Signed Rai Kunimitsu tachi. Price?

[Lewis B]

Anyone notice what this signed Rai Kunimitsu was sold for? Sale was rapid, less than 24h.

 

https://eirakudo.shop/558845

[nulldevice]

Good looking sword. If you right-click the image and "open in new tab" it pulls up a much more detailed image. Sometimes Eirakudo's site loads blurry images for me at first. 

[Rivkin]

One thing I would note is she is a fantastic photographer. If the blade does not show something in her pictures - it means it does not have it. at all. If you don't see hada, its gone.

[PNSSHOGUN]

It was 8 million yen IIRC

[Brano]

I also think it's important to tell those who are not experienced with photography - what we see in the photos of Eirakudo is significantly enhanced

This means that in reality the utsuri will be much softer, the jigane the same (thank God), the reflection of the hamon ...

 

I agree that their photographic ability is excellent especially when composing at an angle with the reflection of the hamon

However, one must always be careful when judging a blade from a photo
There is always the possibility of manipulation from the side of the togishi, then the photographer and the use of Photoshop to mask anything unwanted, highlight anything subdued ...

[Gakusee]

Bear in mind the contrast is maxed out, shadows and definition have been tweaked 

[Rivkin]

Her from above shots are realistic, I don't exactly understand how she does the angled ones, which do tend to be aggressive.

This being said, I had a blade which had in her photo prominent utsuri and lots of ashi. I could barely see the ashi and could not see the utsuri. Neither could NTHK, in fact they did not believe much in ashi either and treated it as a simple suguha-notare and gave it Kaga appraisal. However, NBTHK commented - yes, utsuri is clearly seen, ashi is abundant.

 

I like her accented at-an-angle photos because it shows everything the blade has. Its not simply Photoshop, there is a photography light angle (probably multi-shot) management here which accents utsuri and nioi activities, which are normally an exceptional pain to deal with.

[Brano]

7 hours ago, Rivkin said:

However, NBTHK commented - yes, utsuri is clearly seen, ashi is abundant.

 

Does this mean that the blade is at least Juyo, or was it part of Kantei?
Can you tell me more about this blade? Or maybe post some pictures?

[Rivkin]

33 minutes ago, Brano said:

Does this mean that the blade is at least Juyo, or was it part of Kantei?
Can you tell me more about this blade? Or maybe post some pictures?

I will try to post it tomorrow. Since I sold it and don't have a clear position of the new owner how comfortable is he discussing the attribution, I'll post only partial shots and general descriptions, but its one of those cases which feels very educational and I still don't understand the whole picture. 

Her angled photo was nothing like the blade in hand, yet it captured things that only two of those who studied the blade (NBTHK and one kantei person) fully identified, everyone else observed only a portion of those. To make things more complicated kantei person rendered very different attribution compared to NBTHK, though it sort of matched mine.

I wish I had the knowledge to fully understand this complicated case.

[Brano]

2 hours ago, Rivkin said:

I will try to post it tomorrow. Since I sold it and don't have a clear position of the new owner how comfortable is he discussing the attribution, I'll post only partial shots and general descriptions, but its one of those cases which feels very educational and I still don't understand the whole picture. 

Her angled photo was nothing like the blade in hand, yet it captured things that only two of those who studied the blade (NBTHK and one kantei person) fully identified, everyone else observed only a portion of those. To make things more complicated kantei person rendered very different attribution compared to NBTHK, though it sort of matched mine.

I wish I had the knowledge to fully understand this complicated case.

No worries Kirill
I was just wondering
We both know of two blades that have passed from this seller and their photos are a bit "highlighted" compared to reality

 

[Gakusee]

I have owned (not anymore) a blade from them. The blade did not disappoint me and had everything the photo showed. Well, difficult to disappoint as it was a zaimei Ichimonji blade with sublime jigane and active hamon. 
 

I have also considered buying others from there but one needs to examine closely the ones with thin hamon or hamon close to the hassaki. Since the contrast is indeed so powerfully magnified, sometimes the habuchi appears stronger than in real life, where you can be disappointed. So in real life everything is softer and more subdued than their vivid, high-contrast photos. 

[Rivkin]

Left to right - her picture, how it looks in real life, how it looks after two days of dancing around with light sources and trying to understand why I can't capture the leftmost image. And hand pushing contrast to maximum.

 

NTHK [NPO?] circa 2023: Kaga late Muromachi, no noticable activity, suguha, itame.

NBTHK: utsuri, ashi, attributed to Enju 

Myself: why Enju, hamon is pure nioi with a little bit of ko nie, if you believe leftmost image (I believe its there, just does not show very well), or even my rightmost one (two days of pain), it even borders on ko choji in places. Aoe.

Kantei guy after 10 minutes: Obviously its Aoe. Yes, ashi, complex utsuri.

Did NBTHK consider ko nie activity like the one seen in third photo as an indication its Enju? I don't know. I had an opportunity to ask couple of questions through an intermediary but that's it.