The price has recently been reduced on a pair of swords I have for sale. Also, the two swords are now available separately.
All the details are here:
http://yakiba.com/Daisho_Tango_no_Kami_Kanemichi.htm
Note: Ed Marshall does a great job of photographing blades. It is perhaps "too good", because his images show EVERY TINY DEFECT. His pictures show little scratches that I didn't even know about.
These two blades are both TANGO no KAMI KANEMICHI, mid 17th century. For the katana, I am sure that it is a Shodai (1st generation), but the NBTHK papers don't specify. The wakizashi is 2nd generation, and this is confirmed by the NTHK papers (it also has NBTHK papers).
So, this is a nice DAISHO pair by the 1st and 2nd generation of Tango Kanemichi, and they are nice examples of Mishina school blades.
These two smiths are KAN1403 and KAN1404 in Hawley's numbering.
I have owned these blades for about 25 years.
Included with each of the swords is the receipt for sending it to Japan for polish and papers, done by the previous owner about 30 years ago. The broker was John Yumoto, who was a very famous Japanese-American collector, and author of the first standard introductory book on Nihonto (for English-speaking readers).
Thanks for looking!
Pete
reduced again
Hi All,
The price has been reduced again. Please take a look if you might be interested!
Pete
Tango Kanemichi daisho (one or both) for sale
The price has been reduced again - now $6500 + shipping for the pair ($4400 and $2100).
http://yakiba.com/Daisho_Tango_no_Kami_Kanemichi.htm
I think this is a real bargain.
Regarding the katana: As Ed writes in his description, this blade has an NBTHK "green paper". These papers became controversial some years ago, because apparently some cannot be trusted (but most are correct). There was probably a financial/political motivation to the whole mess... But I can say with confidence that this blade is Good. If you study the details of Mishina blades, and study the details of this signature, it is 100% good in my opinion.
The wakizashi has papers from both NBTHK (regular white Hozon) and NTHK. It is not as good-looking as the katana, but it has subtle hamon features that the katana does not have. Ed did a great job of photographing it, but the details are hard to see unless you have it in your hand.
The katana is by the shodai (1st generation) in my opinion, but of course the NBTHK papers don't say which generation (that is typical). The wakizashi's NTHK papers say it is nidai (2nd generation), and I agree based on the details of the signature, comparing with several published examples of 1-dai and 2-dai. If anyone's interested, I can point out the signature difference between 1-dai and 2-dai.
Please take a look!
Pete