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Hadori Whitening Component of a Kesho Polish


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The reason I found this bobbing around in my head is I saw a blade this week that a polisher seemed to have used way too much of the hadori whitening component.   The polisher essentially covered the entire hamon except a short segment near the habaki and the rest was totally obfuscated by the hadori.  Doesn't matter what angle or what light you try....you can't peer through it.

 

So I have a question on this....scientifically does this compound change the surface of the blade to whiten while polished in with a stone?  Is it more a kind of a compound adhering on top of the blade?  Is the only recourse to a blade like that to have a togishi polish off the hadori layer?

 

I think I'm a sashikomi guy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I got pictures from my friend, who is now the second person that went to ebay and made a purchase after I showed them my swords and gave a romantic spiel on my collection.  I honestly don't know what to think of his blade and if I should feel some guilt.  I remember it was hard to see hada, could barely make out what I think could be the boshi and of course there is the obscured hamon.  The blade has a 27" nagasa and is quite beefy.  I tried to put all the photos he sent me into some kind of order.  I zoomed in on the area that shows the visible wavy hamon portion and then all the rest, on both sides, I just see the hadori polish.  He told me he spent $1400 on it and it was advertised as possibly a koto blade but there was a tag on it that said shinto.  I couldn't shake the feeling it's newer than shinto, maybe shin shinto, but the nakago is a dark black and does have a much lower second mekugi-ana.  The koshirae package seems quite nice, the gold is real, except the saya is a plain black laquer saya that is edo period.  Nothing is signed and the blade is mumei.  So do others also see a heavy handed hadori polish here?  Any other observations I should share with him?  He seems happy with it which is something.

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Fuchi / Kashira are nice!

But that "hadori hamon" looks strange and it seems there is a real hamon near the base only...(?)
Could it be that someone tried to re-harden the blade? Above the wavy part there is this strange additional line (kind of mizukage?) and big nie crystals(?)...?
 

---

[My general advice for buying blades (and any other expensive things which require some knowledge):
Treat them like mushrooms in the forrest. There are eatable and poisonous ones. And some look good and some are rotten.
Pick them only if you really know that they are eatable and if they look good/acceptable for you.

If you are unsure, what they are and if the could make a good dish, simply don't take them! You won't enjoy eating a suspicius soup....

Maybe a more experienced collector could identify them as treasures and grab them but that'll be his risk. And not in ebay-forrest ;-) ]
 

 

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I think there is hamon just that sword is out of polish / or amateur has touched it. Also the pictures taken head on with light are not really good in this case as I would suggest angling the blade towards the light source.

 

I am not too good with photoshop but I tried to play with colors to make bit clearer where I am thinking I am seeing the hamon in this picture.

Hamon.jpg

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Jussi is right, Adam. The upper extent of a valid hamon is defined by its nioi-guchi, & that's best made visible by shooting at a relatively shallow angle, with the tip pointing at a good single light source.

 

Take a look at  this, as an example (best one I could find):

 

Nioi-guchi example.jpg

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Had him bring the sword over and I still just see a heavy hadori polish, glimpses of hamon activity but no real detail.  I did manage to get some pictures but I didn't have long to do so thus below is what I managed to get.  Photographing the sword was giving me some trouble but afterwards I took a little flashlight to it and looked at it from every angle.  I still couldnt find any hamon details elsewhere on the blade that match the area of the hamon visible down by the habaki.  Also he uses way too much oil so told him to wipe it down a bit when he gets home.  I uploaded all the photos onto the album linked below.  I was again a bit impressed with how nice the tosogu were.

 

See photo album link below:

https://ibb.co/album/hXFx4D

 

To summarize, I'm convinced this was done probably by a US polisher unrefined in hadori.  The only way to "repair" is to have republished.  I am still not sure of the age of the blade and the hada is hard to see as well.  

 

Hoping to also gleam some opinions on age etc..I don't think we can tell a school from what I shared and I am still quite skeptical on koto and fall mostly on late shinto if not even later: on the plus the blade really is quite healthy (minus the polish) and meaty.  I am being soft on focusing too heavily on flaws with him but not shying away from pointing them out.  A good chance for learning but want him to have more to study from the sword that excites him.

 

Happy to hear any opinions/thoughts/observations and will pass then along!  Want to find a carrot for him to follow on his own research path...also told him about this forum. 

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Ok, please humor me with the following comment,

 

Does anybody else see and have concern, about the absolute razor straight dark thin line that delineates the area of the Nakago and the area normally covered by the Habaki, which are on both sides at exactly the same linear location?

I have seen most swords with normal patina/coloration variations in this area due to being covered by the Habaki and/or the Tsuka, but never a razor straight line with no visible pitting or deformation?

 

I can only surmise that a polisher could have applied tape or something like that, in order to be able to show signs of polishing absolutely stopping at that line, without even a hint of overtravel, but just a wild ass guess.

 

There are signs of more recent rust overtopping of that thin line area, but the overall patina on the main base area of the Nakago looks dramatically different than the original patina above the thin dark line in the Habaki area.

 

Once again, I'm sure this is me an aero space inspector, seeing things that aren't there or applicable.

 

Mark

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Hi Adam,

 

I can see what look like nie in the first detail picture so there may be a hamon that isn’t brought out well by the state of polish. 
 

More worrying is Mark’s point about the nakago - it seems to belong to an older sword than what I would guess to be a shin Shinto or later blade from the lack of visible hada. Does the line Mark mentioned run across the nakago mune and the ha side of the tang too? 

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