Question about Aoi listing

[MEENag]

I’ve been researching Nihonto for several months in anticipation of my first visit to Japan, where I plan to select one in person.  I’ve watched many katana on several sites come and go but this one is still here after many months. It seems like a Kamakura era Nihonto with a Tokebetsu Hozon paper would have sold by now. What am I missing? Thank you for any help you can provide. 
https://www.aoijapan.com/katana-mumei-attributed-to-ryumonnbthk-tokubetsu-hozon-token/

Thank you,

Jeff

[Bugyotsuji]

What is missing? Hmmm...

 

The whole world outside of Aoi Art.

What they do not say in their description about the blade.

The reason they did not give it the top grade.

Encouragement for you to make an offer on a blade that has not sold for a long time but is calling you.

 

Personally speaking I like the whole package and background romance, but I wonder how long the original blade was before O-suriage? 

 

[YourBabyBjornBorg]

(Back from lunch, edited.)

 

Hmm... This Mumei Ryumon comes with a somewhat decent Han-Dachi Koshirae, too, so the real price of the sword alone may be lower than 900k Yen, even. 

 

I'm in a bit of a hurry, so I will try to answer this question quickly. This is just not a very desirable sword.

 

Mumei swords attributed to Ryumon are supposed to have relatively fine Kitae (with some swords being a little Hada-Tachi), 

 

while this sword is in the most unfortunate state of Kitae, exposing Shingane ("core-steel", see those areas with little to no expression of Kitae-Hada).

 

We can also have a glimpse of what kind of Kitae this sword used to have with the attached close-up photo,

 

which also showed that the sword is probably not the O-Hada kind (swords made with rough Kitae to begin with), but originally finely smithed.

 

We can back up this presumption with the data, too. 590g of weight is very much on the light side of a 70cm sword, Kasane at 0.59cm is also a little too thin,

 

but what stands out most is the width of 2.43cm to 1.69cm, that's really not what you would want in a 70cm sword,

 

even a late-Kamakura to early-Nanbokucho one (which we can tell from the shape of the Kissaki and overall Sugata).

 

(For comparison, a relatively acceptable late-Kamakura 70cm long sword would have at least 2.65~2.7cm of width at base, preferably 2.8cm and above. )

 

We can make an educated guess that this sword used to be a lot wider, which explains the narrow Yakiba part and the awkwardly narrow Hamachi, even for an O-Suriage'd sword with a completely new tang.

 

What we have here is a sword with quite heavy Togi-Heri(研ぎ減り, losses to the polishing) in the past 700 years...and I'm already late to have lunch with my parents. More comes up later! 

[Bugyotsuji]

‘Desirable’ or not will depend on many factors, but as expressed above it must connect to resale value.
If a person likes the package for what it is, however, then why not?

[sabiji]

Without question, this blade has already lost some material, but it will also have been quite slender in its origin.
The ryumon has a high shinogi, the motokasane specification only says something about the strength of the blade to a limited extent.

[Rivkin]

Its a bit tired, its not as impressive as the best Ryumon works, its his more Yamato than Bizen style, i.e. very Senjuin in style. The suriage is surprisingly recent and for some reason was accomponied by yasurime which was done without much dedication to the job.

However without all these things we would be talking about what, TJ blade?

So its all these arguments versus the price.

[MEENag]

I failed to mention in my first post that I am in Japan now. I have already had a meeting at Aoi Art to see this sword and two others. I really wanted to like it, but I went in with YourBabyBjornBorgs info from his fantastic first post in my mind and boy did it match his description. It isn’t a bad looking blade (from this newcomers perspective) but it sure did feel tiny next to the other two options I was looking at. I don’t believe it is right for my first katana. 

Aoi did have another Koto Hozon papered  option that I liked a lot, and I have seen two Edo period blades with Tokebetsu Hozon papers that I like a lot as well. I think I will be making a decision between those three.
Thank you for all of your input!

