Nagasone Kotetsu 虎徹

[Fung]

Gentlemen, authentic Nagasone Kotetsu in your professional opinion?

[paulb]

Dear ?

I am afraid I can not offer an opinion certainly not a proffessional one, but consider the following:

Nagasone Kotetsu is one of the most copied smiths in history. There is a large number of swords carrying his signature circulating around the market.

Some of the forgeries are extremely good and have fooled many people for a long time. Some that have been authenticated in the past  are questionable today.

The problem is made worse by the range of and differences in his signature throughout his working life. 

To establish the authenticity of your sword would require a great deal of study of the mei and I for one don't have the skill to make that determination.

If this sword is coming out of Japan unpapered or with old papers be very cautious. If it is a local find that is unpapered then put it in for shinsa.

without an up to date paper it is unlikely that anyone would be confident in establishing it's authenticity.

[CSM101]

No.

 

 

Uwe G.

[Valric]

If the sword comes from Japan, and it's signed with a big smith, and it doesn't have papers or has old papers = gimei. 

 

This simple heuristic will prevail 99.999% of the time. 

[paulb]

If someone is starting out (i.e only 8 posts on the board) then of course it can be a question. Thats how we gain knowledge. Therefore it deserves a reasonable response

I can appreciate that such questions can be exasperatring for those with greater experience but didnt you start somewhere?

[Valric]

It was not my intention to come off as exasperated. I've adjusted the post. The goal is to pass on very important heuristic in the most categorical way possible. 

 

Generally, I feel we should be careful about looking at kantei points for these blades without prefacing with the warning. This gives the impression that there could actually be a chance of something there. While explaining the kantei points is educational in its own right, we must at minimum preface these posts with this warning. If we take gloves, speak indirectly, ramble on with anecdotes of the old days we're not going to get the message through. 

 

People who get burned will exit the hobby and conclude it's all a scam. Casual readers of this forum need to read this message enough time from different people that it becomes a second nature to question these 'free lunches' 

[Jean]

HMFUNG,

 

Please sign all your posts by your first name and an initial as per the board rules..

[BIG]

hmfung325, please tell us more about the sword and its history. What about the measurements?

Have a look at Markus book Shinto & Shinshinto-Kantei and check the authentic Kotetsu. Esp. the mei is different to your sword.

 

Best and welcome on board

[Stephen]

Peter from the pix id say its o Yahoo auction.

[CSM101]

It is one of those auctions on ebay Japan: https://www.jauce.com/auction/m309813516

 

We discussed it many times, so when the question comes: Good or bad? I give a short answer.

And then I would expect a followup question: Why? And then we can start to explain.

 

 

Uwe G.

[PNSSHOGUN]

A good looking sword regardless but one highly doubts it's a Kotetsu.

[Fung]

Hi all, thanks for your valuable comments, much appreciated. I’m not sure whom I can ask so I come to ask the question on this forum, my first thought is the Mei looks good and near the original one provided by the seller with his sword reference book. but when it comes to Hamon I could find no information.

 

Actually I faced some difficulties to do my research on the subject of Japanese swords here because in my city there is no book and only very few studies Japanese swords. I tried to research on Kotestsu online but too bad I can’t find good info.

[Guido]

Actually I faced some difficulties to do my research on the subject of Japanese swords here because in my city there is no book or even no one studies Japanese swords. I tried to research on Kotestsu online but too bad I can’t find any info in English nor even in Japanese.

 

There are Japanese sword collectors in HK, you can order books easily via Amazon or Lulu, and there's a *ton* of info about Kotetsu online, not only in Japanese, but also in English:

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=%E9%95%B7%E6%9B%BD%E7%A5%A2+%E8%99%8E%E5%BE%B9&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizoo-Lw_zfAhUF57wKHfDaC1UQBQgqKAA&biw=1280&bih=658

https://www.google.com/search?ei=sH9EXImXOMym8AW1wYywCg&q=nagasone+kotetsu&oq=nagasone+kotetsu&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0j0i22i30l9.7533.8500..9481...0.0..0.127.714.0j6......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i19j0i22i30i19.jG7H7WtdcPw

[Fung]

I am a new starter on swords, so pls forgive me if my questions doesn’t seem very smart to you! Still on my way to learn...

[Tom Darling]

Neither mei is good.  Hope you have better luck.

 

 

 

Tom D.