Is this sword more of Soshu or Yamato ?

[Bosco]

9 minutes ago, PNSSHOGUN said:

 

Well if that's the case we must inform the NBTHK, NTHK (+NPO), and all other invested organisations or individuals, that this whole Kantei business has been a colossal waste of time and to cease operations immediately.....!

 

They based on the signed examples right ?. How do we know the signed one was the legit one as well ?. What if all the signed one was actually replicated and none legit one was signed 😆. I don’t know man, but hey I love sword they’re metal, precious metal !. 
 

Just my newbie logic, please excuse my opinion.

[Brian]

9 minutes ago, eternal_newbie said:

Now I remember why I stopped posting here years ago. All I was trying to do was wish a fellow traveler good luck and approve of their taste.

 

Guess I'll see if people have become less defensive and unpleasant in another 5-10 years.

So you worry about the ramblings of one single person who is known to be that way?
You must live a very cloistered life if you worry about what a solitary clump of pixels says on the internet. Suggest never leaving the house.
C'mon man. Ignore him like the rest of us do. 

[Bosco]

16 minutes ago, eternal_newbie said:

Now I remember why I stopped posting here years ago. All I was trying to do was wish a fellow traveler good luck and approve of their taste.

 

Guess I'll see if people have become less defensive and unpleasant in another 5-10 years.

I know right, there will be no business in this hobby if everyone going for the top notch smith worth $100,000. I swear when I first posted my first purchase here I got smacked real hard as well.

[Jussi Ekholm]

I think it has good looking shape and size. If the motohaba is indeed 3,5 cm it is impressive.

 

I am on my personal quest to see as many ōdachi as I can in Japan. They are however very rare. Visting shrines, museums etc. I have come to realize that many of the big wide Nanbokuchō blades have been tachi of c. 80 - 90 cm. These are also amazing swords and I am blessed to see so many of them.

 

The tricky question then arises when you see that there are lots and lots of supposedly ō-suriage mumei blades that are 70+cm. Were they originally ōdachi of 90+cm or were they very large tachi of 80 - 90 cm. Of course the Japanese experts know so much more than me. The real thing is that learning possibilities in Japan for sword study are just so much beyond anywhere else. I understand it more clearly every year, and I would be quite cautious about challenging the views of Japanese experts. I would instead try to learn how they arrive to their conclusion.

 

Unfortunately all of this is just personal speculation of mine that I am basing to the surving ubu signed and signed suriage tachi examples. This summer in Japan I have also learnt bit more about the rarity of ōdachi and discussed one of those swords more in length with museum staff. Which was amazing but difficult with my weak overall language skill.

 

 

[Bosco]

18 minutes ago, Jussi Ekholm said:

I think it has good looking shape and size. If the motohaba is indeed 3,5 cm it is impressive.

 

I am on my personal quest to see as many ōdachi as I can in Japan. They are however very rare. Visting shrines, museums etc. I have come to realize that many of the big wide Nanbokuchō blades have been tachi of c. 80 - 90 cm. These are also amazing swords and I am blessed to see so many of them.

 

The tricky question then arises when you see that there are lots and lots of supposedly ō-suriage mumei blades that are 70+cm. Were they originally ōdachi of 90+cm or were they very large tachi of 80 - 90 cm. Of course the Japanese experts know so much more than me. The real thing is that learning possibilities in Japan for sword study are just so much beyond anywhere else. I understand it more clearly every year, and I would be quite cautious about challenging the views of Japanese experts. I would instead try to learn how they arrive to their conclusion.

 

Unfortunately all of this is just personal speculation of mine that I am basing to the surving ubu signed and signed suriage tachi examples. This summer in Japan I have also learnt bit more about the rarity of ōdachi and discussed one of those swords more in length with museum staff. Which was amazing but difficult with my weak overall language skill.

 

 

I know a guy, he cleans up abandoned house or something like that in Japan. He came across lot of swords hidden from those house. He then sold them to dealer at cheap price because they were all in bad shape. I might ask him to save anything in odachi size now 😆

[Alex A]

Regarding mumei swords and papers.

 

You have to be able to live with non fact, but opinion. Your opinion and that of the organisation.

 

Some can, some cant.

 

For me, its a matter of how much $$$$ you want to spend on something that comes with ???? and will always be ????. 

 

Organisations are not infallible with opinion, they get it wrong and that's a FACT.

[Rivkin]

I am not a believer in attribution being strictly reflective of quality, in the very least I have not seen people with such philosophy winning kantei competitions.

There are blades which are borderline Shizu/Yamato Shizu, but the majority of contested Yamato Shizu attributions go mainline Yamato as an alternative.

Yamato Shizu attribution presumes strong masame below shinogi and relatively calm notare-gunome hamon with kinsuji, but few to no distinctive togari.

Accordingly if gunome is quite periodic and the same size an alternative attribution is Shikkakke.

If there is something strange (say, strong midare utsuri) an alternative attribution is Senjuin since Senjuin  accumulates all unusual options, but also because there are verifiable Senjuin smiths who worked in such diverse styles.

 

The best Kaneuji would be much more itame dominated below shinogi, with nice bright jigane and very powerful and stylistically varied nie activity.

The best Yamato Shizu would have, for example, very uniform masame mixed with thick chikei and uniform, consistent nie deki hamon.

So Kaneuji and Yamato Shizu's very best can be going into two rather different directions.

 

Yamato Shizu Kaneuji is a rare attribution which can presume this is an early school's (i.e. late Kamakura) blade which supposedly was made by Kaneuji before his switch to Soshu style.

There is one challenge is that oshigata signed [Yamato Shizu] Kaneuji show later (1360s) examples,so the notion Kaneuji was first Yamato style and then Soshu is reasonable in theory but might not be very useful in practice. A lot of top class Yamato Shizu works are from 1360s - and so are the ones attributed as "Shizu Kaneuji".

Another example of sort of dealer speak when one tries to push the idea of "the earliest, the best, the famous, and the Masamune student" while in fact it is simply a very good blade and the rest is a conjecture upon conjecture.