Koto intact naginata on Yahoo Japan

[Gerry]

This completely intact koto naginata came up for auction on Yahoo Japan last week, and it's rare to see a 2kg naginata with a 84.5cm nagasa ,and being almost 6 feet long overall, which is also unfortunately why EMS won't ship it.

 

In any case, it has TH papers to Hoju, but the workmanship is pretty dismal, with all manner of ware you can think of. It ultimately went for 3M yen though.

 

https://www.jauce.com/auction/d1242888705?allow=1

[eternal_newbie]

Interesting piece for sure, wonder if @Jussi Ekholm saw it

[Jussi Ekholm]

For me this item is far more interesting than Jūyō or Tokubetsu Jūyō items.  I've chatted this one with few people and of course my view is very difficult to grasp.

 

This one is for me kind of item that I travel around Japan to see, holy grail as I travel to see ōdachi and naginata. Unfortunately this one went more than I would have been capable of investing, and I was not in buying position at this moment. However I managed to buy another monster naginata from Yahoo Auctions earlier this year, it is still in Japan as like Gerry said arranging the shipping for these is very difficult, it was too large for me to bring on my flight this summer. For me it is a dream coming true even if the item itself is not interesting to many.

 

I have been tracking Yahoo Auctions somewhat weekly or every other week for maybe at least 6-7 years now. This year is probably the first time I manage to see a monster naginata on sale in there, and now this has happened two times this year. It is showing the rarity of these a bit for the average buyer, maybe people with close connections to dealers will have better access to these items but these are not kind of items that high quality dealers usually focus on.

 

For the fun of it I took a look on Kamakura - Nanbokuchō naginata that have in my data that are over 70 cm blade length and in my current research found only 25 of them (there are most likely some more in my data and in items I have personally seen in Japan but as I am not 100% sure on their age I did not include them). I have so far seen 7 out of the 25, I have tried to see even more of them but they have not been on display when I have visited the shrines. Out of the 25 items 13 are designated as Jūyō Bunkazai, and out of the 25 items 15 currently reside in collections of shrines & temples. 

[Takezo]

@Jussi Ekholm What about numbers on Kamakura - Nanbokuchō naginata-naoshi over 70cm nagasa? Are those far more numerous?

[Jussi Ekholm]

That was a very good question, it started bugging me so much I couldn't sleep before I counted them. 

 

From my data at the moment I found 108 naoshi that have over 70 cm blade length. Granted few of them might be from early Muromachi but almost all would be by or attributed to Kamakura/Nanbokuchō smiths.

[Takezo]

 very nice, so a 4x more or less. Still pretty small numbers overall. Is the ko-fujishima I have counted in there also (71.5cm nagasa)?

[MassiveMoonHeh]

@Jussi Ekholm, you will need to organise a video seminar on the power and benefits of loving Naginata... I am sure it will help many here appreciate them more when they hear what drives you to travel all over Japan to view these pieces. I know I would sign up to sit and listen.

[eternal_newbie]

4 minutes ago, MassiveMoonHeh said:

@Jussi Ekholm, you will need to organise a video seminar on the power and benefits of loving Naginata... I am sure it will help many here appreciate them more when they hear what drives you to travel all over Japan to view these pieces. I know I would sign up to sit and listen.

 

Agreed... but until then here's a bit of an insight:

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20210126050337/https://blog.yuhindo.com/naginata-naginata-naoshi/

 

Quote

Naginata are a bit under appreciated and we see this in the marketplace, but I think that any good nihonto collection should include one naginata if possible to find one. If not, then a nagamaki naoshi, preferably one with an intact top.

 

[...]

 

The rare pieces that are intact, if you have an opportunity to get an earlier period work, you should take it. Sometimes they are hard to get past Juyo token, but this is not the point. We have to understand that so many of them were destroyed, that one just exists now it is a bit of a miracle.

 

[MassiveMoonHeh]

25 minutes ago, eternal_newbie said:

that one just exists now it is a bit of a miracle

 

[eternal_newbie]

3 minutes ago, MassiveMoonHeh said:

 

 

Jussi's had a real makeover on that last Japanese trip!

[MassiveMoonHeh]

Yes, AI clearly decided to go with the female Samurai theme. The British Museum is doing a good job of promoting their exhibition clearly!

[eternal_newbie]

To be fair, the naginata is (in modern budo/Japan) somewhat associated with women and femininity. This despite the fact that it was the main workhorse of the average (male) soldier in the Koto period.

[Gerry]

Can anyone comment on the workmanship of this monster naginata? The numerous ware and kizu all over the blade seems to indicate substandard workmanship, but the naginata still received TH papers? Was this mostly based on the rarity of a naginata this size?

[nulldevice]

25 minutes ago, Gerry said:

Can anyone comment on the workmanship of this monster naginata? The numerous ware and kizu all over the blade seems to indicate substandard workmanship, but the naginata still received TH papers? Was this mostly based on the rarity of a naginata this size?

 

Being Koto, signature requirements don't apply for a blade to get TH. It's just going to be combination of factors such as school/smith, quality of forging, quality of preservation (how close is it to its original form and how tired is it), provenance (daimyo ownership etc.), and overall rarity.

