New sword.

[Bencld]

Hi all. Acquired a new wak the other day, hira zukuri in shira saya in reasonable polish. Nagasa is 39.6cm/15.59inches, sori 1.4cm/.55inches. Advertised as muramachi period. I quite like it.

Any initial ideas on school etc ?

 

[Jean]

Chris,

 

Try to make an educated guess (if you have a few books), from the nakago jiri, the nakago pattern, from the period MurOmachi (in which province were hira zukuri wakizashi forged?), in that period what were the provinces which supplied the greatest number of swords. This should lead to an answer

[Blagoy]

Mino? 

[ChrisW]

Looks awfully similar to a wak I have, yours being in better polish.

[Bencld]

Thanks Jean. I am doing that now. When looking at sori, do you take the nakago into consideration when judging type of sori ?

[Jean]

No, Chris.

 

In this case, considering the time of manufacture, only the hacho (cutting edge).

 

In old times, Heian, Kamakura, tachi could have several sori, one in the nakago, one on the blade...

 

This type of blade is typical of Muromachi. At this time, 16th century, there were a lot of hira zukuri wakizashi. In the same way, at the hinge of Nambokucho/Muromachi, some smiths forged hirazukuri katana/tachi with blades around 65 cm. I have seen some Bizen blades like this.

 

If you want to speed your research, the easiest way is to google « hira zukuri wakizashi » and you will see blades and in the des ription, the Province. The key kantei points here are « hira zukuri wakizashi », nakago jiri.

 

Edit to add, in those times, one could say that Bizen accounted for 50% pf the blades producet and Mino for 25%.

[Bencld]

Hi Jean. Thank you again for your input.

I did the google search and found some blades with very similar characteristics as mine and they are Mino.

Initially I was thinking Mino late Muromachi because of the strong curvature and whitish hada.

I did the google search and found some blades with very similar characteristics as mine and they are Mino.

So my educated guess is that but no idea as to smith which is probalbly a bridge too far.

 

Regards 

Chris.

[Jean]

Congrats Chris. You are right, there is a strong probability it is Mino. For the smith, taking into consideration there were more than one thousand smiths working at that time, it is difficult to pinpoint the smith