Nihonto Club

Hi,
The 1st 4 kanji are are a date: "1st year of Man'en (1860)".
The name seems unusual. The first kanji is "hou", or "takara" (in a kanji dictionary - that is NOT how the name is likely to be read). In the old Nelson dictionary, it is #1293.
The second kanji is "kotobuki", often read as "toshi".

Pete

Update:
My wife says the reading of the name is most likely either "takatoshi" or "houju".

Pete

Hi Oliver,

It's an interesting one. I totally agree with Pete that the first 4 Kanji is "the first year of Man'en". The name on the cert is indeed Hōju 寳壽 (or 宝寿 like they write it in modern books). You may find few Hōju here.

However, none of them lived around 1860 (I checked Meikan and Toko Taikan). The closest date is 1830. Also, it's hard to judge the colour and the texture of nakago using photos, but if the side with date looks 1860, the side with the name feels older. Full photo of nakago would give a better impression.

Here's what Fujishiro writes about the older Hōju:

There's another Hōju attributed to Shinshintō period in Hawley, but there is too little information to judge.