Nihontos of a friend

[Navy]

Hello to you all. A good friend of mine has a really huge collection of blades, spacing from VI to XX century. Among these, he owns 3 katanas, 1 wakizashi and 1 tanto; all are (or seem to be) nihontos, probably made between XVI and XVIII century: this is the best he can remember, having bought these blades "en block" among other western blades at least 25/30 years ago. He hasn't any record about age, smiths, provenance, etc.

If you don't mind, I would submit these blades to your appreciated knowledge for evaluation.

Thanks in advance.

[Geraint]

Dear Marzio.

 

We look forward to seeing them.

 

All the best.

[Navy]

Thanks Geraint! This is the first (let call it sword A): this one should be the oldest, and also the worst in terms of condition/polish. No visible hada, barely visible hamon. Hugly suriage job.

[Navy]

Sword B. Also in bad polish, but better blade overall condition (no nicks). Again, I wasn't able to discerne the hada. Nice silver habaki.

[Navy]

Sword C. The better, at least in terms of polish. Visible hada and hamon, 2 pieces gold plated habaki.

[Stephen]

Are we to assume all have sayas to protect the blades.

[Geraint]

Dear Marzio.

 

I would be very happy to find these.  The first is, as you say suriage but still nice, signed Hoshu Takada jo Fujiwara Muneyuki I think.  Not such a well regarded school but still a nice find.

 

The second looks like Masayoshi, also shortened of course but the mei looks very fresh, not sure what to make of that.

 

The third looks like Echigo no kami Fujiwara Kunitomo.

 

All so far are genuine Japanese swords and all are interesting, koshirae is not great and I do hope, as Stephen said that they all have saya.  Forgive me if I state the obvious but no cleaning, just a light oiling until you know what their future is, full restoration will be costly.

 

All the best.

[Navy]

Thank you very much for your inputs. Yes, all have sayas, and all are made of black laquered wood; none of them is particularly interesting and all have some chipping/missing lacquer at various degree. I cleaned the blades with Kleenex and pharma grade petrol, and then oiled again with choji. Since it is in quite rough polish, I used little uchiko on sword A to try to find out a bit more details and take the pics.

[ChrisW]

You should get people some basic measurements to help with understanding them more! Nagasa, etc.

[Navy]

Oh yes, my fault.

Sword A nagasa 65,2 (cm) kissaki 3,2 motohaba 3,1

Sword B nagasa 63,7 kissaki 4,3 motohaba 3,2

Sword C nagasa 68,5 kissaki 3,8 motohaba 3

[Navy]

Now the wakizashi. Nagasa 37, kissaki 3,5 motohaba 2,5. It is mumei, with so and so polish. I guess the nakago has been cleaned recently.

[Navy]

The tanto. Nagasa 29,3 motohaba 2,9. Nice signed tsuba. 2 mekugi ana (originally a waki?)

[Ken-Hawaii]

When will people learn that the nakago is never to be cleaned?!! 

[ChrisW]

Nakago cleaning makes me very unhappy for the blades! 

[Navy]

When will people learn that the nakago is never to be cleaned?!!

Amen ????

 

Any other kind input about these blades?

[Geraint]

Dear Marzio.

 

Well I like the tanto.  Mino den with higaki yasurime, signature might be Kaneaki.   As with al these it is very difficult to be precise with these photographs.

 

All the best.

[Ed]

And the Tanto tsuba is signed Naoyoshi + Kao

[Navy]

Thanks a lot to all of you that kindly gave an appreciated and useful opinion/evaluation about these blades. I beg your pardon for the poor pics, I guess I could do better, but too many nihontos in a short time.

Mainly, many thanks on behalf of the owner, which is an aged gentleman not "web friendly" at all.