{"product_id":"katana93","title":"Antique Japanese Katana Sword with Broad Gunome Hamon, Tobiyaki and Diagonal Striped Lacquer Saya — Edo Shintō","description":"\u003csection class=\"product\"\u003e\u003cheader\u003e\u003c\/header\u003e\n\u003csection id=\"specs\"\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSignature (Mei):\u003c\/strong\u003e Mumei (\u003cspan lang=\"ja\"\u003e無銘\u003c\/span\u003e) — unsigned\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePeriod:\u003c\/strong\u003e Shintō — Edo period\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eAttribution:\u003c\/strong\u003e No shinsa paper — offered without a smith or school attribution\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eRegistration (Tōroku-shō):\u003c\/strong\u003e Tokushima No. 4692, issued 19 November 1958\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eMounting:\u003c\/strong\u003e Full katana koshirae — diagonally striped lacquer saya, large plain iron tsuba, shakudō fuchi-kashira with gold iroe, dragon menuki\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eBlade Length (Nagasa):\u003c\/strong\u003e 68.8 cm\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eCurvature (Sori):\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.4 cm\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eMekugi-ana:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eShape:\u003c\/strong\u003e Shinogi-zukuri, iori-mune, chū-kissaki\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eJihada:\u003c\/strong\u003e Tight ko-itame, quiet and dark under the polish\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eHamon:\u003c\/strong\u003e Broad gunome-midare with large rounded peaks, in nioi-deki, with tobiyaki above the habuchi\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eBōshi:\u003c\/strong\u003e Broad and rounded with a shallow kaeri\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eHabaki:\u003c\/strong\u003e Two-piece habaki, silver-toned body with a gold-coloured collar\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/section\u003e\n\u003csection id=\"description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis unsigned \u003cstrong\u003eKatana\u003c\/strong\u003e is a \u003cstrong\u003eShintō\u003c\/strong\u003e blade of the \u003cstrong\u003eEdo period\u003c\/strong\u003e, and it is a full-sized one: \u003cstrong\u003e68.8 cm\u003c\/strong\u003e of nagasa with \u003cstrong\u003e1.4 cm\u003c\/strong\u003e of sori, long enough to have real reach and presence in the hand. It survives complete in an unusually striking \u003cstrong\u003ekoshirae\u003c\/strong\u003e, and the blade is in polish with the hamon reading boldly from machi to kissaki.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe blade is \u003cem\u003eshinogi-zukuri\u003c\/em\u003e with \u003cem\u003eiori-mune\u003c\/em\u003e and a well-shaped \u003cem\u003echū-kissaki\u003c\/em\u003e. The \u003cem\u003ejihada\u003c\/em\u003e is a tight, densely worked \u003cem\u003eko-itame\u003c\/em\u003e, the \u003cem\u003eji\u003c\/em\u003e dark and calm under the polish, with a clean \u003cem\u003eshinogi\u003c\/em\u003e line and a crisply cut \u003cem\u003eyokote\u003c\/em\u003e. The blade carries substantial thickness through the monouchi — this is a sword with mass behind the edge, not a slender dress piece.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cem\u003ehamon\u003c\/em\u003e is the headline. It is a broad \u003cstrong\u003egunome-midare\u003c\/strong\u003e of large, generously rounded peaks that roll along the entire length of the ha, wide enough that the tempered band occupies a real share of the blade's width. The \u003cem\u003enioiguchi\u003c\/em\u003e is soft and misty, and above the \u003cem\u003ehabuchi\u003c\/em\u003e a scattering of \u003cstrong\u003etobiyaki\u003c\/strong\u003e floats free in the ji — isolated islands of hardened steel that catch the light as the blade turns and give the whole surface depth. At the point the \u003cem\u003ebōshi\u003c\/em\u003e runs broad and rounded with a shallow kaeri.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cem\u003enakago\u003c\/em\u003e carries a \u003cstrong\u003esingle mekugi-ana\u003c\/strong\u003e and is \u003cem\u003emumei\u003c\/em\u003e — no signature, and no attribution paper accompanies the sword. That makes it an obvious \u003cstrong\u003eshinsa candidate\u003c\/strong\u003e: a full-length Shintō katana in polish, with a bold and legible hamon and an undamaged tang, is precisely the kind of blade the NBTHK is set up to examine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/section\u003e\n\u003csection id=\"koshirae\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eKoshirae Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mounting on this sword is the reason to look twice. The \u003cem\u003esaya\u003c\/em\u003e is lacquered in \u003cstrong\u003ediagonal bands\u003c\/strong\u003e that spiral the full length of the scabbard — polished black \u003cem\u003eroiro\u003c\/em\u003e alternating with a dense, glittering speckled ground that throws green and gold as it moves. It is a demanding finish to execute and an extremely effective one: from across a room the saya reads as plain black, and only in the hand does the stripe reveal itself. The \u003cem\u003esageo\u003c\/em\u003e is navy blue edged in ivory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cstrong\u003etsuba\u003c\/strong\u003e is the deliberate counterweight — a large, thick, entirely undecorated \u003cem\u003emumon\u003c\/em\u003e iron plate in rounded-square form, with a heavy raised rim and a dense, granular forged skin that has taken on a warm brown-black patina. No inlay, no openwork, nothing but iron and