Nihonto antiguo

[Carolina]

Buenas tardes mi nombre es Carolina, soy de Argentina provincia de Buenos Aires.

Tengo para vender ésta Katana antigua que era de un tatarabuelo.

Estuve investigando foros y me comentaron que le saque el mango a la katana para ver su autenticidad, y lo encontramos con que la firma del herrero era de Masamune, queria averiguar su valor ya que queremos ponerla en venta pero a su precio real.

Mando fotos. Muchas gracias quedo a la espera de la respuesta.

[Matsunoki]

Good afternoon, my name is Carolina, I'm from Argentina, Buenos Aires province.

I have to sell this old Katana that was from a great-great-grandfather.

I was researching forums and they told me to take the handle out of the katana to see its authenticity, and we found that the blacksmith's signature was from Masamune, I wanted to find out its value since we want to put it up for sale but at its real price.

I'll send photos. Thank you very much, I look forward to your reply.

[fran]

Hola Carolina, soy Francisco, también de Buenos Aires. 

La pieza que presentás es interesante. Por fotos es muy difícil sacar información precisa pero vamos a tratar.

En primer lugar, de lo que no hay duda es que tanto la empuñadura blanca como el guardamanos redondo no son originales, por lo que en si mismo no tienen gran valor. 

La otra cuestión llamativa es la firma, yo no lo corroboré pero puede perfectamente decir "Masamune". Este herrero es el más famoso de la historia de Japón y muy poco de su obra se conserva. Sin embargo, viendo como está realizada la firma creo que es posible que no sea real. Ahora bien, que la firma no sea real no implica que la hoja no sea antigua. Durante gran parte del la historia de Japón fue una práctica habitual agarrar hojas viejas y ponerle firmas de artesanos famosos para aumentar su valor, yo creería que es lo más probable.

El trabajo de grabado en la hoja es muy bueno, y que tenga varios agujeros la espiga puede ser una buena señal de su antigüedad.

Lamentablemente, sin tenerla a mano no puedo probar si el acero está templado u observar detalles que son más específicos. Sin embargo creo que es una muy linda pieza. 

Sobre el valor, depende de muchos factores, como el estado, la montura, el certificado, etc, no sé si tendrás algo más de ella.

Vos tenes alguna idea de precio? De ser así podemos llegar a coordinar. 

Saludos!

On 1/13/2026 at 3:09 PM, Matsunoki said:

Good afternoon, my name is Carolina, I'm from Argentina, Buenos Aires province.

I have to sell this old Katana that was from a great-great-grandfather.

I was researching forums and they told me to take the handle out of the katana to see its authenticity, and we found that the blacksmith's signature was from Masamune, I wanted to find out its value since we want to put it up for sale but at its real price.

I'll send photos. Thank you very much, I look forward to your reply.

 

[Jnuzzo]

I’m new to nihonto, but have been involved with antique arms and armor for a couple decades.  Sorry to say I see many signs of this piece being a forgery.  Not just the mei, but the entire thing, faux aging and all.  

[Matsunoki]

8 minutes ago, Jnuzzo said:

being a forgery.

Modern forgery or old forgery?

You think those horimono are “fake”?

[Jnuzzo]

Just my opinion, and I’m not a nihonto expert, but it does look like a modern forgery to me, horimono and all.  
 

There are plenty of modern sword blanks with horimono out there that can be faux aged, and the work tends to be a little off / sloppy, such as these horimono are if you look closely.  
 

I suppose there’s a chance it was a poorly worked original piece that got massacred over the years, but why would anyone bother to use faux patina on an original blade?  I could be wrong of course, but it looks a lot like faux patina to me.  That mixed with the gimei (of the most famous smith on the internet whose work is nothing like this), the overall shaping / line work being off, and the knockoff fittings with tsuba looking faux-aged too just gives me a bad overall feeling.  

Edited Saturday at 10:09 AM by Jnuzzo

[PNSSHOGUN]

While the Mei is certainly ambitious, the blade appears to be a real Japanese sword. The Horimono appear good at first glance but the quality isn't particularly impressive. 

[Jnuzzo]

2 hours ago, PNSSHOGUN said:

While the Mei is certainly ambitious, the blade appears to be a real Japanese sword. The Horimono appear good at first glance but the quality isn't particularly impressive. 

I don’t know, I might be a nihonto noob but I really don’t see this being authentic.  Even in this photo (that appears to be a pic of the blade still at the fauxing shop), you can see where it looks like they overextended the extra oxidizer for the nakago and didn’t understand how natural patination works, especially on a nihonto.  

Edited Saturday at 11:47 AM by Jnuzzo
I can’t spell lol

[ROKUJURO]

Of course it is/was a genuine Japanese blade, but unfortunately, the "cleaned" NAKAGO makes it almost worthless.

[Matsunoki]

2 hours ago, Jnuzzo said:

 

There are plenty of modern sword blanks with horimono

Interesting. Please can you show me one with horimono anything like these?….deeply cut into the shinogi-ji.

 

[Brian]

I'm undecided about this sword, as are most people I think. The horimono looks genuine and very well done, but looks to me to be later work, maybe with modern tools. I really don't know. The package doesn't look like it was that was for hundreds of years. No, it's not by THE Masamune. But it should be examined by someone qualified to see if there is hamon and hada, and the quality. Restoration of patina etc is possible if the sword warrants it. But i really don't know what we have here.

