Signed Rai Kunimitsu help

[jawob]

4 hours ago, 2devnul said:

 

 

@jawob What is the Sayagaki translation? 

Courtesy of Mr. Bushido on WMF:

【来國光】Rai-Kuni-Mitsu

刃長　貮尺貮寸五分】Hacho 2shaku-2sunn-5bu

[ROKUJURO]

On 5/8/2026 at 10:06 PM, jawob said:

......The sword itself is faked in the style of Rai. If this is the case, if it was mumei, could one say it exhibits Rai or Yamashiro style?.....

Jeff,

as was mentioned above, the photos do not tell much.

What I meant so say was: If a smith intentionally made a blade in the style of another more famous smith and added a (GI) MEI, this would only make sense it the sword had the characteristics of the (faked) smith.

Of course, one could take any MUMEI blade available and chisel any signature on it, but such a sword would be difficult to sell to a knowledgeable buyer/customer. But the market is quite diversified today as there are many beginner collectors who buy a sword IN THE HOPE that the signature might be authentic but without really knowing what it is.

[2devnul]

35 minutes ago, ROKUJURO said:

sell to a knowledgeable collector

 

You are forgetting that GIMEI might be (and usually was) done back in the days. And that the target customer for the sword was not a collector, but a Samurai. I doubt that every Samurai was able to judge the sword based on attribution. Buying a Rai Kunimitsu blade even that time was something big. 

[ROKUJURO]

Thank you Adam!

I think a SAMURAI was a very competent customer!

[Promo]

5 hours ago, ROKUJURO said:

Yes Adam,

this is possible and a danger for those who buy the signature and not the sword. 

According to WAF the sword was up for sale for "between $ 1000 and 2000", so even if Gimei not much is to be lost, for that it doesn't seem to be this heavily abused.

 

On 5/9/2026 at 3:20 PM, jawob said:

Ian, Thank you for clear and direct comment. I have given the owner a "crash course" in photography of nihonto and will see if we can make this sword a little clearer. I think a member is in touch in his area, Indiana, hopefully an up close will shed some light.

Looking forward to the additional pictures! Will be very interesting to see in greater detail. Thanks also for the clarification as to who owns it.

[jawob]

Thank you all for the additional comments and discussion.

 

Jean, the point you bring up is very interesting and something to give a lot of thought to. Outside of this blade, if a Smith was good enough to copy another how could one tell?

The owner of the blade, is and was fully aware that this blade is gimei. He just wants to know what he has. I think this is an interesting piece worthy of investigation. I'm hoping he will meet up with a forum member to get a better idea or at least good photos to share

 

[Jacques]

On 5/8/2026 at 10:25 PM, Ian B3HR2UH said:

Jeff , it is hard to judge blades  when you are holding them in your hands , even more difficult from photos and almost impossible from crummy photos like these . You can see almost no hada or hamon in the photos . I doubt that even Mr Tanobe himself could tell you much from these photos .

It's why i said good luck. But some people here think they can determine the origin of a sword (said Gimei ) based on a few poor-quality photos. 
As for me, despite all my experience, I've never managed to do it.  

[CSM101]

Sometimes it helps that some very clever people wrote some books.

 

 

[Rivkin]

I hope the gentlemen could enlighten me regarding what exactly am I missing.

Because I see an obviously crazy Kunimitsu signature with a sloppy execution. Love the middle line in Kuni.

The blade itself my be not bad. Not much can be seen and nagare does exist on Kunimitsu blades but here its a bit too strong.

Ryokai, later generation, Zenjo Mino earlier generations and other similar guys are worth considering. Boshi, detailed activity photos can tell which is which.

 

What am I missing? No kidding, I often make mistakes and would love to learn.

Edited May 13 by Rivkin

[ROKUJURO]

3 hours ago, jawob said:

......Outside of this blade, if a smith was good enough to copy another how could one tell?.....

Jeff,

that is exactly where real sword knowledge and competence set in! To determeine what a sword really is, you need blades in very good polish and condition, possibly some special literature, and a lot of experience!
In the past, there were a few smiths with excellent craft skills who could copy a masterful blade in a way that even the Japanese experts had problems differentiating it from the original.
Also, it should be remembered that copying a blade and a MEI was not always done to deceive buyers. So, in some cases, a GIMEI blade can be of excellent quality. 

