser(investigating officer)of those swords. Honma then pointed out that all of those inscriptions are fake(gimei). The news quickly spread to the entire prefecture, and many collectors, who had been believing words of sword dealers, contacted the news paper publishers and appealed demands to hold some sort of "official" sword inspection meeting.

[Darcy]

I think the problem with shinsa teams and reference material is this:

 

Let set A = the set of all authentic sword signatures.

Let set B = the set of all documented presumed authentic sword signatures.

 

Let C = A ∩ B 

 

C is then the set of definitively authentic and documented sword signatures. 

 

This set is equal to B at maximum and in reality is a subset of B as some documented presumed authentic signatures will end up being no good. 

 

C is certainly a subset of A, because not all elements of A will find themselves into books. 

 

So what you get is something like this:

 

 

But want you really want to be comparing against is A, failing comparing against A you want to compare against C, but C does not exist other than in theory. Since they compare against B, by its own nature, this process is prone to absolute failure.

 

If every mei that is not in B gets erased, over time the set of A is going to reduce in size until it matches B.

 

Complete logical failure.

 

What should be happening is that B should be expanded until it covers A. So you literally cannot take a reference book and if the sword does not match the reference book, pronounce it to be fake. 

 

After all, if that logic held true, it would not be possible to make a reference book in the first place! 

 

What needs to be done is that the signature needs to first be verified as being the correct age. If the signature is the correct age and the sword is the correct style, then the signature needs to be added as a possible positive instead of a sure negative, if it is not in the book. 

 

That means adding a page to the book.

 

If over time additional signatures are found in that style, with the correct age, then this style of signature needs to be upgraded from possible to certain. 

 

Tanobe sensei wrote that one way to determine the age of the mei is to examine whether the mei feels like it is "on top" of the corroded surface. If the mei is the same age as the surface, over time it will become more shallow as the surface erodes and it will also become less distinct. If the nakago is well preserved then the mei should be well preserved. If not, then not.

 

This needs to happen before looking at strokes and matching patterns. 

 

After this method then you start looking at signing habits. 

 

Taking one book like Fujishiro and using that to judge everything under the sun is basically a huge invitation to disaster. 

 

There should be three categories: 

 

- false (gimei)

- positive (shoshin)

- needs study ("to mei ga aru") aka. potential positive

 

They have kept the "needs study" section far too small over the years. I think it is statistically close to nil that finding a signed Moriie, being pronounced gimei, having the mei removed, and submitted and authenticated to Moriie should happen. I think if the blade says Moriie and the signature says Moriie then if the age is correct it should automatically be a potential positive and left untouched.

 

The main problem is that people are so scared of potential positives they would rather have a mumei example. This, I don't understand at all... you should not be able to upgrade said Moriie by removing the potentially good mei.  

 

I think over time as things evolve it will head more in this direction, but so much damage has been done by trying to make reality conform to reference books instead of making reference books conform to reality that it is maybe a bit too little and a bit too late.

[Curran]

Darcy's post made me miss my Freshman Logic class.

 

When it comes to fittings, I entirely concur.

In particular we have Wakayama put together in the 1960s and 1970s in the fashion that Darcy supports. Given over 12,000 artists- there had to be some limit to the signatures published.

Nowadays.... some of those signatures are the only versions accepted for papers. Thinking of certain Nara artists, I've come to feel that is wrong.

 

It is fortunate that the economics of fittings do not as beneficially support the removal of signatures to --> mumei as it does for swords.

People are not as likely to remove a Joi signature to get a 'Nara' attribution.

[GARY WORTHAM]

Thank you Darcy for what I was implying, but received the usual " board " stomping !!!!!

 

A fact !! Your wisdom and clear sightedness is a rare and refreshing breath of air.

 

If you are at the SF show, I have a table and will look you up.

 

The ' opened minds need to inspire the closed minds ".

[Vermithrax16]

Darcy thinks like a scientist, I like that!

