Thoughts on a promising blade with soshu-den influence

[BjornLundin]

 

Hi and Merry Christmas to all,

 

For me one of the more interesting pieces that got back to me this year is this interesting blade with 70 cm nagasa, and shallow sori. 

 

Before the restoration, the blade had a nanbokucho bizen feel to it with utsuri, ko-itame, midare-based hamon with nie and some chikei. After the polish the blade show now numerous magic hataraki that points toward soshu-den. 

 

I would describe the hamon, to be have been painted with a thick brush, a mist of ara-nie that swirls in the wind. I appoligize to many photos.

 

I would appreciate everyone thoughts on this blade, and it will be interesting what a future shinsa will attribute it to. If you have any kantei points towards a smith or school pleae let me know

 

I would describe the hamon, to be have been painted with a thick brush, a mist that swirls in the wind. I appoligize to many photos. Mostly itame hada, with some mokume and a bit of masame (I may be wrong) closer to the nagako. Utsuri is very destinct.

There is dark streaks in the metal, that follows the grain. 

 

 

 

 

General overview photos.

 

 

 

 

Kissaki - Boshi is hard to photograph - it changes depending on the light and angle. Possible ichimai-bōshi.

 

 

 

 

More photos in next post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BjornLundin]

I am wondering what this part of hamon is called, I have not seen something like this dark before? It is surely set apart from the rest.

 

h

 

The wind is chasing the nie and dark (chikei?) in the hada.

 

Masame hada? - lose grain

 

 

 

Crazy love 

 

 

 

[BjornLundin]

A few more - let me know what you think is interesting, 

 

 

 

Battle marks

 

What is that?

 

 

Thank you for viewing!

 

[eternal_newbie]

Nagare-hada near the hamon and in the shinogi-ji combined with the presence of ara-nie and sunagashi, and what looks like a somewhat raised shinogi, suggests Yamato influence. This could point you in the direction of Naoe Shizu and early Mino in general, which tended to be much closer to Soshu than what we now recognize as the classic Mino style.

 

The weird spot in the last picture could be a fukura, possibly patched up with umegane, or it could just be a blob of tobiyaki floating above the habuchi (with the hadori making it look like it's inside the hamon when it's really just above it).

[Jussi Ekholm]

Here is what I would see in two kissaki pictures, I tried to put in a red line to highlight what I am seeing. Not sure that is what actually is happening on the sword but I would see kissaki been repaired and there is a portion where hamon gets very close to edge.

 

 

Have you measured the sori, motohaba, sakihaba and nakago length? I am not that good on identifying the fine details in blades but I think I  can do decently with numerical measurements. It looks to me there are good looking portions of the blade and some portions are looking bit weaker but in overall there seems to be lot of interesting activity on the blade.

[eternal_newbie]

2 hours ago, Jussi Ekholm said:

I would see kissaki been repaired and there is a portion where hamon gets very close to edge.

 

I agree, there are some nie activities in the kissaki but I would say they are part of the jigane rather than being an ichimai boshi. You'll want to get as many angles as possible on the kissaki to try to figure out where the actual habuchi runs; I've even seen some cases where there isn't one and the polisher burnished a fake boshi "to preserve the blade's dignity" (although it sounds like you got this restored yourself, in which case I would have expected the restorer to let you know about this before charging you). If you're really unsure, you can contact the person who did the restoration; if they still remember working on it they should be able to tell you exactly.

[Rivkin]

It has some Soshu to it, but Yamato also feels very strong here. Uda is a possibility. Tametsugu is optimistic outcome.

Edited December 23, 2025 by Rivkin

[BjornLundin]

Thank you for all the comments!

 

For the kissaki and boshi, I am unsure if the kissaki has been repaired (at least not now), and there were no special comments from the togishi regarding this matter. Hard to photograph. My light setup is not the best.

 

Tametsugu has come up. Right now, my head is spinning in all directions. My interest lies more in the Bizen ballpark, so this blade became a curveball.  

 

A few more kissaki photos...

 

-B

 

[Lewis B]

I’ve seen mino era Tametsugu that share a lot of the features exhibited here. Does the blade have a wide shinogi ji?

 

[Rivkin]

With such boshi I would say Tametsugu appears as quite possible outcome.

Edited December 23, 2025 by Rivkin

[Jussi Ekholm]

I think the kissaki must have been worked to it's current form long time ago, and the polisher now probably just maintained it's form.

 

Identifying the small details is always difficult to me but I think the two red arrows in your second post could be uchinoke (https://markussesko.com/2015/05/29/kantei-3-hamon-boshi-1/)

 

I am liking Rohans and Kirills opinion about Yamato vibe. 

[BjornLundin]

Thank you, always interesting of others opinions a great way to learn more. This blade has a lot of activity to view. 

 

From memory the closest blade I came across in comparison to this one was a Go blade that I found here on NMB. Now I cant find the link, anyhow one has to be a realist to. I have not seen this thick of ara-nie mistiness on a Tametsugu blade. 

 

Uchinoke would point towards Yamato? I will read up

 

Personally I dont think the kissaki has been to overly changed, but I also reacted when it came back. But this is a surviving battle blade so it is realistic that it has been through a "few" polishing stages.

 

I have a few 100 more photos if someone wants a link and have a few minutes to watch blade xxx. 

 

-B

 

 

 

 

[eternal_newbie]

1 hour ago, BjornLundin said:

I have not seen this thick of ara-nie mistiness on a Tametsugu blade. 

Here are a couple:

https://swordsofjapan.com/product/etchu-tametsugu-wakizashi/

https://www.mandarinmansion.com/item/soshu-sword-tachi-koshirae

 

Go Yoshihiro (supposedly Tametsugu's father) and Shizu Saburo Kaneuji both have roots in Yamato, so seeing some Yamato influence in either Tametsugu or Naoe Shizu would be quite within expectations.