 

[jawob]

3 hours ago, ROKUJURO said:

Jeff,

that is exactly where real sword knowledge and competence set in! To determeine what a sword really is, you need blades in very good polish and condition, possibly some special literature, and a lot of experience!
In the past, there were a few smiths with excellent craft skills who could copy a masterful blade in a way that even the Japanese experts had problems differentiating it from the original.
Also, it should be remembered that copying a blade and a MEI was not always done to deceive buyers. So, in some cases, a GIMEI blade can be of excellent quality. 

 

I guess that's what separates the men from the boys

[Jacques]

Quote

it should be remembered that copying a blade and a MEI was not always done to deceive buyers.

This is true for gimei that were made during the smith’s lifetime or shortly thereafter, but it no longer applies today.

[Brian Dent]

All, this is my sword.  Everything stated on all of the 3 forums it has been posted on, including this one several months ago, was true and honest.  I am taking this to have Chris look at it in hand tomorrow and hope to find out a little more about it.  I do not collect swords but bought this sword from the son of the WWII AAA vet that brought it back.  Actually, the sword was sort of a "throw in" and I probably would not have purchased it (I really know NOTHING about swords like this) if it hadn't been for the Type 2 Arasaka para rifle that was with the sword as the bring backs of the vet.  I didn't want to see these broken up since they have been together since he returned home after the war.  It was a package deal (rifle and sword) and I know much more about the rifle than the sword and what I gave I knew I wasn't losing anything on the deal so I kept both together.  Once I had the sword in hand and showed it to another local US military collector he told me that from what he could tell (a novice sword guy) that the blade was very well made, clean with no damage, and could be very old so I decided to try and get a little more information on it.

 

I hope that I can get you a few more pictures after tomorrow and have ChrisW comment his much more informed/experienced thoughts on this sword.  I did post it on here but know that sometimes a more well known member of a forum may get more responses than someone who just "pops up" out of no where asking for help.  I hope you all now have a clearer picture of my goals, and appreciate Jeff posting it back up on the board for me.  I am primarily a US military collector with a focus on WWII, which is how I even came to own these items.

 

Hope to give all more info this weekend after Chris has this in his hands for thoughts and inspection.

 

Brian

[jawob]

Looking forward to updates!

[Bruce Pennington]

[Brian Dent]

I will wait until I get the photo's and report back before I post more on this blade.  I was told this blade probably dates from the mid/late 1500's and is a decent blade.  I will post more of Chris's findings when I get his written evaluation of the blade/mei/hamon/etc.  forgive my ignorance if I misspelled something in this email.  Again, I am FAR from a sword collector and really just want to know what it is that I have.  Stay tuned, more to follow............

[Jussi Ekholm]

In my opinion the interesting point about this sword is that it is a unokubi-zukuri katana.

[Brian Dent]

So several individuals that are much wiser/more experienced sword collectors have now looked at this sword in hand and I can say they state that two of their comments are in common:

1.  This certainly appears to be from the Rai school (late 1400's).

2.  This is most certainly NOT a Kunimitsu mei, but is most probably from the Rai school.  I intend to have it submitted to a shinsa, after which I feel that I will need the mei crushed, and then resubmit to shinsa to try and get it attributed to one of the smiths/students of the school.

 

Fascinating that I bought this as a "after thought" to keep it with the Type 2 Arasaka that I originally wanted to keep the items together that the GI brought home after the war 80 years ago.  This has certainly taken me down Alice's rabbit hole once I started to appreciate the blade as something potentially pretty nice.

Thanks for the comments and help to all here, as since I have demonstrated by my ignorance that I am NOT a sword collector.

Brian

Edited June 11 by Brian Dent

[Rivkin]

Not much to see in images unfortunately.

If it is simply signed "Kunitoshi" or "Kunimitsu", such blades do paper with a note Muromachi. However Rai addition basically makes it impossible to assign it to "Muromachi Rai" since such thing did not exist. There is Rai Chiyozuru but it did not use Rai signatures and is rather different then this blade.

Mino Zenjo or Ryokai, later generations, are a possibility. There is some masame and otherwise jigane is not a good match for kai Mihara, so maybe.

But its all a speculation.

[jawob]

Brian, Talk about "baptized by fire". Keep us updated on your journey to shinsa. You will probably catch the 'nihonto bug' after this or rip your hair out