The Importance of Signatures

[Jussi Ekholm]

I think we are straying from the original subject but as I feel it is interesting to discuss these things I'll continue a bit.

 

I was just reading Nihonto Koza the other day and there was a point made that for Akihiro and Hiromitsu mumei katana don't generally been historically attiributed to them. For Hiromitsu I know 2 mumei katana and both are Bijutsuhin and for Akihiro 2 mumei katana that are Bunkazai. As both of them have a lot of signed shorter swords still remaining the lack of mumei swords is possibly due to avoiding attributing mumei katana to them. Similar thing with Shintōgo Kunimitsu, there are lots of signed pieces by him remaining, yet I haven't seen mumei sword attributed to Shintōgo Kunimitsu yet. There are few that are attributed to Shintōgo Kunihiro and Shintōgo in general. Now you got the opposite with Yukimitsu, Masamune and Sadamune, signed pieces are incredibly rare but there are lots and lots of mumei attributions to them. I know Darcy has been saying for years that it is extremely important to understand there are differences within the same mumei attribution. I also remember Wim said in other thread that for Jūyō items it is important to read the description to understand why the NBTHK made the call they did. Of course for items below Jūyō we don't have that information readily available so we must try to study ourselves.

 

I know that shortening some of the large Nanbokuchō swords makes us miss a lot of original signatures on long swords but here are some smiths outside major 5 traditions who have relatively large amount of signed work remaining. Bungo Yukihira (Heian - Kamakura), Sa Yasuyoshi has many signed short swords remaining (Nanbokuchō), Hōki smiths have relatively high amount of signed tachi remaining (Heian - Kamakura), Mihara Masahiro (Nanbokuchō - Ōei), Aoe smiths in general have lots of signed swords remaining (Kamakura - Nanbokuchō). Now the numbers I am talking about are not huge by any numbers that is why I am using the term relatively.

 

In a very professorial mode:

For Akihiro and Hiromitsu the issue is probably more that the daito are generally displaying far less of hitatsura and tend more towards calmer Soshu, in rather drastic contrast to tanto. Dmitry has a great example in his book, for which the alternative attribution is Sadamune. Shintogo Kunimitsu has a few daito, but one can also argue that the quality is weaker and less uniform in long swords. Signed Masamune generally all weak. There are by far not that many problems with Sadamune (or Go for that matter) attributions as with those of Masamune, and whether Kamakura or Nambokucho period's attributions to Masamune are more problematic is still an open question - he simply might have been not that early a smith. That would target the notion of him being this great teacher, but such status seems to be quite problematic at present anyway.

But overall, there is often a quality differential in Soshu between tanto and daito, which is very much unlike Bizen. Daito in hitatsura are scarce to begin with; even with generally more uniform in quality smiths like Norishige, daito are much more likely to have quality issues, at least in some part of the blade. 

 

With Yasutsuna there is plethora of problems, beginning with him originally supposed to be a contemporary of Amakuni, so the exact dating is unclear, despite whatever is written in books. There is also an issue of him and Amakuni being quite popular temple swords during the Edo period, with many signed examples of both, sometimes of what supposed to be one and the same historical blade.

 

There is probably a contributing factor can be that very few daito are still ubu, and very few schools worked in tanto during the Kamakura period. However, still Bizen, Rai, Awataguchi and a few individual smiths (Norishige, Hasebe, Akihiro, Hiromitsu tdo stand out in Soshu, for example) do seem to be an exception in a sense that their signed works are far from uncommon.

 

Kirill R.

I am enjoying this discussion greatly and I thought we can maybe continue this in another specific thread so I am opening one for it. First of all I am super happy you pointed me to Dmitry's regarding the Hiromitsu tachi. Unfortunately I haven't yet been able to get the book but as Dmitry opened his Museum website the sword is featured in there. And I was stunned to read the whole story about the sword, as before that I had just listed it for myself as smith unknown Sōshū from 1353 as I encountered it in Jūyō Bijutsuhin book. The further explanation on the sword and NBTHK designations are real gems.

