Antique Japanese & World Weapons AUG. 29th
Lot 30:
LIVEAUCTIONEERS BIDDERS, PLEASE VIEW ALL 87 DETAILED PHOTOS IN HIGHER RESOLUTION ON OUR WEBSITE sofedesignauctions.com OR invaluable.com AS LIVEAUCTIONEERS ONLY ALLOWS 20 PHOTOS. THANK YOU ~ ! ~~~~~ Spectacular Japanese Samurai NO-DACHI Sword by KANEMITSU SAKU ~ 35 1/2" Nagasa. A very rare Samurai sword, an Ubu-Nakago, slightly machiokure shin-shinto era No-Dachi, signed Kanemitsu Saku. Originally mounted with two Mekugi. Red copper fuchi-kashira decorated with keibori flowers, signed YOSHINAGATO. Massive red copper tsuba with fan in sukashi and keibori. Red lacquered saya with some losses. Extremely long tsuka with gilt copper dragon menuki. Blade in good polish exhibiting excellent active Hamon tamper line and blood-grove to either side. ~~~ State of the Art blade indeed on this exceptionally rare and impressive Samurai weapon, as No-dachi swords are very difficult to produce because their length makes traditional heat treatment more complicated: The longer a blade is, the more difficult (and expensive) it is to heat the whole blade to a homogeneous temperature, both for annealing and to reach the hardening temperature. The quenching process then needs a bigger quenching medium because uneven quenching might lead to warping the blade. ~~~~~ The method of polishing is also different. Because of their size, No-dachi are usually hung from the ceiling or placed in a stationary position to be polished, unlike normal swords which are moved over polishing stones. ~~~~~ In the past, acquiring a fully sharpened No-dachi was difficult, as they required special custom orders. ~~~~~ As battlefield weapons, No-dachi were too long for samurai to carry on their waists like normal swords. There were two main methods in which they could be carried. One was to carry it on one’s back; however, this was seen as impractical as it was impossible for the wielder to draw it quickly. The other method was simply to carry the sheathed No-dachi by hand. The trend during the Muromachi era was for the samurai carrying the No-dachi to have a follower to help draw it. ~~~~~An exception does exist, though. The Koden Enshin-ryu taught by Fumon Tanaka use a special drawing technique for "short" no-dachi allowing it to be carried on the waist. The technique is to pull out the sheath rather than drawing the blade. While this move is also used in other schools, for example, Yagyu Shinkage-ryu, Shin muso Hayashizaki-ryu and Iaido, only Enshin-ryu seems to have used it to improve the drawing speed of a No-dachi, the other schools having used it with classical Katana. The Kage-ryu style is also used to draw from the belt, using blades of approximately 2.8 shaku. ~~~~~No-dachi swordplay styles differed from that of other Japanese swords, focusing on downward cuts. ~~~~~One possible use of No-dachi is as large anti-cavalry weapons, to strike down the horse as it approaches. Alternatively, it could be used as a cavalry-on-cavalry weapon comparable to the Chinese Zhanmadao, with the long reach, increased weight and slashing area of the blade offering some advantages over spears, lances and smaller swords. ~~~
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