[paulb]

Gary

As the one who responded to your post I assume you are referring to me as the "closed mind giving you the usual stomping". Giving you a stomping as you put it was far from my intention, I just didn't understand why you thought a shinsa panel using reference material was in some way negative.despite Darcy's usual detailed and eloquent argument I still don't. The issue appears to be not that they use it but how they use it. 

The fact that I asked the question or even if I didn't agree with you doesn't imply a "closed mind" approach usual or otherwise. It just means I don't agree or at least don't understand your point of view.

[Jean]

Let's be clear. You are asking Shinsa to be expert about the hundred thousand swords produced by more than 25000 smiths. That can't be without references i.e. books which enable the experts to see if the "handwriting" or work match a smith, this is the expert part, it is some kind of graphology expertise.

 

Just an example, give me the name of a Painting expert able to judge all artists' signatures ...

[Darcy]

It's not so much about trying to memorize 25,000 signatures, but about becoming an expert in artifacts... about becoming a signature expert... knowing how things work, what is likely to be correct and what is not. 

 

The problem is always that books are not exhaustive and treating them as a canonical set of signatures "or else it's gimei" doesn't allow you to ever change what you know. Once written the book can't be updated. If science is frozen in time at any point of time, a lot of bad ideas remain with us. The nature of science is that evidence contrary to the theories when introduced, if shown to be true, forces the theories to be discarded or updated. 

 

The nature of swords is that when evidence contrary to the theories when introduced, causes the evidence to be destroyed. This is a bad habit. 

 

The main problem is that this process is iterative: we discover new swords. If it doesn't match the book, erase it. Keep looking for swords. This guarantees erasing of outliers. But if you got 10 outliers together in one shot and put them down and they all confirm each other, you'd have to update the book. This is the whole problem then, the process of selecting them one at a time and destroying them by pronouncing them as not matching the book.

 

A real Rai Kunitoshi example. If we just look at the main line signature, as soon as you get to a single daimei by Rai Kunimitsu you have to rule it out because it doesn't match the signing habits. So you erase the mei from this sword because it does not match the book on Rai Kunitoshi. You keep going and every time you encounter a new one "ahaha, gimei, not in the book, erase it." Now you get to the Rai Kuninaga, and go aha another gimei! Erase that too! Then Rai Kunitsugu daimei .... so many fakes of Rai Kunitoshi! Erase! 

 

So eventually over a century you now have erased half the work of Rai Kunitoshi by erasing all the authorized signatures of his that were executed by his students. This has not accomplished much that is good. 

 

Instead those mei have to be looked at as Fujishiro did, and classified as potential positives since the era was correct and the work was correct. So he dug deeper.

 

He researched the student signatures and found matches to Rai Kunitsugu and Rai Kunimitsu and so concluded these are daimei.

 

I read what he wrote and then I analyzed all the signatures in the Juyo and found that he seemed to be correct and furthermore following in his footsteps I established Rai Kuninaga in there too.

 

 

In my case, the NBTHK has already accepted those Rai Kuninaga daimei but they don't label any of the daimei so I had to figure out what they did. Now, 60 years later, their analysis forms a book that is "all the Juyo" and can be used for book matching. But the basis for it was first principles research. 

 

If instead you flip open Fujishiro though you will exclude the Rai Kuninaga daimei and you will erase them, causing irreparable harm but bringing evidence into alignment with Fujishiro. Fujishiro had the right idea, but was not exhaustive.

 

It comes down with koto blades to being able to ascertain the age and the style of the smith in the work. So you do have to have expertise that spans over all the work of all the smiths. This considerably narrows though because 90% of the 25,000 smiths mentioned don't matter much due to lowish skill and there was no reason to target those for fakery anyway. So they have lower bars to jump over.

 

As the NBTHK has shown some restraint in classifying signatures, some of the outliers are let through with notes and in later years some of these have been validated.

 

There is a shumei on a Masamune tanto that was listed as "to mei ga aru" indicating skepticism at Juyo. This blade passed Tokuju later and the shumei was accepted and attribution to Masamune cleared. Same situation with a Rai Kunitsugu daito.