 

Now when it comes to importance of the signatures, sword like that is in the top level. While the signature is still only partial it allows the experts to recognize it. I know I've talked with many members how I personally valuate authentic signature often above the condition. Having a signature like that is like a holy grail.

 

I know we had the signed Jitsua in another thread and I agree with your comment that in the signature amounts for huge amount of the price compared to similar mumei sword. The reason why I personally value something like signed Jitsua tachi so highly as I've been able to find only 7 signed tachi (2 with date) and 1 signed tanto.

 

I agree that the further down in history you are going the facts and legends can start to mix up a bit as the information is so scarce. So accurate dating will be very difficult and you will have to give certain leeway to items.

[Gakusee]

Jussi, great initiative to start a thread like that. Also kudos for more profound posts together with Kirill and Paul.

Firstly, I think swords attributed to only “Shintogo” mean swords attributed to Shintogo Kunimitsu rather than some “shintogo school”. It is a bit like a Shizu attribution being essentially shorthand for Shizu Kaneuji and the students being lumped either in Yamato Shizu or Naoe Shizu. Also, the few mumei Shintogo swords which are not just Shintogo tend to specify Shintogo Kunihiro. So if they thought it was someone else apart from Shintogo Kunimitsu they would have attributed it to Shintogo Kunihiro. 
 

Jitsua, Sairen etc require a special degree of appreciation. A bit of acquired taste with their overly prominent hada and what some perceive as not very refined lamination. But they are rare and if signed, even if aesthetically you have better swords such as Awataguchi or Rai, they are then precious as you overlay rarity on top of rarity, so rare squared. 
 

Now, onto signatures. I am also obsessed with mei. For me this is particularly important as I am very focused on collecting Bizento. 
Mei are rare in Soshu as they were the “working horse” of their time - used, abused, destroyed and shortened.  Plus the predilection of shogun for Soshu swords in the Muromachi and later eras, meant Soshu swords were shortened to be passed off for Masamune, Go etc, and there was Honami inflation of these attributions too. So if you get a top Soshu sword and it is signed, it is a right treasure, obviously. 
For old blades, eg Kamakura, top smith + ubu mei is very rare. So, people should also carefully consider gakumei and orikaeshi mei. In fact, for a sword with gakumei to be considered shoshin, it must be so stereotypical and convincing that it actually means it must be a great example of that smith. I would dare say it might even sometimes be a better sword than a zaimei shoshin sword where the smith experimented, deviated from the canon or displayed one of the less usual styles of his. But one way or another the presence of mei, especially for Kamakura and earlier, is very special. 

[Valric]

Great posts, thank you. 

 

 

 

as you overlay rarity on top of rarity, so rare squared

 

Yes, we enter the domain of nearly unique artifacts and they carry, on top of their scarcity value - a scholarly value as the last remaining historical testimonies which will be used to construct the cannon by which other works will be attributed to this smith.

 

 

 

the smith experimented, deviated from the canon or displayed one of the less usual styles of his

 

This is something I came to realize only recently. Collecting signed works allows to collect pieces which deviate from the smith's established corpus. In a mumei condition, these swords would not have been attributed to this specific smith. This means that if one were to aim for a representative collection of a particular smith, collecting zaimei work can add a lot in terms of range and variety. 

 

Finally, zai work also carries a certainty value. There is no guess work involved, it says "this work was created by this smith". Whereas mumei attributions are always probabilistic in nature, with uncertainty sometimes encoded as "Den" when the shot falls at equal distance between two or more possible smiths. A good way to think about attributions is as "The qualities of the work corresponds most to the established style associated with this smith" and not "This work was created by this smith" - and there is subtle but large distinction between the two, since the the former excludes all experiments and non-cannon stylistic deviations which one may find in zai pieces while the latter is essentially a composite representation of an archetype constructed over generations of judges, going all the way back to the Honami.

[paulb]

I think I am am a bit of a philistine when writing in this post as mei have not figured highly in my thinking when looking for a sword. In fact I have only one signed koto blade n my collection and that is a recent addition (thank you Jean) Two others have old shumei but both are O-suriage.