Jeff
 

[Sukaira]

You should be able to find a nice, powerfully sized Edo blade for a good price if that is what you are going for. But a follow up question @YourBabyBjornBorg - where do you see shingane showing in that sword? Can you circle it on the image? I am interested because I would like to know for future online purchases. I see areas where the Hada is not as apparent, but they seem to correlate directly with the areas of utsuri on the oshigata. Would Tsuruta-san not mention that in the blade description? I usually see him mention things like "blade has flaws etc etc".

[MEENag]

I would appreciate any thoughts on the Aoi listing below. It is the Koto period option I mentioned in my previous post. Handling it in person, l liked the shape, size and weight of it. I really like the age of it, which is a trap I know a lot of newbies like me fall into. I know from Googling that Chiyozuru is not a premium attribution, but I’m not sure that is as important to me since it brings a Nanbokucho/Early Muromachi sword into a price range I favor. I could go higher, but not if I don’t need to. 
The Koshirae could be better. I like some aspects of it visually, but the fittings seem too clean to be Edo period as they stated when I was in the shop. 
I handled the blade and koshirae separately, so I don’t know how the fit is, but it seems like the tsuba angle relative to the saya looks a bit off to me. 
https://sword-auction.com/en/product/27099/as24845-katana-mumeichiyozurunbthk-hozon-token/
 

The two Edo swords I liked were :

1) A katana signed by Yukimitsu that has a great papered koshirae. I had a great experience viewing this sword in person. It is a good bit more expensive than the other two.
2)A katana signed by Yoshimasa with typical looking, but almost certainly old, koshirae. I know less about this one because it is at a small shop that I walked into and the owner spoke little English, but was very accommodating and has stayed in touch via email.
 

Both are Tokebetsu Hozon.  The main compromise for these two would be that the age is not as old as I’d prefer. 
 

As I mentioned in my first post, I want to select my first nihonto while I am here in Japan. I have another week in Kyoto/Osaka/Hiroshima and I will try to see more if convenient (family trip with lots of stuff already scheduled). Picking in person certainly limits my market, but I am ok with that for my first. I’m not the type to ever sell things, so getting my money back out of it is not a concern. I’m just hoping not to make a big mistake. 

Thanks again for any input you may have!

Jeff 

[Bugyotsuji]

One word of warning. There is no perfect blade, as everyone knows.  You seem to be asking for people to point out stuff you cannot see, in advance. But if someone actually does that, you then seem to go off the boil, as with your first candidate above and BBB's subsequent comments. If you show a blade to people, ten people will tell you ten different things. If the blade is really good, and cheap at the price, someone may step in and buy it!

 

In order to rise above small defects, you may decide to spend more and more, until you reach another fiscal limit, only to have another flaw or drawback pointed out by some higher authority later.

 

Some collectors have several swords, each with imperfections of some kind, but each strong in certain other points, a series of compromises...(?).

 

Hoping you can find a nice balanced medium!

 

 

 

 

[Sukaira]

You might want to take a look at this Naoe-Shizu down in Nagoya: https://www.sanmei.com/contents/media/F2339_S1495_PUP_E.html 

Here is one attributed to Rai Kuniyasu directly: https://www.aoijapan.com/katana-mumei-rai-kuniyasunbthk-tokubetsu-hozon-token/

I am guessing by your posts you have an upper limit of about $10k? Checkout Seiyudo in Ginza, they always have excellent pieces.

[Sukaira]

I wouldn't get too caught up in smith names or time periods. Go to a reputable dealer and buy what you like, what calls to you, because you'll be living with it and appreciating it for a long time. I have swords from 1200s, 1300s, 1400s, 1500s, 1600s and 1800s and my favorite is one from the 1600s. Hits me every time I draw it from the Shirasaya.

[MEENag]

Sukaira

I appreciate the suggestion in Nagoya and would love to see it, but it is too far out from our planned activities to be practical. I’ll actually be in Nagoya in the next hour or so, but only as a brief stop on the Shinkansen headed to Kyoto. I wish I had looked at Rai Kuniyasu in person while I was there. Yes, $10k is the top of my budget for my first one, but I don’t want to spent to the top of the budget if I don’t have to. Thanks for the suggestions. 
 

