Jump to content

Opinion on this katana from the 16th century


hacsek

Recommended Posts

Dear All,

I came across an auction and it would be nice to have a professional opinion before investing a lot of money.

 

description of the seller:

The finely forged blade is in minty traditional sharp Japanese polish.
Deeply curved elegant shape with powerful kissaki (tip) and dimenions, very healthy blade with no sign of wear. It was kept safe for centuries as a valuable sword.

Beautiful high Choji-Midare hamon with strong sparkling Nie on Nioi line, extremely active and dense flamboyant pattern, the large Boshi is the same pattern.
Hada is quality well forged nice pattern.

The Mumei tang is unaltered with deep patination and original hole.

NBTHK Tokubetsu Kichyo Paper confirms the smith was:
平長盛 Taira Nagamori

Nagamori line was working in Bungo province and was active in the 15-16th century. This blade was most likely forged in the 1500-1550's.

Horimono is original to the blade, (unlike most later added with bad quality and rough chiseling), these are all deep with finely finished smooth lines and endings, not worn or over polished.
Right side has 1 smoothly lined wider ( with Budhist 2 kanji inside 梵 字) and 1 thinner grove.

Other side horimono reads: 八幡大菩薩 Hachiman Dia Bosatsu

Hachiman is called the God of war, divine protector of Japan and the Imperial House, main God of the warrior samurai class.


The blade is housed in Fine quality and condition Edo koshirae with matching fittings.
Great kojiri, fine rusty brown lacquer, smooth polished kurigata on the saya, hand forged strong iron tsuba with signature on both sides, habaki has thick sheet wrapping of gold and silver mixture (shakudo), 1 solid silver and 1 silver foiled seppa, great long tsuka with nice matching fittings, kabuto helmet menukies, even the kashira loop has double shitomode skirt plates on both sides which is very rare feature.

The set also comes with copy of japaneser egistration card, high quality shirasaya with bamboo stripes and wooden blade. Also has 2 old nice silk sword bags and a great weapon storage case.

Highly recommended professional collector set most likely made for custom order to high ranking Samurai and safely preserved for centuries.

cutting edge: 66.2c.m
full Koshirae length: 102 cm
width: 30 mm
thickness: 6.2 mm

 

All comments are much appreciated

post-3691-0-00566300-1565789927_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-32239300-1565789934_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-52108700-1565789939_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-95922800-1565789944_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-53100000-1565789956_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-89456500-1565789966_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-87421000-1565789980_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-33316600-1565789987_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-49047500-1565789994_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-43103800-1565790002_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-80372000-1565790007_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-14724600-1565790018_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-43932600-1565790024_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-01662200-1565790034_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-15865900-1565790039_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-50423500-1565790046_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-14593300-1565790053_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-06095700-1565790060_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-76028400-1565790064_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-62404800-1565790074_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-13689400-1565790081_thumb.jpg

post-3691-0-95049200-1565790088_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, not an expert so don’t take my opinion into account.

 

I personally like it very much. Well polished and all. What I think others might say against it are:

 

- Bungo isn’t a very (imho under appreciated) popular province with collectors.

- Green papers are regarded as highly suspicious nowadays if the sword comes from Japan.

 

As for me, the only thing that would give me a pause are:

 

- The price (probably too high for my wallet) :lol:

- I have a thing against horimono as I think they don’t add beauty to a blade but on the contrary, detract from it (but, hey, that’s just me)

 

So in conclusion, i think it is a nice blade and I love the Hamon.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey JP,

that was very helpful, thank you very much!

 

just a short question if I may, you say:

"Green papers are regarded as highly suspicious nowadays if the sword comes from Japan"

What do you mean by this?

 

thank you and kind regards,

Andreas

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you don’t feel like reading the whole thread, it mainly speaks about how some older papers made by the NBTHK and are not acknowledged today.

So basically, someone living in Japan would have all the opportunities to have it submitted again and get newer papers. Therefore, it is easy to conclude two obvious facts:

 

- It wasn’t resubmitted because the owner knows the attribution is Gimei

- It wasn’t resubmitted because the owner fears the result will come as less prestigious

 

But of course, there could be plenty of other, legitimate reasons, hence the saying “buy the sword, not the signature” (which in itself is funny since the sword is Mumei! :lol)

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is some "water" in the description, like being set aside for a high ranking samurai etc., but overall its an interesting blade.

Most Bungo come from post 1520 Muromachi, early shinto, and those tend to be not particularly stellar mass produced items.

Taira Nagamori is an earlier name, and generally speaking few bad swords were made until 1500. At the time, there were plenty of old swords being offered for sale at lowest prices possible and exceptionally few swords made overall.

 

This style of horimono was quite popular at the time, the steel looks koto, hamon is sort of consistent with Taira Nagamori (they did not have a truly distinguished style at the time, but this kind of Bizen-imitation is one of possibilities). I am a little bit puzzled by o-kissaki, which would be more at home at earlier or substantially later times, but these provincial schools sometimes felt out of bound with more general trends.

 

So the attribution does not look too suspicious. It should not be a very expensive sword and probably most people would not bother with repapering.

 

Most likely erroneous and personal opinion,

 

Kirill R.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is some "water" in the description, like being set aside for a high ranking samurai etc., but overall its an interesting blade.

Most Bungo come from post 1520 Muromachi, early shinto, and those tend to be not particularly stellar mass produced items.

Taira Nagamori is an earlier name, and generally speaking few bad swords were made until 1500. At the time, there were plenty of old swords being offered for sale at lowest prices possible and exceptionally few swords made overall.

 

This style of horimono was quite popular at the time, the steel looks koto, hamon is sort of consistent with Taira Nagamori (they did not have a truly distinguished style at the time, but this kind of Bizen-imitation is one of possibilities). I am a little bit puzzled by o-kissaki, which would be more at home at earlier or substantially later times, but these provincial schools sometimes felt out of bound with more general trends.

 

So the attribution does not look too suspicious. It should not be a very expensive sword and probably most people would not bother with repapering.

 

Most likely erroneous and personal opinion,

 

Kirill R.

I was also a bit astonished by the Kissaki which I thought looked more like a Momoyama period kissaki, or, as you said earlier, but whatever, I like the sword.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you don’t feel like reading the whole thread, it mainly speaks about how some older papers made by the NBTHK and are not acknowledged today.

 

I read the thread, and it indicated that for green papers, which office it was performed at was important, as it was mainly the branch offices that produced questionable attributions. I'm unfortunately too green to read the origami.

 

Anyway, I found the auction, and it shows the item location to be in Hungary, which would indicate why it hasn't been returned for a more recent shinsa.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Coming to this late, but I agree that the photos do seem to show kakedasu hamon (appears to run off the edge in spots). Factoring in the action fees this is already at a level where you can get a Nambokucho or earlier blade with current NBTHK kanteisho, and there are still three days to go in the auction. Example of something else at the same price as the auction is now. This sword has Tokubetsu Hozon to a noted late Kamakura swordsmith. 

 

https://www.aoijapan.com/katana-mumeiunsigned-attributed-as-ryumon/

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you guys for your thoughts and comments, and that you even took the time to give an alternative.

I really appreciate it!

I can see now that EUR 5k might be a bit much for this specific blade, I think I got a bit too enthusiastic about the fact that it was located in Europe. (maybe I don't know where to look, or perhaps I'm not searching hard enough, but it is not so easy to find something very special over here)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one, unless your post is really relevant and adds to the topic..

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...