From a hstorical perspective I fully appreciate and agree with the points made by Jussi, Kirill and Michael, however from a collecting motivational perspective I think I am approaching from a different angle. I especially like Kamakura period blades, not because they are old but simply because they are amongst the best ever produced. As said above signed works of this period are comparitively rare and therefore expensive. Because of the rarity even signed works in poorer condition can command a premium. When I look I am looking for workmanship that is beautiful and in excellent condition. To some extent who made it becomes less relevant if the other boxes are ticked and there is no question that exception mumei pieces, while expensive, can cost a great deal less than a signed piece in poorer condition. 

As said I can and do understand why people regard mei as so important and hunt down those rare signed works. But for others it is far from the driving factor.

[Rivkin]

Highly personal and arrogant-professorial:

 

I feel the signatures become very important for a topical collection. Someone specializing in Kyushu-mono will have to consider having signed and nenki blades, whatever is the cost, or the collection is incomplete.

As I am not even a nihonto person per se, justifying 200k price tag for a modestly rare signature is however quite difficult. A one of a kind sword with Gothic signature or signed spangenhelm today runs in 20-30s range, with incomparable historical value, while no particularly great revelation can arise from a non-dated non-provinced nijimei signature.

For me 200k price tag that comes with high grade papers has to be contrasted to a very comparable artistry-wise non-ubu sword can be had for 15, and a very nice sword of similar expression, but less liked school (Houju for example) for 5-12. Conversely - I don't really collect pre-1300 blades as they tend to go Juyo in almost all reasonable cases (so you got a "deal" basically only if you pushed it to TJ, which is frankly a bother) and I honestly feel 1300-1350 was artistry-wise a better period.

 

Still over the years it happened that I own a whole bunch of swords which are the only known works of a specific master, or have an extraordinary unusual date for the given name.

The reasons however are purely with me being a dumpster diver, as one-of-a-kind signatures (compared to 10-of-a-kind) in the world of nihonto not always but sometimes come at a very steep discount since you don't find them in Fujishiro and Meikan. Similarly, unusual dates, which always raise generation-based questions are shunned. Nihonto community, not trying to be polite, is well known for cowardice. Maybe its the paper culture, so any little something is seen as just an extra risk that at some point the blade will be bumped down the second generation, or worse off, at some point will be send to the Great Gulag known as Muromachi period. Or in the very least receive a dreaded "Den" designation if its mumei to being with. Or maybe the community has too much of a mass-based outreach, so people are just really afraid of loosing on investment (honest warning - you will anyway! antiques are in general not a good investment) if something does not run according to Meikan.

All of these monetary fears are understandable, but as a result the explorative spirit is not "in". The names that are so unusual no one would fake them to begin with now require a battalion of papers and are still questioned because, well, NBTHK failed to indicate the exact time period.

 

Kirill R.

[Gakusee]

Paul, so no one is implying that one needs a signature in order to have a beautiful or valuable sword. In fact, most such swords are without signatures. What a signature is to me is like a crown jewel on an already beautiful crown - it makes it that little bit more special and valuable, as on top of being beautiful, it has more of its history and authentic condition left in the mei. The reality is that a mei on a proven old blade will increase its value, ceteris paribus. As I, similarly to you, am focused mostly on Kamakura and to a much lesser degree- Nanbokucho, I recognise the enormity of the task ahead. So, the way I approach it is: school > smith > quality and visual characteristics I yearn for (in that step, I assess the presence of mei as well) > provenance > whether it comes in a package or not (koshirae) > paper. I suppose the difference in my approach is that I tend to ascribe a greater value to the swordsmith. And when the workmanship of, say, late Mitsutada and early Nagamitsu is very similar or late Nagamitsu and early Kagemitsu being similar, and then some Kagemasa being very close to later Kagemitsu, or best Kencho being attributed to Chogi, etc, having a mei resolves the uncertainty if one is pursuing a smith. This of course is much more applicable to Bizen, where mei are more present than other schools in Koto.

 

Kirill: I have noticed that the NBTHK have started giving attributions to previously “unutilised” smiths - I suppose they have realised there are so many Nagamitsu or Rai Kunimitsu that it must be other smiths in the schools who have forged those. So, your approach of having one of a kind blade is very interesting and actually this could lead to a lot of value, especially if the blade has the hallmarks of the school that the putative mei in the tang supports.

