Attempting to roughly ballpark age on a rescued wakizashi

[NotANinja]

Hi all, 

 

I picked up this wakizashi as my first nihonto at auction for very cheap as they mistook it as un-signed when it is in fact signed 'shigemitsu'. Sadly it's not in the best condition, and the previous owner obviously took sandpaper or an angle grinder to the nakago. The nijimei still survives which is good, but not much else. I was hoping to get as much information about it as possible but understand that's quite difficult given the lack of any hada, hamon etc. 

 

The specs are as follows: 

Overall length 59cm
Nagasa 46.5
Nakago 12
Sori 1.8
Kissaki 2.3
Motohaba 2.5
Sakihaba 1.7
Motokasane 0.5
Sakikasane 0.35 ish

 

From the parts of the nakago they didn't sand I can see it used to be basically black with rust, and quite deteriorated from presumably age. There's not much meat to it so it has been polished in it's past however many times. It is extremely difficult to see but in extremely specific oblique lighting it looks like there could be a hamon, and if there is its comprised of some pretty large grains. Finally it has a mitsumune.

 

From the swordsmiths index there aren't that many shigemitsu's known, and most of them are nanbokucho. Do you think it could be this old? I'll hopefully be getting a window polish on it soon to see if there's anything under the surface which might help. Ill update the thread if anything comes from it in the coming months/years...

 

Cheers!

[NotANinja]

Additional photos. More can be provided if needed.

[ROKUJURO]

Rob,

this blade wasn't cheap because they thought it was MUMEI - it was because of the sad condition. Age and a signature do not add to the value unless a blade has good quality and is well preserved.

Your blade certainly has some age, and it could be early EDO or even KOTO. It is SURIAGE, but a nice KOSHI-ZORI is still visible. The nicks on the cutting-edge and the overall state would make a polish quite expensive, and I am not optimistic that any expenses on the blade will come back in a resale.

[Rivkin]

Signature in faint strokes close to nakago is usually koto, I would have imagined it is not Oei, but anywhere between 1470 and 1570 is a possibility, personally I would be most comfortable with 1520-1550, but its just a guess. Unfortunately none of this narrows it down to a specific Shigemitsu.

[Bugyotsuji]

There were two Bizen Norimitsu in that time period, with different characters, one 則光 and this one 宝光, but maybe it is 重光Shigemitsu?