A Sophisticated Forgery

It is well known that increasingly more and more modern forgeries of swords and sword fittings pouring into the market, notably from China and to some extent from Japan as well.  Although these modern forgeries are surprisingly getting better and better, they could not fool any experienced collector.  However there are occasionally exceptions and such was a sword sold as the genuine work by Sugawara Kanenori at a sale room in London in recent years. 

The shinshinto smith Sugawara Kanenori (1830-1926)[i], in 1906 along with Gassan Sadakazu were awarded by the Meiji Emperor the title of “帝室技芸員” (Teishitsu Gigei-in = Artisan of the Imperial Household) which is considered the equivalent of the title of Living National Treasure used today.  A designation came to be considered the greatest honour that a Japanese craftsman could achieve.  Kanenori worked as a swordsmith for about sixty years until his death in 1926.

The description of the sword as quoted from the sale catalogue:

A SHINSHINTO TACHI BLADE BY KANENORI, DATED 1892

"of shallow koshi-zori, shinogi-zukuri with chu-kissaki, choji-midare hamon of nie and nioi with an area of tempering on the ji resembling dragons on each side, hakikake boshi, fine mokume-hada, ubu-nakago with one mekugi-ana, dedicationary inscription and tachi-mei Hoki (no) Kuni ju Sugawara Kanenori ..., Meiji 25 (1892), 69.6cm ... in shirasaya"

The overall shape, structure and hamon of this blade, especially the choji-midare hamon and also the area of tempering on the ji resembling dragons on each side do look impressive. Although his usual hamon is gunome he did sometimes produce choji-midare such as this one. 

Tang - the file marks and the tang shape look fine too. The unusual lengthy signature was done confidently. However the arrangement of the characters does look odd at places. The signature (a total of 37 characters) could be loosely translated if one ignores the odd characters appearing here and there. 

“Sugawara Kanenori from Hoki (no) Kuni respectfully made this, at the Kudan residential forge in Tokyo, on New Year’s day of 1892, to the order of Asada sensei.”

1)奉三辰浅田先生の命造之

Sanshin (no) Asada Sensei (no) mei (wo)  hōji kore (wo) tsukuru

2)明治廿五年歳次壬辰一月一日壬辰

3)於東京九段鍛工舎

4)伯耆国住菅原包則謹銘之

Hoki (no) Kuni ju Sugawara Kanenori tsutsushinde kore (wo)  meizuru

However any faithful translation would come into many difficulties as there are odd arrangements of characters as well as meaningless characters appear here and there.

In the first line, the expression奉…の命[i]造之indicates it was a special order.  It is not known who “Asada Sensei” was, the two characters “san shin” 三辰 which come before presents difficulty to translate.  It is unlikely but if it were a place’s name, it could mean “the sword was specially made to the order of Asada Sensei from Sanshin”.  Otherwise the 'Sanshin' might have been a shrine to which Asano Sensei had instructed Kanenori to dedicate the sword. 

In the second line it is difficult to make sense why the "sai" (歳) is there at all, neither why it is followed by the "ji" (次). The jin (壬) and "shin" (辰) are the cyclical components for Meiji 25 but repeated at the end of the sentence rendering the repetition of the year 1892 a total of three times.

It has also been suggested that the above appears to be a calendrical motif.  “Sanshin” refers to the “sun, moon and stars”; “saiji” is a technical term referring to the revolution of Jupiter round the earth (12 years, apparently).  The first jin shin are the cyclical components while the second jin (water) shin (dragon) refers to the year of the dragon (Incidentally the year 1892 is the year of the dragon).  Hence the areas of tempering on the ji resembling dragons were done on each side of the blade.  There was an Asada Gôryû, astronomer and calendrical expert at the end of the 18^th century. This Asada might be a descendant or in some way related.

Kanenori was working around Meiji 25 for the Meiji shrine, so the 'Kudan Tankosha' would be fine for line 3.

In line 4, the inscriptions “tsutsushinde  meizuru” 謹銘meaning respectfully signed is very unusual indeed, rather than the usual expression of “tsutsushinde saku” 謹作 meaning respectfully made.

In fact there is an almost identical blade by Kanenori in V&A, illustrated in Gregory Irvine’s book entitled “The Japanese Sword, the soul of the samurai”, p.117.  It is reproduced here together with the illustration of the blade concerned for comparison.  It has the same structure, boshi, shape and the tempering pattern of a dragon.  However the hamon is his usual gunome, and the tang is far better done than this one.  Also the file marks are different, they are slanting.

The illustrations below show  the sword concerned below the one  which is the sword in V & A. 

The sword in V & A also has long inscriptions and also similarly has the area of tempering on the ji resembling dragons on each side.  However this sword was made “15 years” later in 1907.  It is likely that the sword concerned somehow modelled on this sword and was made recently.  The long inscriptions on the sword in V & A are the usual Japanese expressions.  The following are transliteration and translation quoted from Irvine’s book:

“Teishitsu Gigei-in Sugawara Kanenori, Nan-ju hachi sai, Kin saku

(Sugawara Kanenori, Craftsman of the Imperial Household aged 78 years, respectfully made this)

Meiji Yon-ju nen, jugatsu, Shichi nichi, Eikoku Taishi Makudonarudo-ko Go-ganzen ni oite kore O niragu

(seventh day, tenth month of the fortieth year of the reign of Emperor Meiji [equivalent to 1907], respectfully tempered before the British Ambassador MacDonald) …

Illustration from Gregory Irvine’s book entitled “The Japanese Sword, the soul of the samurai”, p.117.

Illustration from the sale catalogue

The blade concerned was submitted for appraisal at the London NTHK Shinsa last November 2008.  There were a team of six judges on the NTHK shinsa panel.  The sword was judged to be a “modern fake made by a Chinese artist in China”!

There were initial disbelief and questions were put forward to NTHK a couple of weeks after the Shinsa.  A NTHK spokesman commented that “there were no more than 3 or 4 (out of 200 plus) swords labelled as modern Chinese fakes at the shinsa, because the way in which the characters were done not particularly Japanese.  There may also have been issues with the way the nakago was finished and the workmanship in the blade …”

Second opinion was sought to the senior members of the “To-ken Society of Great Britain”, and as usual, very detailed and constructive feedback was received.  They were of similar opinion in that the arrangement of characters in the dating system is strange and that indicated the sword is not of Japanese manufacture … further comments were made of the signature which are varied to the actual signature of Kanenori.  The quality of forging was considered inferior to the genuine work of Kanenori and concluded that the sword was not his genuine work of but a later copy. 

From the above, this can be concluded that it is indeed a very sophisticated forgery.  On conclusion, some forgeries have indeed reached a level which would fool even experienced collectors and experts.  This is only one which has been identified, and for sure there are many similar forgeries such as these ones. 

Minh Chung

i) Sugawara Kanenori's real name is Miyamoto Shigahiko also signed Miyamoto Kanenori, Fujiwara Kanenori and Miyamoto Sugawara Kanenori.

[ii] hō mei” 奉命 or “hō…mei” 奉…命meaning “receiving order” (For other examples of this expression, please see oshigata nos. 297 & 624 in “Kanzan, Shintō oshigata dictionary” by Sato Kanzan, Tokyo 2005.  This expression is however not commonly used.  The character “hō” 奉 is commonly used with “nō” 納 meaning “dedicating” (sword to a temple).

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