 

A signed Ko-Bizen Kanehira passed Juyo with "to mei ga aru" expressing doubt on the signature, this passed Tokuju and was resolved to be sho-shin. In that same Tokuju shinsa an Awataguchi Kuniyoshi that was "to mei ga aru" signature in Juyo passed Tokuju and was not resolved, staying as "to mei ga aru" but still attributed to Awataguchi Kuniyoshi. So it shows they are still studying and prepared to update what is an acceptable signature (i.e. Kanehira) but not just doing this out of the desire to do it (i.e. Kuniyoshi not resolved).

 

What I'm getting at is that a real expert in signatures has to work from first principles. In this way you don't rely on being an expert in every individual mei but knowing the principles of fakes and sho-shin mei you start from there. Books are major assists because they are digested knowledge presented to you from a past expert. Especially if those books came from guys like Fujishiro who worked from first principles, but if you don't work from first principles yourself, then the quality of your work is going to be lower than someone who does because the books are not exhaustive.

 

The older the work is the more tentative someone's conclusions should be.

 

This is I think why there are no "to mei ga aru" (i.e. "needs more study") notations on any Shinto or Shinshinto works that passed Juyo. They are all koto. The younger the work is and the closer to the modern era the more we know about it by having access to larger numbers of examples and historical documents, and thus the generalizations about the signatures become stronger. 

 

Also, fakers of those newer blades have less time in which to work. If you are faking Naotane it means you come from the time after Naotane, not before. So the hallmarks of your fakery are something that can likely be deduced as there are fewer candidates and reasons why this may have been done. If you are faking Soshu Yukimitsu it could be from anywhen and much harder to sort out.

 

To try to wrap it up a bit, this is only really a pushback against opening Fujishiro and declaring a blade of arbitrary period to be fake. That is a fairly specific use case. 

 

If the mei looks wrong to you...

 

And the style looks wrong to you...

 

And the quality looks wrong to you...

 

And it doesn't fit with Fujishiro... 

 

Let the hammer fall then, it failed on all accounts. But if everything else is right, it's harder to say it's not in Fujishiro so it's wrong, especially with an older work. So we can presume that a shinsa team is at least looking at these other aspects as well before going to Fujishiro. How much reliance goes to Fujishiro on the traveling roadshow is hard for any of us to know who are not on the panel. 

 

I recently brought a sword to Tanobe sensei that is a smith who is in the meikan and the sword was in the Kozan oshigata. There are no other reference works except itself being documented as an example of this smith. So it is frustrating in a way because you look it up and there it is as the example. But it is good in a way because it showed that it satisfied the Honami criteria for becoming a reference work on its own. 

 

Tanobe sensei discussed all the options and worked them out on the spot, thinking and evaluating, and this process continued well after I was gone and eventually concurred with the Honami on it. 

 

Fujishiro is of no use in this scenario nor is trying to memorize 25,000 signatures.

[Darcy]

This is from Tanobe sensei's article on gimei swords and gets at what I am talking about in regards to first principles examination for gimei... just the start of things. I have sat there and given him a sword. He will quickly glance it over, then take the tsuka off and study the nakago. When he examines a nakago he uses a loupe and is looking at the depth of the chisel marks and regularity, he is looking at the corrosion on the walls of the marks and at the bottom, as well as the depth and overall patina. Yasurime are also evaluated for age, skill and regularity.

 

After this he will examine the rest of the sword. Even if the blade is Juyo or whatever he will do all this before looking at papers or anything else and without any reference books. He writes that the NBTHK when they evaluate a sword they begin with the nakago, they are not playing the kantei game... they start with this data. After this is done, they will look at references. 

 

Generally we can assume that an authentic signature, a so-called "Shoshin-mei" is executed with a strong, vivid chiselling. That means in a fluent typeface without stagnation and the like. From the moment a signature is engraved it is exposed to rust over the years, which also accumulates in the lowest traces of the chisel and the yasurime. Also, the so-called "tagane-makura" – the "chisel blur" which results from the removal of the steel by the chisel – is lost. On the basis of all these factors the tang finally obtains a decent and natural appearance.

