1300s Japanese sword?

Makael

Makael

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My neighbor brought this over and was asking if I knew anything about old Japanese Swords. This is presumably very old. Overall length is approx 31 inches. Blade length is 21 inches. Thank you

Not too intetested in value but looking for information about origins. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 
This really needs to be posted to a Nihono site or forum. It will need to have the pin removed that holds the handle on, and the handle removed. You'll need additional pics of both sides of the Nakago, and a good close up of the Kanji on the Shirasaya would be good too. All of this is in hopes of translation of the smith's signature if there is one on the blade under the handle.
 
Makael Makael I am not suggesting this is NOT an old Japanese sword, but Chinese-made "shirasaya" mounted swords of this configuration have been in retail catalogues for about thirty years now (I remember seeing them pop up when I was in my early 20s). Keep in mind that if it IS such a sword, it may still be of very high quality, just not an "old Japanese sword". As for this being a 14th century sword as your thread title suggests, I would be surprised if it were that old.

As E Esee4me recommends, you will need to drive the pin out of the grip so that you can remove it and examine the tang for any engraving that identifies the origin of the blade. This is not difficult to do and I'm looking forward to what it looks like. Your pics, as usual, are terrific!

(Nihon-to experts will have to forgive my failure to use the correct terms for specific parts of the Japanese sword. I have not mastered them and so I tend to use the English approximations so as to communicate better and avoid mistakes. I believe the pin is called "menuki", the full grip apparatus "tsuka", the collar "habaki".)
 
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The Zieg said:
Makael Makael I am not suggesting this is NOT an old Japanese sword, but Chinese-made "shirasaya" mounted swords of this configuration have been in retail catalogues for about thirty years now (I remember seeing them pop up when I was in my early 20s). Keep in mind that if it IS such a sword, it may still be of very high quality, just not an "old Japanese sword". As for this being a 14th century sword as your thread title suggests, I would be surprised if it were that old.

As E Esee4me recommends, you will need to drive the pin out of the grip so that you can remove it and examine the tang for any engraving that identifies the origin of the blade. This is not difficult to do and I'm looking forward to what it looks like. Your pics, as usual, are terrific!

(Nihon-to experts will have to forgive my failure to use the correct terms for specific parts of the Japanese sword. I have not mastered them and so I tend to use the English approximations so as to communicate better and avoid mistakes. I believe the pin is called "menuki", the full grip apparatus "tsuka", the collar "habaki".)
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Close, but the peg is a mekugi. Menuki are the decorative brooch type things under the handle wrap, or tsuka-ito. I am in no way an expert. But I've had a couple, including some decently made chinatanas. They make for good cutting fun if that's something your into. In fact I still have one chinese made that's a shirasaya type. 1060 steel, through hardened. Sometimes I trim bushes with it. Too slick to do real cutting with.
This sword looks real to me. I doubt 1300 hundreds, probably more like Edo period. Still, it could be worth putting in a real koshirae and maybe a polish, that's a lot of money though.
 
I have some pics of the tang. I’ll post and hope they show up
 
Wouldn’t a 700 year old item, anything, look…old? My eye, not knowing anything about the sword, says much younger. Interested to hear where this gets placed historically if it can be run down.
 
It is very hard to virtually impossible to determine authenticity a picture. I have a Chinese made black painted version of one of those, and there is no reason given the literally thousands of new manufacture Chinese swords in the US, that this is not one of them. There are plenty of Chinese who can read, and copy, Japanese writing. With 1.3 Billion Chinese, someone can be found who knows Japanese.

Original Japanese swords are much rarer than the Chinese replicas. So it will take closer examination from someone who knows more, and is physically much closer to the sword to determine an age and place of manufacture.

Finding out what is under the tang is a good start.

And that goes for Confederate swords. There are literally more CSA swords being made today than every existed during the Civil War. This is a real Civil War sword, made by the French.

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This model was sold to both the Confederates and the Union, unfortunately for value, mine has this on the blade

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which makes it Union. If it had some Confederate symbols instead, it would be worth many more times than what I paid for it.
 
Just go to the Nihonto Message Board (as posted above) and get your questions answered by people who read/write Japanese and are VERY knowledgeable about Japanese swords of all eras. Many are Japanese as well as from many countries around the world. In case you don't know Nihonto means Japanese sword. Get answers, not speculation.
 
There are also a couple of Facebook groups that are OK too, if you use FB. At the least they can translate the shirasaya and nakago.
 
mb> said:
Wouldn’t a 700 year old item, anything, look…old? My eye, not knowing anything about the sword, says much younger. Interested to hear where this gets placed historically if it can be run down.
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Not necessarily. As Bernard Levine has pointed out more than once condition is an indicator of condition nothing else. I've seen items that were 100s of years old that look like they were newly made and items that were a couple of years old that were in a condition that made them only worthy of the garbage pile. I have no idea about this piece but that much at least is true...
 
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No way is that 700+ years old, unless the shirasaya has been replaced. And while I'm no expert, the lines of the blade seem too modern. But good luck finding more information, and I hope I'm wrong!
 
While I agree about 700 years being unlikely, the shirasaya has no reflection on that. It's not uncommon for a polisher to require a shirasaya be made for a blade that either is blade only, or even in an old koshirae. So that shirasaya could be only 10 or 20 years old and has been stuffed in a closet for most of that time. The things I'm interested in are the few blade scars and the damaged Habaki.
 
Makael said:
My neighbor brought this over and was asking if I knew anything about old Japanese Swords. This is presumably very old. Overall length is approx 31 inches. Blade length is 21 inches. Thank you

Not too intetested in value but looking for information about origins. Any help is greatly appreciated.

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This does appear to be a Japanese sword. The sayagaki is odd as it is written upside down. For the naysayers, the blade does not look 700 years old due to it being in rather new polish. You have made one critical mistake and that is not providing a photo of the nakago (tang). This is crucial in forming an opinion of age and potentially school or smith.
 
mb> said:
Wouldn’t a 700 year old item, anything, look…old? My eye, not knowing anything about the sword, says much younger. Interested to hear where this gets placed historically if it can be run down.
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No, not if it has been polished as this clearly has.
 
Boombats said:
No way is that 700+ years old, unless the shirasaya has been replaced. And while I'm no expert, the lines of the blade seem too modern. But good luck finding more information, and I hope I'm wrong!
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This blade has been polished, new shirasaya are generally made when re-polished.
 
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