Sold as is

see last photo for size

Serious buyers with basic understandings only please

for sale

Koto period Katana in Shirasaya,

with NBTHK Hozon & old white paper double paper,

O-suriage, Mumei unsigned,

attributed to:

志賀関 Shiga Seki

関兼延 Seki Kanenobu

as introduced, this particular blade comes with 2 different papers both by NBTHK, which one is the old system white paper, another is a newly submitted NBTHk Hozon paper.

at first glance to those who are not familiar it seems like the 2 paper gave different attribution, however, 兼延Kanenobu is the only smithline of the 志賀関Shiga Seki branch of Seki school, thus they actually provided the exact same attribution.

the 兼延Kanenobu smithline actived around mid to late Muromachi period with several generations inherited this Mei. It was told that the first generation 兼延Kanenobu originally worked in the 直江村Sugue-mura village of the country of 美濃Mino (the 関Seki area), which the 2nd generation migrated to the 志賀Shiga area of the country of 尾張Owari, from then this branch of Seki school is named after their new location as 志賀関Shiga Seki, and became one of the early foundation for the later well known 尾張Owari sword forging tradition during Shinto period.

as shown in the photos, despite having some minor surface stains and scratches here and there due to long term storage, overall the blade is in solid condition with no catastrophic imperfection or damages observed.

Although based on my observation it's barely still intached, one thing to note is that the Hamon at Kissaki is very very thin now due to multiple damage and re-polish throughout the history, thus one need extra care to protect it from another damage.

The Nakago, as one can see, has been O-suriage'd (greatly shortened) and re-mounted to multiple different Koshirae by the previous owners. Based on observation on the Mekugi-ana, it was originally a much longer blade (despite currently already a standard Nagasa)

, possibly around 3 Shaku, which might be used as an 大太刀O-dachi or 野太刀Nodachi in the battlefield during the Warring States period.

Nagasa:

2 Shaku 2 Sun 3 Bu Kyo

~67.6cm or 26.6inches