Bugyotsuji,

For the first Kamakura sword that I started this thread with, I didn’t know why it was still available after a full year and for a reasonable seeming price, so I asked some experts. I’m not knowledgeable/experienced enough to recognize blade size “irregularities” from the numbers in a listing. YBBB pointed out the small size, which I confirmed in person. Even without YBBBs excellent posts, I would have eliminated it because of the size. It did not feel, in hand, like a sword I wanted as my first. Sitting next to the Chiyozuru blade and another Gassan blade didn’t help. 
 

I hesitated for a couple of days about asking about the Chiyozuru sword here because I was happy enough with it based on my in person handling of it to rank it as one of my top two options. As I continued to read old threads here, someone (sorry, no attribution) had a list of mistakes new nihonto collectors often make. One of them was not asking on NMB until after the purchase, so here I am.  Thanks for your thoughts.
Jeff 

[YourBabyBjornBorg]

12 hours ago, Sukaira said:

You should be able to find a nice, powerfully sized Edo blade for a good price if that is what you are going for. But a follow up question @YourBabyBjornBorg - where do you see shingane showing in that sword? Can you circle it on the image? I am interested because I would like to know for future online purchases. I see areas where the Hada is not as apparent, but they seem to correlate directly with the areas of utsuri on the oshigata. Would Tsuruta-san not mention that in the blade description? I usually see him mention things like "blade has flaws etc etc".

 

Hi! The first picture is where I think the Shingane is exposed.

 

The second picture is where I think Tsukare-Utsuri(Utsuri of a tired blade) is showing.

 

The other side shows a much better state of Kitae, with much less Oomoyo and Hada-Tachi places or Tsukare-Utsuri-like places, almost just regular Utsuri along the Shinogi,

 

which is the reason I believe Togi-Heri caused what we see in both pictures, and it's not what this sword looked like originally.

 

and I will have to reserve my opinions on Tsuruta san's for-sell sword descriptions, especially on Kitae or the state of Togi-Heri, for polite reasons.

 

[Franco]

4 hours ago, MEENag said:

I would appreciate any thoughts on the Aoi listing below.

 

Things to consider that jump out at me; 1)  likely to be early Muromachi  2) Hamon is somewhat lacking for Rai, imo, especially compared to earlier first generation work. 3) Koshirae does not impress. 

 

 

[Bugyotsuji]

Quick note on the words 'togi', polishing and 'heri', lessening, wearing away. When spoken together as one word, out loud, the 'h' changes to a 'b', giving us "togiberi".

 

(Interesting discussion, apologies for interrupting the flow.)

[YourBabyBjornBorg]

8 minutes ago, Bugyotsuji said:

Quick note on the words 'togi', polishing and 'heri', lessening, wearing away. When spoken together as one word, out loud, the 'h' changes to a 'b', giving us "togiberi".

 

(Interesting discussion, apologies for interrupting the flow.)

Thank you!!! Gosh darn it, I knew it! Because I think I remember hearing people say"Togiberi" in videos and in person, but when I want to confirm that, I couldn't for the life of me find any of those videos, while Google search only showed 研ぎ減らす/Togiherasu on Kotobank. Then I wanted to ask someone, but this is such a trivial question, so I was worried about bringing Meiwaku to the people I asked. This really helped my OCD! I can't thank you enough, Tsuji san! ♡♡

[MEENag]

We’ve made it to Kyoto and I see there are several sword shops near me. Even though our schedule is packed, I’m going to hold off on bidding for Chiyoruzu before the bidding ends tomorrow, even though it is at the top of my list. There is a store that says they always have 300 blades for sale and they do not sell online, so I’m hopeful of adding another option or two to my list. I’ll try to hit some of the other stores as well. 

[Bugyotsuji]

Do you have Tamayama Meishito on your list?

About Us | 玉山名史刀

玉山名史刀 京都店 刀剣商／ホームメイト

 

PS They often keep their ground-floor shutters down for security reasons.