 

This blade certainly checks the rarity and quality of preservation (original tang and length) boxes even though the forging itself is quite rough and its not signed. TH makes sense when you consider that you're dealing with a blade that just in size alone sits in a pool of extant blades that maybe number at a few hundred of this size/shape from this age. 

Edited Wednesday at 06:58 PM by nulldevice

[MassiveMoonHeh]

Not all Naginata are made the same.

 

Was going through the Sano Exhibition "Glory of Japanese Swords" from January 7 - February 2020 and came across this beauty.

 

I must admit @Jussi Ekholm - it stopped me in my tracks.

 

Comparing this Yahoo blade to the National Treasure Naginata by Nagamitsu is like comparing a Rusty bucket to a Space Ship. Just other worldly.

 

 

National Treasure

1. Naginata (Japanese polearm) Inscribed: Made by Nagamitsu, resident of Osafune, Bizen Province

Blade length: 44.2 cm, Curvature: 1.7 cm

Kamakura period (13th century)

Sano Museum of Art (Public Interest Incorporated Foundation)

Nagamitsu

 

Nagamitsu was the son of Mitsutada, who rose to prominence in Osafune, Bizen Province during the mid-Kamakura period. He had many disciples and forged numerous famous swords. Three naginata made by Nagamitsu exist today, including this one, and several naginata that have been repurposed. Many of these naginata are thought to have been used in actual combat. This particular piece has a refined form, with a relatively narrow blade and tip. The forging shows a fine wood-grain pattern with a turbulent reflection. The hamon (temper line) is a wide, straight pattern mixed with gunome (irregular wave pattern), with a deep nioi-guchi (boundary between tempered and untempered areas) and small nie (crystals), making it a superb work with a clear and sharp surface.  This sword was passed down through the Matsudaira family of Tsuyama, Sakushu, and was donated to our museum in 1988 by Mr. Kanji Sato, a sword enthusiast from Shizuoka.

It was passed down through the generations.⁩

[Takezo]

Posting my TH "ko-fujishima" naoshi (in the hands of Tanobe right now getting some alternative input) to compliment the discussion. Would like to hear anyone else's thoughts on this one as well, as ko-fujishima seems like an unusual and (to me at least) hard to classify attribution. What makes this blade in particular scream "ko-fujishima"? Ko-Uda? Yoshikage, Motoshige or more subdued Bizen? Anyway, 71.5cm nagasa, 0.92cm kasane, 2.7cm sori and 3.12cm motohaba. Koitame with jinie and faint utsuri, nioi based gunome midare with sunagashi and kinsuji.

Edited Thursday at 08:16 PM by Takezo

[Jussi Ekholm]

For the question Gerry had about the quality, I think Chandler wrote really good answer. Several of the very large items ōdachi and naginata are not that high overall quality and some of those are even designated as Jūyō Bunkazai. In my opinion that is awesome as the item is so amazing it qualifies as Important Cultural Property. As I feel this should not be just about quality, of course there are several factors that affected things when items were designated and I remember @MassiveMoonHeh wrote good posts about how things were at time items got those designations.

 

I have done few presentations here in Europe about naginata, and it has always been fun. Still I've noticed preparing for presentations / doing youtube videos (which I have not done), takes surprisingly large amount of time. I am just amazed how some people can achieve so many different things regarding swords in general, some people are so effective with their time. I do have about 3 projects that I am currently doing (these are competely under radar as I will just pop them out when they are ready) but I have been thinking it might be at least 2-3 years in my estimations that I might finish even one of these.

 

Unfortunately I have not yet visited Sano Art Museum. It is on my go to list, and eventually I will go there some year and hopefully catch the Nagamitsu naginata there, although I might hope to see the signed Chōgi naoshi they have. For Nagamitsu I have so far seen the Jūyō Bunkazai naginata, and Kagemitsu Jūyō Bunkazai and the undesignated one of Nikkō Tōshōgū. They are of course very nice items but the next reference picture might show you slight view of my appreciation style and how size affects the general view of things.

 

For my presentation last year I actually scaled all these pictures to scale. They are not perfectly 100% as I didn't count every single pixel but they should be very close. As I correlated blade length in cm to pixels, the image on right is 8000x8000 pixels. I did 3 slides Kamakura/Nanbōkucho - Muromachi - Edo, and as a fun factor I wanted to have Awataguchi tachi 75,5 cm and Hizen katana 70,5 cm as a reference in ever slide to show the actual size of the items (both big and small naginata).

 

 

The National treasure Nagamitsu naginata is the small one on right side (N.11). As I have seen the big ones 9,10,12 in person and been awed by them, then as someone who does not have a keen eye for quality I might have trouble appreciating the National treasure as much as I should. Plus there is the thing that I am not a huge fan of the actual form it has , you can see the Ryō Hisanobu naginata of Tokugawa Art Museum has similar form. I feel one interesting thing in naginata and yari is the variance, there are so many different styles in them, especially when compared to katana & tachi which almost all look very similar.