Interested to hear some creative Ideas

[Nickupero]

Hi Friends, I received a very interesting piece recently and thought it would be a fun discussion as to ideas why this was done. 

The blade is a stunning work by 1st Generation Kaneshige (Mei is; Izumi no kami Kaneshige), workmanship is absolutely stunning with a nagasa of 74cm/29.1 inches. The nakago has some interesting history, Kaneshige was known to have a relationship with the Yamano family, several tests cuts exist with Nagahisa like this one. Kaneshige's Mei along with Nagahisa's is good, a 3 body test cut was performed. What has me stumped is the Ura side of the Nakago, in the pictures you can see in the mid section the non-gold inlay kanji was carefully blurred, small irregular strikes were done to make is less legible. Now if we look at order of events Kaneshige would have signed the blade on the Omote first, then all that other kanji on the Ura would have been added, and then the final test cut from Nagahisa in the mid 1650's. The reason being is Nagahisa clearly chiseled his portion around the now blotted out text. Normally he takes his space to make a nice big Kao but in this case he had limited surface area and chose the extremities of the top and bottom. 

My theory is this was the owners name most likely, the NBTHK doesn't seem to research these areas or comment about them so I don't think it was blurred out recently. All the original Yasurime seem to be unaltered and someone wanting to truly hide something would have simply "filed it down". I spoke to a fellow Japanese dealer and he seems to think it was possibly removed because of embarrassment of some sort, in having to sell or relinquish the blade. Interesting theory, maybe far fetched but that is also the reason for this post as to get some ideas.... have fun with this but please keep it respectful. 

[Hoshi]

Hi Nick,

 

Very interesting case. Were you able to read the obscured kanji? They appear discernible. 

 

It is slightly odd that one of the characters overlaps with the cutting test character. 

 

If the cutting test was done before, I could imagine it was left as is to indicate "no longer the case" while giving it a certain sabi aesthetics. Like crossing out a name. 

 

If it was done after the cutting test, I could imagine that removing it completely was impossible without damaging the precious (and expensive to inlay!) cutting test. 

 

A fine mystery. 

 

Best,

 

Hoshi 

[Shugyosha]

Maybe some political statement that the owner/ new owner thought it better to have removed?

 

Alternatively an administrative error - the tameshi mei for a different sword was carved on this blade by mistake and so they had to reach for the Tippex. 

[Bruce Pennington]

sorry for the off-topic question - is that date Sept 1655?

[Shugyosha]

It is. 

[Hokke]

Reminds me of egyptian hieroglyphs. Specifically Akhenaton, father of Tutankhamun. His name was either completely removed, in an attempt to erase him from history or it was defaced to show contempt for his ideas and policies. 

[drbvac]

Hi Brother:

 

The kanji were blotted out before the application of the cutting test as you stated since it actually goes over some of the original writing. As you also said it was not removed completely so whatever it said was not wanted there by whomever ordered the cutting test be done BUT not completely eliminated and of course Nagahisa wanted to be sure his Kanji were clear and as much as possible avoided any areas where the original was to allow proper placement and clarity for his characters. 

 

So - not being able to actually know the why you may want to use some sort of analysis to try and get some hint of any of the kanji to figure what was written - thoughts that it may have been a dedication to the original owner are possible.  It would have been something that the person who ordered the cutting test did not want to remove BUT didn't want it left on his new blade. Maybe Nagahisa wondered where am I supposed to write my test results and was told to blur our this area and fit it wherever possible. 

 

Interesting mystery as it obviously did not want to removed completely or there wasn't enough time to do that - who knows - but as if you have some idea what it actually says it would help.

 

I assume this is on your site - nice blade

[O koumori]

Forensic laboratories can use neutron activation analysis to discern serial numbers after they have been filed off (firearms, etc.) This is a non-destructive test. I wonder if it would work in this case?