[Jacques]

 

Quote

Kasane at 0.59cm is also a little too thin,

Yamato den = high shinogi

[MEENag]

1 hour ago, Bugyotsuji said:

Do you have Tamayama Meishoto on your list?

About Us | 玉山名史刀

玉山名史刀 京都店 刀剣商／ホームメイト

 

PS They often keep their ground-floor shutters down for security reasons.

I’ll do my best to get there. Thanks!

[eternal_newbie]

1 hour ago, Jacques said:

 

Yamato den = high shinogi

Yep... but some dealers will report the thickest part of the sword, whether it's shinogi-to-shinogi or the actual motokasane. Not saying that's the case here but it's just one more element of risk in an online sale judging from pictures alone.

[Spunjer]

11 hours ago, MEENag said:

Bugyotsuji,

For the first Kamakura sword that I started this thread with, I didn’t know why it was still available after a full year and for a reasonable seeming price, so I asked some experts. I’m not knowledgeable/experienced enough to recognize blade size “irregularities” from the numbers in a listing. YBBB pointed out the small size, which I confirmed in person. Even without YBBBs excellent posts, I would have eliminated it because of the size. It did not feel, in hand, like a sword I wanted as my first. Sitting next to the Chiyozuru blade and another Gassan blade didn’t help. 

 

Hello, 
you mentioned Gassan. was this the one you're referring to?
https://www.aoijapan.com/katana：mumei-gassannbthk-hozon-token/

 

I've been eyeing this for awhile. what's your opinion on this particular piece?

 

[Jacques]

2 hours ago, eternal_newbie said:

Yep... but some dealers will report the thickest part of the sword, whether it's shinogi-to-shinogi or the actual motokasane. Not saying that's the case here but it's just one more element of risk in an online sale judging from pictures alone.

An exemple to share ? Kasane is always mesured to the mune.

[eternal_newbie]

29 minutes ago, Jacques said:

An exemple to share ? Kasane is always mesured to the mune.

 

I don't have a current one but I did buy a couple of eBay swords way back when that had "base thickness" as the full shinogi width rather than the motokasane (and in fact one of them was apparently measured using the gap in the habaki). No huge loss on my part as they were mostly rubbish blades anyway.

 

Again - not saying it's the case here, certainly Aoi-Art is well-known enough that they wouldn't need to (or risk) deceiving customers like that, but I can see why someone burned like that in the past might be a little hesitant.

[Franco]

Another thing to keep in mind is that during this period of time at the end of Nambokucho and beginning of Muromachi, there were schools that were copying characteristics of other traditions. So, it isn't surprising to see an Echizen Rai sword with Yamato "like" characteristics. If that appeals to someone, fine. However, as a collector, when buying a Rai sword it might be preferable that it had strong Rai traits.

[Baka Gaijin]

Piers wrote:

 

"Do you have Tamayama Meishoto on your list?"

 

I visited their Kyoto Store in 2018 and found the gentleman I met there to be perfectly of that description.

 

Its down from Heian Jingu, easy to find, but please make contact well before you attend as it is not always open.

 

[Brano]

2 hours ago, Jacques said:

An exemple to share ? Kasane is always mesured to the mune.

This is how it should be measured
However, I have personal experience after purchasing a blade from a reputable Tokyo dealer that the declared figure for kasane was actually kasane measured on nakago

Real dimensions measured with a digital caliper
Motokasane 6.3 mm
Motokasane at shinogi 6.7 mm
Sakikasane 4.2 mm
Kasane at shinogi nakago 7.6 mm

[Jacques]

Quote

I did buy a couple of eBay swords

 

eBay....

 

I never bought a sword without having it in hands....

[MEENag]

6 hours ago, Spunjer said:

 

Hello, 
you mentioned Gassan. was this the one you're referring to?
https://www.aoijapan.com/katana：mumei-gassannbthk-hozon-token/

 

I've been eyeing this for awhile. what's your opinion on this particular piece?

 

I’m not an expert, but a few thing I remember that stood out. 
Great Kissaki shape

Had a good weight to it

Koshirae was ok

Hamon gets very close to edge at one location. 
What I assume are kitae kizu at at least one location.