surface. Both \u003cem\u003ehitsu-ana\u003c\/em\u003e are cut, each finished with small circular piercings at the corners, and brass \u003cem\u003esekigane\u003c\/em\u003e seat the plate to this blade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cstrong\u003efuchi\u003c\/strong\u003e answers with the opposite register: \u003cem\u003eshakudō\u003c\/em\u003e finely carved with \u003cstrong\u003eplum blossoms over flowing water\u003c\/strong\u003e, the blossom centres picked out in gold, the current rendered in fluid \u003cem\u003ekebori\u003c\/em\u003e line work, and the whole framed by a stepped gilt border. The \u003cstrong\u003ekashira\u003c\/strong\u003e continues the set in shakudō with silver and gold iroe — a fierce, wild-haired figure in a crown surmounted by a flame stares out of the metal in high relief, with a second, serene face beside him, the modelling deep and the expressions genuinely alive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBeneath the black \u003cem\u003eito\u003c\/em\u003e, wrapped \u003cem\u003ehineri-maki\u003c\/em\u003e over cream \u003cem\u003esame\u003c\/em\u003e, sits a \u003cstrong\u003edragon menuki\u003c\/strong\u003e in shakudō with gilt horns and claws, coiled and worked in full relief. The blade is seated in a two-piece \u003cem\u003ehabaki\u003c\/em\u003e, silver-toned with a gold-coloured collar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/section\u003e\n\u003csection id=\"smith-background\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReading an Unsigned Shintō Blade\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnsigned does not mean anonymous by accident. Plenty of Edo-period blades left the forge without a mei — made to order for a retainer, produced under a workshop rather than a master's own hand, or simply finished without the smith cutting his name. Others lost the signature to later work on the tang. What matters to a buyer is what the steel shows.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere that is a full \u003cstrong\u003e68.8 cm\u003c\/strong\u003e of Shintō blade with a broad, confident \u003cstrong\u003egunome-midare\u003c\/strong\u003e and free \u003cem\u003etobiyaki\u003c\/em\u003e in the ji — an ambitious temper, not a conservative one. The tight ko-itame and the healthy thickness through the monouchi say the same thing: this was a serious sword when it was made, and it has been looked after since.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat we will not do is put a name on it. No paper accompanies the blade, so we claim no smith and no school, and the price reflects that rather than an attribution we cannot support. For the buyer this is the useful position: the blade is in polish, the hamon and jihada are legible, the tang is sound. Everything a \u003cem\u003eshinsa\u003c\/em\u003e panel needs is present, and whatever the panel decides is upside that comes with the sword rather than something already priced into it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/section\u003e\n\u003csection id=\"school-history\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe Shintō Katana: Swords in a Time of Peace\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cstrong\u003eShintō\u003c\/strong\u003e era begins around 1596, and it begins because the wars stopped. With the Tokugawa settlement, swordsmiths lost their battlefield customers and gained a new one: a hereditary warrior class that wore two swords daily as a matter of law and status. Smiths left the old provincial villages and concentrated in the cities — Edo, Osaka, Kyoto — where the money and the patrons were.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe swords changed with the clientele. Steel became more uniform as smiths bought refined iron rather than smelting locally, so Shintō \u003cem\u003ejihada\u003c\/em\u003e is typically tighter and quieter than Kotō work. The \u003cem\u003ehamon\u003c\/em\u003e, by contrast, got louder: freed from pure battlefield economy and competing for attention in a crowded urban market, smiths produced wide, dramatic temper lines full of visible activity. The broad rolling gunome and scattered \u003cem\u003etobiyaki\u003c\/em\u003e on this blade belong squarely to that world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe same shift transformed the \u003cem\u003ekoshirae\u003c\/em\u003e. When a sword is worn every day in public and drawn almost never, the mounting becomes the part everybody sees — and Edo-period fittings makers responded with some of the finest small-scale metalwork ever produced anywhere. This sword shows the taste at its best: a deliberately austere plain iron guard set against a shakudō fuchi-kashira with gold-centred plum blossoms and a figural scene in high relief, all carried on a striped lacquer saya. Restraint and display in the same object, which is exactly what an Edo samurai was aiming for.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat is offered here is a complete, honest \u003cstrong\u003eShintō katana\u003c\/strong\u003e — a full-length unsigned blade in polish with a broad gunome hamon and tobiyaki in the ji, dressed in a striking diagonal-striped saya with a heavy plain iron tsuba, finely carved shakudō fuchi-kashira and a gilt dragon menuki.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/section\u003e\n\u003c\/section\u003e","brand":"Tokyo Nihonto","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57089791852868,"sku":"KATANA93","price":3700.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0753\/4080\/8516\/files\/Katana93_280K_0041_GenerativeFill3.jpg?v=1786349392","url":"https:\/\/tokyo-nihonto.com\/products\/katana93","provider":"Tokyo Nihonto","version":"1.0","type":"link"}