Naginata naoshi(?) with battle damage! Looking to narrow down potential age.

[NotANinja]

 

Hi everyone, here is a blade I recently picked up that I think is a naginata naoshi. The nagasa is 40cm or 16" and is 52cm or 20.5" overall. The positioning of the naginata-hi on the nakago relative to ubu naginata leads me to believe that the length we see here is possibly roughly 4"/10cm(?) shorter than when ubu, making the original nagasa possibly ~60-65cm or ~24" long - is this a fair assessment? As grain or hamon sadly can't be deciphered at all in your experience how old do you think this piece may be? Blade profile is shobu-zukuri I believe. Other than the above I think it has some lovely koshirae (although the saya is pretty battered) and the blade has quite a lot of battle scars to it, or so I believe.

[NotANinja]

Some more images of the blade

[ROKUJURO]

That was a good and impressive old one, I believe!

But it is too romantic to see the chips and nicks as battle damage. Usually, this was done when uneducated people (= read GAIJIN) "played" SAMURAI battle with it!

I hope you can have it restored properly!

[NotANinja]

1 hour ago, ROKUJURO said:

That was a good and impressive old one, I believe!

But it is too romantic to see the chips and nicks as battle damage. Usually, this was done when uneducated people (= read GAIJIN) "played" SAMURAI battle with it!

I hope you can have it restored properly!

Ah you're probably right about the 'battle damage'! I might still choose to believe it's that though 😉

 

I plan to send it to a togishi for proper restoration yes, how old do you think it might be if you had to give a rough ballpark? Mid/late muromachi?

[ROKUJURO]

Rob,

I am not an expert on these, and I am only looking at images, but considering the patina of what is now the NAKAGO, and the shape, I think it might be KOTO indeed. But in this condition (in addition to the damaged edge, it has been ground/sandpapered, and I don't see the HAMON in the KISSAKI) the age does not play a role in hindsight to value (if you are thinking of that). 

As you can see yourself, the TOSOGU have seen better days and are gone now. 

[NotANinja]

Well I can guarantee you have more expertise than I, I have only been studying/collecting for just over a year at this point! But yes I agree that I think it might be koto. I'm not interested in it's monetary value, I just generally think myself more (and this may be the wrong word but I can't think of the right one at the moment) privileged I suppose the older the object is, and the more of a responsibility I have toward it for preservation. To put it crudely I suppose you could say in my opinion the older the cooler haha! 

 

And sorry what do you mean the tosogu are gone? There are pictures of the fittings which I think are rather lovely attached.

[Toki]

Oh nice, a turtle Fuchi :D

[Tensho]

Unless its just a weird photo but,, this blade looks to have had MANY polishes. 

 

[ROKUJURO]

2 hours ago, NotANinja said:

......what do you mean the tosogu are gone?.....

As you will see often with iron TOSOGU, they are exposed to the touch of bare hands. The base metal corrodes heavily, and silver, gold, and the soft metals remain (or fall off one day). This cannot be restored, I am afraid. 

[Scogg]

7 hours ago, Tensho said:

Unless its just a weird photo but,, this blade looks to have had MANY polishes. 

I’m not certain, but it could be partly due to the sugata once being “U no Kubi Zukuri”, perhaps?

 

http://meiboku.info/guide/form/zukuri/index.htm

 

Looks interesting, and I like the profile. Nice find, and I would be curious to hear what a Togishi might say about it.

All the best,

-Sam 

[NotANinja]

9 hours ago, Toki said:

Oh nice, a turtle Fuchi :D

I know I love it, totally wasn't one of the main draws for me haha!

[NotANinja]

8 hours ago, Tensho said:

Unless its just a weird photo but,, this blade looks to have had MANY polishes. 

 

 

53 minutes ago, Scogg said:

I’m not certain, but it could be partly due to the sugata once being “U no Kubi Zukuri”, perhaps?

 

http://meiboku.info/guide/form/zukuri/index.htm

 

Looks interesting, and I like the profile. Nice find, and I would be curious to hear what a Togishi might say about it.

All the best,

-Sam 

Yes I think you're right about the sugata Sam, although Tensho is almost certainly right too about it having lots of polishes. The kissaki does flair out slightly and looks like it used to more. Hopefully I'll be able to take it to someone way more knowledgeable than me for them to see in hand next month if life doesn't get in the way! And then I'll report back with that they think! Any ideas on age Sam? Thank you!

[NotANinja]

8 hours ago, ROKUJURO said:

As you will see often with iron TOSOGU, they are exposed to the touch of bare hands. The base metal corrodes heavily, and silver, gold, and the soft metals remain (or fall off one day). This cannot be restored, I am afraid. 

Ah I see, to prevent further deterioration could I put some clear spray on varnish or will this damage them further? Just the tosogu, nothing else.

[Brian]

No, definitely not.

[ROKUJURO]

1 hour ago, NotANinja said:

Ah I see, to prevent further deterioration could I put some clear spray on varnish or will this damage them further? Just the tosogu, nothing else.

Rob,

nothing you could do but praying that the corrosion has come to a stop. 

Thinking of your old car: How do you remove rust? By spraying with clear varnish? No, you take your angle-grinder and scrub it off before starting any preservation measures of the bare metal!

Would you like to do the same with you TOSOGU? I hope not.... 

[NotANinja]

1 hour ago, ROKUJURO said:

Rob,

nothing you could do but praying that the corrosion has come to a stop. 

