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Weekend pickup

Submitted by tokashikibob on Tue, 2012-05-08 20:51

Gang,
Was doing some Highbanking for gold in Western Carolina and took a break from the shovel to hit the local auction. The sword has a company grade tassel, wavy hamon and is pretty beefy from the others I have handled. Any help with the kanji would be helpful!
Semper Fi,
Bob

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#1Submitted by peter on Sat, 2012-05-19 21:37.

mei

Hi Bob.
I think the first kanji is yoshi another clearer pic of the second kanji would help the more educated reader than i i'm sure.
Peter
#2Submitted by saipan59 on Sun, 2012-05-20 00:28.

maybe Yoshihide

Might be "Yoshihide", i.e. YOS1415.

Pete
#3Submitted by tokashikibob on Fri, 2012-06-01 15:36.

kanji style question

Thanks Pete,
The second kanji is not as well struck as the first one, is this chicken scratch kanji generally only found in Showato, Gendaito?

Thanks again for the reply,
Bob
#4Submitted by kazarena on Fri, 2012-06-01 16:35.

Hi Bob, Poorly cut signature

Hi Bob,

Poorly cut signature usually means it's a lower quality smith's work. I suspect that badly cut kanji existed at all times, but since high quality swords were more likely to survive for hundreds of years, you don't see the other ones very often. As a result, there'll be more Showato and Gendaito with poorly cut characters - they're just too new to be discarded (and there's less chance of them being damaged in battles these days) :-)

Regards,
Stan
#5Submitted by tokashikibob on Fri, 2012-06-01 17:00.

Thanks for the comment Stan,

Thanks for the comment Stan, it seems to fit this sword as there is a small shiane patch I think which would fit in with the lower quality smith you describe. However, it's a nice heavy robust blade quite a bit more than others I have acquired, and the japanese officer seemed to think it was worthy of special treatment keeping all of it's Edo era pieces together while taking it to the field. A nice piece to let others handle for sure and not worry about it!

Semper Fi,
Bob
#6Submitted by kazarena on Fri, 2012-06-01 17:51.

Hi Bob, Apologies, I didn't

Hi Bob,

Apologies, I didn't really imply that your sword is of low quality - more pictures would be required for evaluation. It's just a general observation in regards to the quality of signatures vs. quality of smiths. AFAIK, some very prominent smiths had poorly cut signatures, but those were outliers.

Regards,
Stan
#7Submitted by tokashikibob on Fri, 2012-06-01 17:59.

No offense taken Stan, I

No offense taken Stan, I think in all probablility it is from a lower qualilty smith, but still a Nihonto and I'm always attacted to Military mounted blades as I'm militaria collector first and foremost. Do you think it may be Yoshihide", i.e. YOS1415 as pointed out earlier, does Hawley's book have a MEI with the chicken scratch signature of Yoshihide? What are the stats of YOS1415?

Best regards and Semper Fi, Bob
#8Submitted by kazarena on Fri, 2012-06-01 22:42.

Hi Bob, I'll look for the

Hi Bob,

I'll look for the signatures of YOS1415 over next couple of days.

Regards,
Stan
#9Submitted by kazarena on Mon, 2012-06-04 11:29.

Hi Bob, The only example of

Hi Bob,

The only example of Yoshihide's signature I was able to find was the one in Toko Taikan [1]. The style is quite different, it's a longer, better cut signature.

I wouldn't draw any conclusions though.

Regards,
Stan

References

  1. Tōkō Taikan, Tokunō, Kazuo , p.794, (1977)