Hello. I am a new member and not used to navigating sites.( A didgital immigrant) I have a sword and have been told the mei reads So Shu Ju Hiro Mitsu. Another person thought it was about 150 years old. Please tell me how I can go about researching further. I entered the mei as directed with no spaces and nothing happened. |
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Ways of searching the smith database by mei
Dear Go Haku,
There is no one-fits-all way to look for a smith by mei. In this particular case you'd probably do a search by signature using 'SoShu Ju HiroMitsu' as a query because romaji representations of signatures in the database are split into words. Or alternatively you could search for the signature in Kanji form: 相州住廣光. If unsure or if the search didn't fetch anything, try more generic search e.g. just for 'Hiromitsu'. The only smith in the database with the signature above is Hiromitsu HIR299. Then it might be the case that the smith record exists in the database, but this particular signature hasn't been recorded yet. You could search by the name Hiromitsu instead.
This is just the beginning, of course. You will need to look into the books and maybe start from one of the Hiromitsu found in the searches above. Eventually when the smith is found, please leave a comment under particular smith's record (if exists). This will help other visitors in the future when they look for the same mei. However, only do it if you are certain about the results of your research and please leave references too, otherwise it will be very hard for others to verify the correctness of the data.
Regards,
Stan