Thinking of your old car: How do you remove rust? By spraying with clear varnish? No, you take your angle-grinder and scrub it off before starting any preservation measures of the bare metal!

Would you like to do the same with you TOSOGU? I hope not.... 

Yep no that makes perfect sense, I shall leave it as is!

[Scogg]

10 hours ago, NotANinja said:

 Any ideas on age Sam? Thank you!

So that’s a little tough for me to guess with my level of knowledge. Especially with a naginata naoshi, as much of my studies has been with katana and tachi. Simply put, I’m just not there yet to give you a good age estimate. 
 

The thing with age, is that it’s generally assessed based on SUGATA and the form of the blade. When a blade has been shortened, much of that profile has been lost or altered. That can be said 2fold for naginata, because they’re often not only shortened from the bottom up, they are also often altered at the tip.

 

Please see the heated discussion below. Lots of arguing, but also lots of valuable info:

https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/52155-naginata-naoshi/page/3/

From what little we can see, I think koto is likely. But because of what I mentioned above - big grain of salt. 
-Sam 

 

 

Edited February 13 by Scogg
Spelling

[NotANinja]

Thank you Sam, that's all very helpful information! I inted to get it polished I think, and will update the thread when it is! But that may be some time away yet 

[Jussi Ekholm]

I find myself struggling a lot trying to understand the item, I just cant get it right in my head.

 

Could you post measurements 1 & 2 for the sugata picture, to get an idea about the sori and 1 & 2 for the thickness?

 

[Tensho]

16 hours ago, Scogg said:

I’m not certain, but it could be partly due to the sugata once being “U no Kubi Zukuri”, perhaps?

Well, like Jussi mentioned above it looks strange to me. How does the habaki fit? Here's a Naginata Naoshi of mine:

Edited February 14 by Tensho

[Tensho]

Also another thing I see interesting on this is it only has a Soe Naginata Hi on one side? 

[Brian]

Hasn't been polished down much, we are just seeing the part of the nakago that was once blade, and is heavily tapered.

[NotANinja]

9 hours ago, Jussi Ekholm said:

I find myself struggling a lot trying to understand the item, I just cant get it right in my head.

 

Could you post measurements 1 & 2 for the sugata picture, to get an idea about the sori and 1 & 2 for the thickness?

 

Here you go Jussi, measurements are on the images, hopefully this helps! Do you know why the naginata-hi may have only been on the one side?

[NotANinja]

7 hours ago, Tensho said:

Well, like Jussi mentioned above it looks strange to me. How does the habaki fit? Here's a Naginata Naoshi of mine:

Habaki doesn't fit super well, it's a two part cat scratch copper habaki that looks a bit battered... 

[Jussi Ekholm]

Thank you for the measurements they clear up things to me a bit. I must say I would have thought the curvature was much stronger and blade is thinner at the (current) nakago than I thought it was. To me both of those are good things. I think you have a cool item

 

The hi on just one side is bit peculiar one, likewise as it seems there is not a direct profile shift near the end of hi.

 

This is of course the common type of profile shift that we have in naginata the mune is thick over the hi and radically tapers very soon after the hi. Picture of my Yoshikage naginata. in this the tapering is extreme going from 8,5mm on top of hi end to about 1mm on the blade portion.

 

Now this second type is quite uncommon but as I do have a naginata that has the gradual taper I can post a picture. This Ko-Uda naginata goes from 6mm on top of hi to 4mm on blade portion.

 

 

 

I think I have seen some naginata that have just horimono on one side but on top of my head I cannot remember an example that would just have a hi on one side. I like naginata as there is so much variety among them, they are very interesting. To me the majority of Japanese katana and tachi just seem nearly identical with tiny variation and it is kind of boring, then in comparison there is huge variety in polearms with all kinds of interesting forms and oddities. 

[NotANinja]

1 hour ago, Jussi Ekholm said:

Thank you for the measurements they clear up things to me a bit. I must say I would have thought the curvature was much stronger and blade is thinner at the (current) nakago than I thought it was. To me both of those are good things. I think you have a cool item

 

The hi on just one side is bit peculiar one, likewise as it seems there is not a direct profile shift near the end of hi.

 

This is of course the common type of profile shift that we have in naginata the mune is thick over the hi and radically tapers very soon after the hi. Picture of my Yoshikage naginata. in this the tapering is extreme going from 8,5mm on top of hi end to about 1mm on the blade portion.

 

Now this second type is quite uncommon but as I do have a naginata that has the gradual taper I can post a picture. This Ko-Uda naginata goes from 6mm on top of hi to 4mm on blade portion.

 

 

 

I think I have seen some naginata that have just horimono on one side but on top of my head I cannot remember an example that would just have a hi on one side. I like naginata as there is so much variety among them, they are very interesting. To me the majority of Japanese katana and tachi just seem nearly identical with tiny variation and it is kind of boring, then in comparison there is huge variety in polearms with all kinds of interesting forms and oddities. 

Thank you Jussi for the in-depth reply! It's exciting to me there aren't any other examples you can think of with the hi only on one side! And just to be clear the measurements I took for thickness are at the mune, not the thickest part - that's more like 6 and 4mm like your ko-uda naginata. Do you think they both might be ko-uda? It's a shame it's out of polish in it's current state!

[Jussi Ekholm]

You did measure correctly on the mune. Unfortunately only guess I could dare to make is that to me it would feel like a Kotō naginata like others felt above too. If it would be in polish people who have expertise could make an identifying guesses, focusing on small details is not my forte but of course it would help in general guesses about the age.