Cutting Edge Top Ten

[BIG]

Darcy counting many coups...

 

http://www.nihonto.ca/ha/

 

Best

[lonely panet]

Out of pure interest, 98 top level blades In ones life time sounds abit high to me.

 

That's appox 5 a year for 20 years, not concluding failures, bad weather, Xmas work party hang overs etc

[Gakusee]

Many of these top blades were likely by the students or disciples but signed in the master’s name.

[Hoshi]

I'd like to see the rate of conversion from Juyo to Tokuju+biju+bunka+koku of these same smiths. That would be awesome, see how the positions get shuffled. 

[Gakusee]

Valric

There is a separate posting by Darcy about the conversion rate of Juyo into Juyo+.

However, still work in progress.

There are still “undiscovered” blades. Those undiscovered will skew the stats, based only on published NBTHK docs. And frankly who cares if a Masamune is “just” Hozon (not captured by analysis) or Juyo or Kokuho? If it is a Masamune, by definition it would go to Juyo at least. Same with something like Mitsutada or Nagamitsu.

Moreover, some smiths are so rare and precious that such conversion does not makes sense because there are not enough specimens - eg Tomonari, Yoshimitsu etc. So with such rare gems you might get to a stage where Juyo+ far exceeds Juyo.

 

Having said all of the above, a conversion rate into “super-prime” is an interesting ballpark. But the absolute number of highly rated blades does not mean that Nagamitsu or Rai (Niji) Kunitoshi were better or better rated than Tomonari, Mitsutada, Munechika etc.

[BIG]

It is int. that Taikei Naotane made copy of the soden bizen and not of the ichimonji...

 

Best Regards