[Matsunoki]

My vote is genuine old sword badly neglected and subsequently badly mistreated with gimei added at some point. 
One of those gambles…..personally I’d roll the dice. I love a gamble. 

[Jnuzzo]

4 hours ago, Matsunoki said:

Interesting. Please can you show me one with horimono anything like these?….deeply cut into the shinogi-ji.

 

This is one outfit out of china that makes customs including horimono.  Looks like their shop will make pretty much any pattern / style you can ask for.  www.coolkatana.com

 

[Matsunoki]

24 minutes ago, Jnuzzo said:

This is one outfit out of china that makes customs including horimono.  

Interesting thank you. Do you know how these are made…..hand engraved or mechanical or….whatever?

[Jnuzzo]

1 hour ago, Matsunoki said:

My vote is genuine old sword badly neglected and subsequently badly mistreated with gimei added at some point. 
One of those gambles…..personally I’d roll the dice. I love a gamble. 

It’s entirely possible that it’s a roughed up original, and I used to enjoy gambles too (still do sometimes lol).
 

The patination just really hits me wrong.  OP puts the blade at a minimum 5 generations old, at that age I think the magnetite should be more engrained and complex than what it appears to be.  The thick brown/red rust pooled over the brass / copper plug is strange too, as if the whole nakago was cleaned it should have come right off just like it did on the other side where gimei was improperly placed.  
 

The patina on this piece just reminds me too much of all the liquid applied patinas I’ve seen n held. 
 

For comparison, this is a nakago my grandfather foolishly mechanically cleaned the piss out of after the war … the underlying magnetite and pitting patterns are much tighter and more complex (granted this nakago was filed originally and the OP’s was not). 
 

obviously I could be totally wrong about it as well!

 

1 hour ago, Matsunoki said:

My vote is genuine old sword badly neglected and subsequently badly mistreated with gimei added at some point. 
One of those gambles…..personally I’d roll the dice. I love a gamble. 

 

[Matsunoki]

3 minutes ago, Jnuzzo said:

obviously I could be totally wrong about it as well!

…and so could I🙂

That Chinese horimono is a bit unnerving.

Can you get a higher definition of that dragon….id like to compare the detail.

There is something about the dragons heads on this sword that possibly do not look quite right…..or perhaps it’s my old eyes.

We know the Chinese can make some frighteningly convincing blades…..have they figured horimono out as well.

Again I’d love to know how it’s done. 

[Jnuzzo]

10 minutes ago, Matsunoki said:

…and so could I🙂

That Chinese horimono is a bit unnerving.

Can you get a higher definition of that dragon….id like to compare the detail.

There is something about the dragons heads on this sword that possibly do not look quite right…..or perhaps it’s my old eyes.

We know the Chinese can make some frighteningly convincing blades…..have they figured horimono out as well.

Again I’d love to know how it’s done. 

Yeah they can be crafty, and a lot are very impressive craftsmen / artists. 
 

Devil’s in the details though and they always get something wrong.  Hard to match the intricacies of complex antiques.  
 

My guess for coolkatanas for horimono making would be that they do it by machining / power tools to start then finish by hand.  
 

Their dragon on that cookie-cutter horimono of coolkatana isn’t a match to what’s here.  
 

What I hate is that if they can do it so can others, plus they broke from the cookie-cutter repros model and offer custom designs of whatever you want for an extra $30 lol.  If you look through their website there’s some crazy stuff for crazy prices.  

[Jnuzzo]

50 minutes ago, Matsunoki said:

…and so could I🙂

That Chinese horimono is a bit unnerving.

Can you get a higher definition of that dragon….id like to compare the detail.

There is something about the dragons heads on this sword that possibly do not look quite right…..or perhaps it’s my old eyes.

We know the Chinese can make some frighteningly convincing blades…..have they figured horimono out as well.

Again I’d love to know how it’s done. 

The only things I didn’t like about the carving on the subject sword were the lazy linework and asymmetry / misproportions in the characters.  But handcrafted is handcrafted and it’s not always perfect.  

[Matsunoki]

On balance I think I’d still take a gamble. Can’t be sure from photos..

Been interesting hearing your views Jeff.

Now, back to this nice Shiraz🙂

Keep well. 

[Robert S]

These days, with CNC milling machines becoming less and less expensive, it would be pretty easy to carve a horimono like that dragon entirely automatically, with just some minor post machine clean-up.  The hardest part isn't the carving, it's creating the 3D model... and if you have an old one to 3D scan and replicate, there's just some clean-up and translation of the scan to do.  CNC machines do for carving what AI does for video - pretty soon you just won't be able to tell the difference without a microscope.  But the quality of nihonto has always been in the steel production and forging anyhow, and that, so far, is beyond a computer :-).

[Jnuzzo]

58 minutes ago, Matsunoki said:

On balance I think I’d still take a gamble. Can’t be sure from photos..

Been interesting hearing your views Jeff.

Now, back to this nice Shiraz🙂

Keep well. 

Tbh I actually enjoy questionable pieces as it’s interesting to me to try and decipher them.  I have an “Okimasa” on the way that I’m so looking forward to getting to pick apart in-hand even though I’m sure it’s gimei and can’t tell much of anything on the blade by the photos.  
 

Rum time on my end, lol, thanks for the chat!