Friend of a friend found three blades in the attic... in Japan :-)

[Katsujinken]

I must admit I'm stumped on this first signature. I think the first two characters are 伊州... but even that might be wrong.

 

And it definitely looks like when this was shortened they just lopped it off right in the middle of the signature.

 

What do you think?

 

I'll share other photos as I receive them.

[Katsujinken]

Oh and another photo of a different nakago just arrived.

 

 

[Gakusee]

First looks like Bishu Osafune .... to me

Cut after Osafune, where the actual swordsmith name would have been

[ROKUJURO]

Second blade: X X no KAMI FUJIWARA....name cut off

[Katsujinken]

First looks like Bishu Osafune .... to me

Cut after Osafune, where the actual swordsmith name would have been

 

Ah of course!

[Katsujinken]

Thanks to both of you. 

[SteveM]

加賀守藤原

Kaga-no-kami Fujiwara

[Ken-Hawaii]

I guess I'm not going through the right attics!

[Katsujinken]

I guess I'm not going through the right attics!

I think it certainly helps when the attics are Japanese! :-P

[Surfson]

i visited a student of mine in Japan many years ago and we went up to his attic, and he showed me a collection of at least 6 swords.  Most of them were slowly rusting.  I think that it is not uncommon.  Does anybody know what percentage of the population were samurai at the end of Edo?   Was it close to 25%?  

[SteveM]

I think less than 10% were "samurai" (with regional variation). But at the end of Edo, there was very lax enforcement of the rules regarding sword ownership. 

 

http://honkawa2.sakura.ne.jp/7860.html

(Japanese only, but the blue portion of the graphs represent the nobility/samurai).

[C0D]

The Kaga blade is probably a "Kaga no Kami Fujiwara Morimichi"

[Ken-Hawaii]

That was a very-interesting find, Steve!

 

(Ratio of samurai of various clan)
　Nanbu clan (1711) 6.9%
　Kubota (Akita) clan (1849) 9.8%
　Mutsu Nakamura clan (1681) 26.0%
　Tsuwano clan (1805) 7.2%

[Surfson]

Thanks Ken and Steve.  I imagine a significant proportion of samurai descendent families still have the family swords.  My guess is that they were well hidden during and after WWII, other than the swords that went to war remounted as gunto.