Japanese sword help

[BOB COLEMAN]

Nihonto are a realm unto themselves. Without holding it hard to say much about it, I have years of association with them but have yet to own one. This blade looks good, the furniture is all relatively modern junk and assembled to dress out the blade, likely an occupation era souvenir piece built up around a good older generic aresenal
blade.

I must disagree with my colleague's statements regarding the sword furniture. It is at least 19th century. The tsuba or sword guard is evident to be made from very good iron due to the color of the steel. The fuchi-gashira or top and botton handle fittings are average quality of the period. Menuki or handle ornaments are of the least quality but still not 20th century. I consider it to be a late Edo period mounting and certainly not junk.

[85ronnies]

Thanks for the reply on this Bob, i have had a couple of people who deal in Samurai swords and the like look at this now, they all seem to back up what you have said regarding this particular sword and have all said "its all origional",
thank's again for your time on this Bob,
best Ronnie

[BOB COLEMAN]

Thanks for the reply on this Bob, i have had a couple of people who deal in Samurai swords and the like look at this now, they all seem to back up what you have said regarding this particular sword and have all said "its all origional",
thank's again for your time on this Bob,
best Ronnie

Ronnie-
My pleasure. Unfortunately, the field of Japanese sword study is greatly polluted with bad military and gun show lore. It takes many years of serious study to understand what you are looking at. A blade can only be evaluated for value only with a hands on examination. Military blades are of course a different situation. Good luck on selling the piece.

[Japanesesword]

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Daniel Rizzo

[Darren Lillington]

I agree, late Edo period katana, not very high quality but its in good condition. Nice find.

Allot of the swords made in this period were works of art, status symbols but the quality of the blades were quite poor as the aesthetic value of the sword was far more important. Swords were characterized by a great deal of bravado in their decoration with less attention paid to the blade.

Later on in that period the quality of swords declined, firearms were introduced to Japan and the wearing of swords was made illegal, many smiths went out of business, a great shame.

Cheers-

Darren

[BOB COLEMAN]

Actually, the 19th century marked agreat improvement in the sword forging art after falling off greatly in the 18th century due to peace and a lack of demand for new blades. The renaissance began in the late 18th century with a Suishinshi Masahide. He produced notable students who carried on his tradition. The most famous was Naotane. In Edo, the most famous swordsmith was Minamoto Kiyomaro, who died at a young age. His swords are highly valued by collectors and have sold at auction in excess of $400,000. He had a famous student Kiyando. In Hizen Provence, the 8th generation Tadayoshi brought fame back to the school founded by the 1st generation at the begining of the 17th century.
There were many other notable smiths in this period who worked until the Hatori, which was an Imperial edict prohibiting the wearing of swords.