 

This is not the case with gimei. Here, the speed at whcih thie chisel was handled is different (because it always takes longer to copy something as good as possible as the real thing). There are also fine discrepancies in the depth of the traces of the chisel, the force applied to the chisel and the existence of the tagane-makura  (that means no abrasion process from over the years or centuries).

 

This also concerns the yasurime, whose angle, thickness, depth and force is more or less different. In most cases, the patina of the tang, as well as the colour of the rust in the deepest areas of the chiselling and the yasurime doesn’t make a uniform impression anyway. The forcible application of chemicals does not, of course, show that natural patina which emerges over the centuries.

 

All these factors together do not make an integral whole but give rise to an instinctive suspicion. This especially concerns signatures which do not seem to "fuse with the tang" but look like they are "hanging somehow over the tang" (that means the cases where the signature isn’t engraved deeply enough into the tang).

 

A good example where this peculiarity may be seen are in the signatures of pictures 1 and 2 (page 26 and 27), where the individual characters are copied exactly, but the typeface as a whole leaves, on the one hand, too little place and, on other hand, places to much space between the characters. Regarding the typeface, early blades from the Heian and Kamamura period show signatures which make an unaffected, classical and elegant impression, which reflects the entire energy of those swordsmiths. But it is interesting that signatures of the Muromachi period have a certain playful innocence. Among others, it is the hardest task of a gimei to reproduce such a particular atmosphere of a signature.

[paulb]

As always Darcy you have offerred an in depth view of a process which is extremely illuminating.

However I want to be clear about what I was saying regarding the use of references. I agree 100% that the use of books is part of the process not the total. In fact I regard it as supporting rather than leading. It could be that my perception in this is totally wrong but I have never believed that any shinsa panel work on the principal that "if it's not in the book it's gimei". The published signatures are looked at for comparison and variation as you illustrate in your post. If it doesn't conform is it wrong? well I guess that depends on what the rest of the blade is telling you and how different the mei is.

Where I have seen books being used it is in exactly the way you describe at the end of the process.

Equally I worry if a panel sits and believes it knows every mei ever produced in sufficient detail to pass judgement. It may be possible for them to mentally store the top smiths but often in overseas shinsa the swords being appraised are far from the top level and it would be impossible (I think) to remember all in sufficient detail.

I feel that much of the problem regarding shinsa, particularly overseas events is the level of expectation we have for them This may in part be due to the original wording, which may still form part of their appraisal, which the NTHK use on their documentation. I am paraphrasing but the papers used to read that "they absolutely guarantee that a piece is genuine". This is an impossible claim to live up to therefore if there is any slight discrepancy it is safer to call gimei than pass a blade. If you add to this the quality of polish and the standard of the blades being presented at such events is of a lower level than those typically seen in Japan then the problem is further compounded. 

I am a great supporter of the NBTHK and a huge fan of Tanobe Sensi's work. I believe they offer the best there is at present. While I may not always agree with them, their opinion is worth a lot more than mine. I am less a fan of the oversea's events for many reasons which have been often discussed before, but they fulfill a market need otherwise they wouldn't happen.

As long as the process used follows the lines you outline where books are used as supportive tools rather than final arbiter then I don't see a problem.

If this is indicative a closed mind then I guess I will live with it.

[vajo]

Amazing thread. Thanks!

[Greg F]

Agreed this thread is great. Darcy i dont know how your brain can stors so much information. Cheers.

 

Greg

[Mike Z]

On 5/1/2017 at 10:52 AM, PNSSHOGUN said:

This lovely story about gimei and Admiral Yamamotos sword still makes me smile. 

http://www.nihontocraft.com/Yamamoto_NBTHK.html

 

John,

 

I know this post is +5 years old, but it is new to me as of this morning.  Thanks so much for the link to the story of Yamamoto's sword by Sadayoshi Amada.  Lovely read.