Help With Mei (two smith sword)

[cookiemonstah47]

Greetings,

 

I am looking at this sword (in person) with two smith signatures. One is slightly obstructed. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Khalid

 

 

[cookiemonstah47]

[Jussi Ekholm]

I am just on my phone so I cant help that much now but it seems to me that the smiths are 綱広 Tsunahiro & 則広 Norihiro (they use this old style Hiro 廣)

[mecox]

Khalid,   no.2 katana-mei,  looks to be XXX Minamoto Norihiro  (with old "hiro" 廣 noted by Jussi.  Possibly is Sagami no Kami (from Sesko):   

NORIHIRO (則広), Jōkyō (貞享, 1684-1688), Settsu – “Niwa Sagami no Kami Minamoto Norihiro” (丹羽相模守源 則広), “Sagami no Kami Minamoto Norihiro” (相模守源則広), real name Niwa Den´emon (丹羽伝右衛門), he came originally from Kii province and belonged to the Ishidō school, dense ko-itame, hiro-suguha or chōji

 

                　　

[cookiemonstah47]

I would like to ask a couple of educational questions:

 

1) What is "old Hiro" indicative of?

(I presume the kanji character changed.)

 

2) What does "Sagami no Kami" mean?

 

Also I attached an inverted photo of the first mei.

 

 

 

[eternal_newbie]

4 minutes ago, cookiemonstah47 said:

(I presume the kanji character changed.)

 

Correct. The "old-style" hiro kanji is 廣, the "new" kanji is 広.

 

4 minutes ago, cookiemonstah47 said:

What does "Sagami no Kami" mean?

 

An honorary title given to a Sagami smith. For more information on how these worked, Markus Sesko has an excellent writeup:

 

https://markussesko.com/2013/02/19/how-honorary-titles-were-conferred/

[cookiemonstah47]

Is this reference correct?

 

https://nihontoclub.com/smiths/NOR84

[mecox]

@cookiemonstah47  Khalid,   about your top blade (below) I have not had much luck.

Upper kanji is rusted but it looks to me like:    紀伊國綱廣    "Kii no Kuni Tsunahiro"   but cant  find him.

 

However, there are similarities to others like " Kii no Kuni Yasuhiro"     but its only guessing.