some help please

[raaay]

A friend just pointed this sword out to me  at an auction tomorrow  , shin-shinto by the look of the date , any idea what the rest of the inscription is ? poor pictures and the blade has  few issues ,chips etc. best i have at the moment.

[kyushukairu]

The smith is ‘Hosokawa Yoshinori’ (細川義規作）- the place of residence is a little difficult with the current pictures.

And it is dated ‘A day in February, Keio 2’ [1866] (慶応二年二月)

[SteveM]

Probably

埜州住 Yashū-jū

 

And then in the top left

於鬒 山麓  Oite Kurokamiyama Sanroku

 

There are some more bits on the date side that I can't quite see clearly. 

 

[raaay]

Kyle / Steve , many thanks , photos are not great , really appreciate you help .

[raaay]

some better close up shots  , looks like a decent smith , 

[SteveM]

The sword also says 

 

心明剣

源義興

與

福田三（cut-off after this)

 

Shinmei ken 

Minamoto Yoshioki

ataeru

Fukuda Sa- (cut-off)

 

Shinmei ken - maybe related to a kind of Iaijutsu? Unclear to me. 

From Minamoto Yoshioki

To

Fukuda Sa-(maybe a name like Saburō, or Sannosuke, or some such. Could also be read as "Mi-" something) 

 

The other bits are as identified above

 

front

於鬒 山麓 

埜州住細川義規作

Oite Kurokami Sanroku

Yashū-jū Hosokawa Yoshinori saku

 

back

心明剣

慶応二年二月日

源義興

與

福田三

Shinmei ken

Keiō ninen nigatsu-hi

Minamoto Yoshioki

ataeru

Fukuda Sa-

 

 

Yashū refers to the place where this swordsmith was from and where he worked. It is the old/classical name of the area around Tochigi Prefecture. "Kurokami Sanroku" means in the foothills of Mount Nantai (apparently Kurokami-yama is another name for Mount Nantai). This mountain is also in Tochigi. Anyway, these bits just point to where the smith is from and where he works. The smith uses some strange kanji variants that aren't in my current font sets, so that is why the printed 州 doesn't look exactly like the one on your sword. Same for 作. 

[SteveM]

Did you end up bidding on it? I'm curious to know what it sold for. Not a particularly outstanding swordsmith, but the inscription is interesting. This swordsmith was the nephew of Hosokawa Masayoshi, who himself studied under the great Suishinshi Masahide. This one is slightly shortened, but it was just made a relatively short 150 years ago. And I doubt the recipient would have shortened it (and cut-off part of his own name in the process). Maybe shortened during the war for use in military mounts? Anyway, just curious what it went for. 

[raaay]

 I thought it may be more interesting with the additional Kanji , but could not figure it all out , thanks again for the help .

 

 final  sale room hammer  price was £2200.00 , plus   the 24%  commission +17.5 % VAT   not cheap for an average Shin-Shinto Smith  .