Naginatanaoshi Wakizashi
S0152
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A mounted koto wakizashi. Naginatanaoshi, mitsumune. There is a naginata hi, and a remnant of a soebi on one side. Hawatare: 1 shaku 4 sun 5.2 rin (44 cm or 17.32"). The hamon is suguba ko-midare with gunome, sunagashi, kinsuji, hotsure, in very tight ko nie deki, and all aspects are in miniature. There is tobiyaki. The habuchi is extremely bright, as are the fine kinsuji and sunagashi. The jigane is an itame nagare packed with ji nie. There is profuse nie utsure. There are some areas of pin point openings that are of no importance. I am reminded of a description of a Kiyomaro in Meito by Fujishiro, "there is a long tateware, but it is to be ignored because the workmanship is so good".
The tsuka is Higo style dark brown leather tsuka maki with external soft metal menuki of mushroom, egg plant, etc. The fuchi-kashira are chrysanthemums are yamagane, there is a shakudo rim on the fuchi. Probably Shoami work. The iron tsuba, signed Kunihiro, has a shakudo mimi. The saya is brown lacquer with horn koiguchi and kurikata. The kojiri, presumably horn, is missing. The habaki was foiled at one time, but that is no longer there.
This came out of an estate in Illinois, and if it ever had papers, there were not with this lot. The blade is in polish, but I feel that this sword would benefit from a better polish. My feeling is that the blade is Nambokucho, and out of Yamato-den, perhaps something like Ko Mihara.