My First Sword

[EGB]

Hello all,

 

This is my first nihonto, which I got from one of the recommended dealers here on NMB. I chose this one because it was one within my small budget and was in good enough polish to be able to see some of the activity in the blade. I am quite happy with it.

 

I've been studying it trying to learn as much about it as I can; age, school and province, etc, but feel like I have kind of hit a wall due to the limited number of swords I've been able to handle. So I wanted to put it out here as a kantei exercise for anyone who wants to take a look at it. Most of what Ive learned about this is from Nakayama's book. 

 

Here are the specifications of the blade as best I could figure them out. If it's possible to tell from the photos if I got these right. I was a little stumped on differentiating activities in the blade (ie nie v. nioi) so these are my best guess.

 

nagasa 66.2 cm

sori 1 cm

kasana 0.7 cm

mihaba 2.8 cm

kissaki 3.2 cm

shinogi-zukuri

chu-kissaki, or maybe ko-kissaki

iori-mune

low shinogi

standard nakago (ubu)

ha agari kurijiri

kiri yasurime

o-mokune hada

nioi-deki

hamon- hiro suguha

boshi- komaru

Mumei

 

To me it looks to have the typical shallow kanbun shinto sugata, and I think the condition of the nakago points to a similar age. It’s been polished a few times, the hamachi is all but gone. i think it had an interisting life, there is one decent kirikomi on the mune.  The seller said that it might be from the shitahara school, and as far as I can tell that seems possible, but I have a hard time differentiating from some other schools that seem to have similar characteristics. 

 

I am looking forward to seeing what you all make of it.

 

Edward

[Scogg]

Hi Edward, congratulations on your first Nihonto! Must be very exciting. 

Your observations on the sugata being similar to Kanbun era, are reasonable. It does appear to have little sori, and resembles Kanbun blades. I wonder though if there are signs of machi-okuri or suriage, but hard to tell from these photos in this light. 

 

I'd say chu kissaki. I would also look closely at the jihada. It might be the photos, but personally, I see a blend of masame and itame. Maybe some spots of mokume, too. Does the boshi have any turn-back?

Your sword is what some might call an 'old soldier'; it may be a bit tired, but it sounds like you are well aware of that, and it does speak to it's history.
More photos with some better light might help the more knowledgeable. 

 

Congrats, and thanks for sharing! 
-Sam (enthusiast and not an expert)


 

[Rivkin]

Unfortunately it is a dark sword... in a dark room.

I would add to photography suggestions - dark room but light source on a side. Sufficient size light source to highlight the blade.

[Ooitame]

I was thinking Kanbun by shape... better photos will be required. Nakago looks bizen shape, without better photos I would venture Bungo.

 

 Congratulations on your sword amd venturing into Nihonto.

[EGB]

Thanks all,

 

The photos are much easier for me to see on my screen for some reason. I’ll see if I can change some settings or retake. 
 

I see no signs of suriage, the file marks seem to come right up to just below the habaki. 
 

Edward 

[Jacques]

[EGB]

 

Here are some attempts at better photos. Hope these help with determining hada.

 

Edward

[Rivkin]

Unfortunately it is very hard to kantei using just this. It looks like a late Muromachi blade.

Possibly Bizen in a poor polish.

I would not discover frankly many other things from Fuyuhiro etc.. Its a broad range.

[Alex A]

Hello Edward, a few observations that you need to check as your pics are not great.

 

It does not appear to be Mokume hada, as you point out. To me it looks like kind of an Itame mixed with masame (see it near the mune) with the odd burl that is probably making you think its mokume. Also see masame near the hamon in one pic.

 

A good read

KANTEI 2 – JIGANE & JIHADA #2 | Markus Sesko

KANTEI 2 – JIGANE & JIHADA #1 | Markus Sesko

 

You state the boshi is "Ko-maru". It may be the images but im struggling see the turn back, is it not Yakizumi (no turn back)?

Common Styles of Boshi

 

If tired and still has a thickness of 7mm, it was an hefty blade.