After all, the workmanship + quality should verify the mei. So, an only mei or one of a very few mei could soon start to get recognised and papered properly. Also, the current level of understanding is that the previous tiering of first generation-second generation was overdone. A lot of what we see with the Kamakura smiths is now believed to be earlier work and earlier mei of the smith actually transitioning to later work and later mei by the same smith (change of fashions, forging approach etc).

 

However, I disagree with Kiril that papering is a trouble not worth taking for Koto/Juyo (not explicitly said but implied). In fact, this is the one of most interesting pursuits - finding a great blade and papering it through the ranks. For me that “hunt” matters - it is the excitement but also the verification of one’s discovery, knowledge, learning more about a blade, etc. This is however not slavish pursuit of higher papers. A blade could be at Hozon only and still be an incredibly precious and important and beautiful blade. Now, I am aware that some owners prefer to have “secret” blades - unpapered, not on official registers but with Honami papers or daimyo provenance etc. These are usually highly experienced people, who know more than me and can assess such unverified blades better. I suppose I still prefer to get to at least Hozon.

 

It is subjective when artistry reached (or has it reached?) its peak. For me, that is 980- 1330 but then, there are some great blades in 1650-1850. Also, one cannot exclude the wilder Nanbokucho period. Personally, my favourite period is 1200-1280, when Gotoba conducted an orchestra of virtuosos and then they each flourished in their schools and gave birth to exciting trends across Yamashiro, Bizen and later - Soshu.

[paulb]

Hi Michael,

I think we are largely singing from the same page. I don't think I was suggesting you were implying anything about the importance of a mei. If it read that way my apologies it wasn't meant too. You were simply explaining your preference and why it was important to you. Likewise all I am saying is that from my own standpoint a signature is not a major consideration, perhaps it should be more than it is. 

[Jussi Ekholm]

Some very interesting discussion with great views. I do not generally like to talk about monetary value as I do try to appreciate the swords in other ways than pure money. I think I have to on the bit about Jitsua as I've been kinda keeping eye on them. As I do have a personal thing for these less refined old schools (Hōjū, Sairen&Jitsua, etc.) they are close to my heart.

 

Here is the thing about the signed Tokubetsu Jūyō Jitsua tachi that is for sale at Matsumoto for 20M. It came to the site originally with Jūyō papers from session 62. The sword was priced 10M yen back then, now is the passing TJ worth a 10M yen... Is the market ready for it at 20M? As I don't collect at that level I have no idea... I just know that signed tachi by Jitsua are incredibly desirable in rarity view. Here is the rundown on Jitsua tachi that I have info on so far. The only Ubu zaimei tachi by Jitsua is Jūyō Bunkazai and it is dated for 1333. It is also the only Bunkazai by this smith I know for certain. The other dated tachi is dated for 1335 by orikaeshi mei, I know for sure this is Jūyō Bijtusuhin but another source has listed this also as Bunkazai (I cannot confirm that as a fact yet as this was not listed in Bunkazai book but I now know not every Bunkazai was listed in that book). There are also 2 other signed Jūyō Bijutsuhin tachi. So out of the total 7 tachi, 4 are pretty much unobtainable. Now out of the remaining 3 signed ones 2 are now rated Tokubetsu Jūyō and 1 is "just" Jūyō.

 

As for the mumei blades attributed to Jitsua, they do tend to go Jūyō as I've only found few Tokubetsu Hozon papered ones. However their number too (mumei Jitsua) is small in general. For the small data that I have on them mumei Jūyō Jitsua usually run between 2M to 4M yen.

 

Now I must admit I am not extremely well versed in top tier mumei swords and fine appreciation points that need to be considered with them. I do hope to train myself in that over the years in future. There is just so much stuff that I need to learn about high & top tier mumei swords. I do enjoy Kirills approach of seeking signed swords by lesser known smiths. That is similar to my own interests too as I know top stuff will be unobtainable. I am also happy that Kirill mentioned Hōjū as it is among my favorite schools, and for that school I have lot more swords down than for just Jitsua. Unfortunately I don't have time to jump to that today.