curious about a smith and open for discussion

[Mike Noel]

Gents

I am curious about the quality of this smiths work. The sword is for sale at auction the handle comes off but the blade is stuck in the scabbard the koshirae is military and quite corroded with some pieces missing. There is a good chance the blade once removed from the scabbard will be beyond repair.despite having 2 mekugi ana the mei seems to be what I have seen described on this website as Chippy  and indicative of the blade being oil quenched so maybe a WW11 smith. So far the bidding is up to about 400GBP and looks like it will go higher before the sword is sold. Unless it is a particularly good smith I wonder if this is a ruse to lure in the unwary having been buying swords at auction for some time now I am definitely cynical

Would somebody be so kind as to translate the Mei  and any thoughts on the above would be greatly received 

 

Regards

to you all

 

Mike

[Shugyosha]

Hi Mike,

The mei is "Ando Kanemoto kitau kore". The "moto" is in a little unusual form and there's a Kanemoto whose name was Ando listed on the Japanese Sword Index is being a WW2 Seki tosho so maybe him. More than that, I know not however:

 

https://www.japaneseswordindex.com/seki.htm

[Mike Noel]

Thank you I shall do a little digging

[Charlie C]

安藤兼基鍛之 just in case you want to search in its original character

[John C]

5 hours ago, Mike Noel said:

I am curious about the quality of this smiths work.

Mike:

My Kanemoto mei is very similar to the one you are looking at. I've also included a pic of his typical hamon. I think the jury is still out re: oil vs water quenched. Mine looks mostly water quenched but one could argue oil quenched. I suspect he would be considered average for WWII smiths. 

John C.

[Conway S]

If the sword is in bad shape as your initial post suggests and you cannot see the blade, I would definitely save your money. 

[Mike Noel]

Hi Conway

I will not be bidding for the sword I wondered if the smith was highly regarded or if a sprat had been set to catch a mackerel

The Kabuto gane has a mon attached, 2 mekugi ana in the nakago which might lead you to believe that there may be an ancestral  blade in the scabbard and worth a punt I have attached a photo of the Kabuto gane

[George KN]

I was also looking at this one! And also not bidding now - £400+ for a sword with evidence of water damage stuck in it's saya is a risk even I'm not willing to take, but I do hope someone eventually posts what it looks like once removed here, for curiosities sake. It definitely needs a lot of TLC.

 

One other thing that did interest me was the tassel - it looks green:

 

But because of the two colours, I think it might originally have been a company grade tassel. Curious how the colours have bled/or maybe faded in that way though.