 

Hope that helps, always willing to make a fool of myself in the hope it can help someone., in one way or another.

 

[Lewis B]

Looks like it's had a hard life. Hardly any hamachi remaining. I would agree with Kirill, looks like late Muromachi Bizen to me too and a worthy first sword if priced accordingly.

[EGB]

Thanks all for the info and links, looking forward to reading them in more depth. I feel like Ive learned more about identifying hada etc here than anywhere else before

18 hours ago, Alex A said:

To me it looks like kind of an Itame mixed with masame

After looking at the info on the Sesko page I agree

 

 

18 hours ago, Alex A said:

You state the boshi is "Ko-maru". It may be the images but im struggling see the turn back, is it not Yakizumi (no turn back)?

I think you are right, I don't see a turn back either. 

 

Ill post some better photos of the nakago tomorrow.

 

Thank you all again,

Edward

[Alex A]

Edward, you have something to go off now.

 

Pretty sure you can come up with some swordsmith schools yourself, have a look about which schools used that boshi style etc etc.

 

Off the top of my head and what i see, late Muromachi Bizen is not the first thing i think of.

 

Only this week i saw a similar boshi on a tanto but cant remember who it was.

 

No doubt others will chime in, it can be time consuming and lead to a few conclusions, especially from images.

 

Unsigned swords often leave you with questions that still need answering, in other words nothing is fact. That can also happen with a lot of signed swords with generations of swordsmiths.

[Alex A]

Hello again Edward, had a bit of spare time today so thought i would spend a bit of time on it. Im not familiar with that Boshi so had a quick read through Connoisseurs to see what it mentions. I have added a pic below so i don't have to go through it all. 

 

With the hada mentioned and taking into consideration what it states about the boshi, would kind of start looking towards Yamato related schools, though thats not really my ball park.

 

Hers the info from Markus and the image, just looking for links. As said, mumei blades can be difficult. Sometimes even differing Shinsa teams come up with differing opinions.

 

Note, not much mentioned about that Boshi with Shinshinto swords in Connoisseurs    

 

Its not an exact science.

 

"itame mixed with masame (板目に柾目まじり): Well, some kind of nagare is seen at many schools and if the running structures tend to appear in a more linear manner, we usually speak no longer of nagare but of “mixed with masame.” So the above mentioned northern and southern schools are typical for a conspicuous itame-nagare that is the dominating forging structure of the entire blade. A mixed-in masame in turn is typical for all Yamato and Yamato-related schools (e.h. Mihara [三原] and Niô [二王]), but also for early Mino-mono (Kaneuji [兼氏], Kinjû [金重], Kaneyuki [金行]) and the Yamashiro Hasebe (長谷部) school where the masame appears towards the mune and towards the ha. At Sue-Seki schools that are not classically inspired and densely forged, the nagare towards the mune often appears as masame and this feature goes back to the same approach in forging as the aforementioned masame in the shinogi-ji. So what is nagare-masame towards the mune at a hira-zukuri blade is masame in the shinogi-ji at a shinogi-zukuri blade, to put it in a nutshell."

[Sansei]

Edward,

 

Here are some good tips from Jean (ROKUJURO) regarding taking photos:

 

Ray

 

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Hi Ray,

making good photos of swords isn't difficult, but some practice will help.

Try to post images that are:

 

- well focused, not foggy or blurry

- made with a dark/black, non-reflective background for good contrast (not white!)
- made in a dark room, using spotlights

- made with light from the side (may not apply for HAMON photos)

- made directly from above (not at an angle)

- made with correct orientation (straight vertically tip-upwards, especially NAKAGO photos) 

- without HABAKI, showing the MACHI and NAKAGO JIRI

- made in high resolution to see details like BOSHI, HAMACHI, HAMON, HADA, NAKAGO JIRI etc.

- presented as cut-outs so very little background is showing

 

It does not depend on a precious camera or on special skills, but mainly on observing the results. Only really good photos will allow us to help!
 

Kind regards,

 

Jean