Honami Origami and Valuations

Some time ago I had a Fukuoka Ichimonji katana with a Honami Kochu origami that stated a value of 100 gold pieces for the blade. I did not think too heavily about it. A dealer from Japan happened to see the blade and pointed out the paper and he said “That valuation is very unusual, I never saw one like that.”

I thought for some years he was referring to the fact that it had a value on it at all, as I was mostly familiar with later Honami origami that didn’t have any value on them. Recently I encountered another one like this, and so I decided to look at whatever records I could find about Honami valuations and try to dig more deeply into the subject.

The Honami family

If you have gotten involved at all with swords then this name will have come up at some point. A short summary here is that they are a family of sword polishers and experts that have existed for centuries in Japan. We are most familiar with a set of head masters from the main line of the family, though there were many judges and polishers that belonged to the family.

The earliest Honami judge that we commonly encounter is Honami Kotoku who worked for Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu. He was the 9th master of the Honami family and is held in very high regard. He did not leave many origami behind but he left gold inscriptions in the nakago of blades he judged. We do not usually encounter these at Juyo but they are scattered among the Juyo Bijutsuhin through to Kokuho blades. Given who his clients were, the blades he touched were very important and the result of that is the placing of the blades today at high levels.

For a full reading of the Honami Family I recommend Markus Sesko’s book on the subject.

Key generations

If we are to scope down then and look at the main line who left us their testimony during the Edo period, this is what we’re going to see:

9. Kotoku ca. 1570
10. Koshitsu ~ 1615
11. Koon ~ 1640
12. Kojo ~ 1680
13. Kochu ~ 1710
14. Koyu ~ 1740
15. Kojun ~ 1760
16. Kokyu ~ 1780
17. Koitsu ~ 1800

I will note again that there are many Honami active among various branches, but these were the heads of the main line with attributions we can frequently see among Juyo and higher swords.

About these men, there are praise and criticism. Honami Kochu is held as possibly the best judge among them or at the very least, the most reliable. All of the generations that precede him have accurate and strong attributions.

Starting with Koyu attributions start to get weaker and subject to some inaccuracy.

Low hanging fruit

There are some reasons for this, the first is due to “low hanging fruit.” By this understanding, whatever blades were hanging around Edo period Japan was a static pool that was left after the wars of the Muromachi period. The wars were periods in which capture, alliances, death, seizure of property, caused the pot to be stirred and swords to change owners. At the beginning of the Edo period with the country settling down, all of these methods to stir the pot are gone and the Honami under the control of the Tokugawa can begin a great work of assessing and attributing the various signed and unsigned blades parked wherever they landed after the wars.

From these were extracted great masterworks of Sadamune, Masamune, Yukimitsu, Go Yoshihiro, Samonji and various other Soshu smiths. These blades often unsigned when made for the warrior elite and also more prone to being used in fighting than older blades of Bizen and Yamashiro traditions. As such they represented more of a problem for the Honami to attribute and sort out.

One can imagine that over the first 100 years of the Tokugawa Shogunate that most of the best works of these smiths were rediscovered, polished, attributed, valued and given or received (or taken!) as gifts. But there is not an unending supply… just what exists and has been sitting there.

So with every decade there are fewer left undiscovered, though with a growing population, more need to find new blades by these makers as gift currency.

By the time we get to Koyu it means that the Honami were under some pressure to make high level attributions out of a shrinking pool of candidate blades.

This puts the head of the family between a rock (the Shogun and Daimyo) and a hard place (the reality of small quantities of high level unsigned blades left over).

Bear in mind this happens after 1700 and starting in the time of Honami Koyo. The practical solution to the problem is some combination of the following.

1. Exaggerate what you can find

In this, if a Shizu comes up, you can call it Masamune. If a Naoe Shizu comes up, you can call it Shizu. If a Taema comes up, you can call it Yukimitsu. This is basically fudging the measurement by putting your finger on the scale. History may end up looking at you as a weak judge, but it’s more a problem of corruption being forced on the Honami in order to satisfy the demands of their masters which are dealing with political and economic problems.

2. Elevate what was previously found

When the daimyo and Shogun exchange gifts, these often came as sets of tachi and katana, some of these being lower level blades and then sometimes in groups of two (daisho) or more blades in a single social visit. If you run out of quantity of blades, you can elevate the quality measurement to try to compensate.

As a result, a blade that may have had what seems to have been a maximum value of 100 gold coins might be elevated to 150 or 200 or more in some cases. The later the re-evaluation happened, the higher the value could go.

Now, there are a couple of exceptions to bear in mind. The first is that some adjustment of valuation is natural. If you are running out of great old blades and the demand is high, then of course the law of supply and demand will drive up the value of the best true examples. So some re-evaluation or reconsideration of value is natural and correct. Inflation is also a real thing no matter what you’re talking about and trying to maintain a fixed valuation of anything has never worked over human history.

3. If you’re stuck, make one

In some cases there are high level swords made in the early Edo period by the Horikawa Kunihiro school and Umetada school and their various branches that took Sadamune and Shizu as templates. As good koto blades ran out, some of those blades got tapped into, made to look suriage by removing the signature and filing it over. In this way you could produce a Soshu-like blade that could pass in an emergency as a gift. When you have fallen this far you are deep in the corruption territory. I don’t think this was done until the 1800s, but it was done.

Valuations

Valuations given by Kochu and prior generations appear to me to be made off of the same scale and for a sword that we would consider to be equivalent to Juyo Token, these appear to have grades in general between 1 and 100 pieces of gold. There are some rare cases that exceed these. These may not be literal values but some attempt to express relative importance of the blade. Any blade important enough to get a paper from Honami Kochu we could understand to be equivalent to Juyo in the modern period. To obtain a higher value would place it at the upper limit of Juyo and toward maximum value be equivalent to Tokubetsu Juyo. This is at least the way it would seem to be on its face to me, until later periods got carried away with increasing values outside of this scale.

Starting at the 14th generation Koyu, as well as the weaker attributions we start to see escalating valuations. The blades on the Kyoho Meibutsu Cho are the most famous blades in Japan in the Kyoho era (around 1700). Some of these blades have reported values as can be found in Yamanaka’s Nihonto Newsletters. Some of those valuations are very high and are unsourced. As such we need to take them with a grain of salt as they too were subject to escalating prices.

The effects of the period

As a result of natural increase as well as artificial inflation of value, we need to always try to constrain a valuation given for a particular sword to the time period in which the value was given. When I analyzed the data, though Koyu has a reputation for being a weaker judge, I do not see in the data a lot of reason to think he was a big part of the problem. There are a couple of question marks, but his valuations mostly look consistent with generations that came before him.

So we should at least look at his period of time and say that there is an era before this of fairly consistent valuations issued for swords, and then during and after his tenure the inflation begins to take off.

By the time we are in the 1800s, we are also dealing with a lot of accumulated change in the currency itself. Currency was devalued, the size of the oban coin changed, and so forth. This makes it very much and apples and oranges comparison when looking at middle 1700s and later valuations vs. those from the earlier period. I don’t think there is much of a fair correlation between the two.

Denomination

Honami valuation came in kan and in mai. The first are strings of copper coins and the second are gold coins. This introduces another difficulty, which is how to convert between one and the other. I have read that the Honami started to use kan in order to use higher numbers in their valuations but when we look at the time periods involved there is no pattern to the results that shows a shift from mai to kan as being a preferable reading. As in the current period, the relationship of the value of copper to gold is not fixed. So it is really not possible to make a clear statement that will apply to every year of the Edo period about the ratio of kan to mai and know for sure that it will hold true.

Since there is pretty much an even distribution of these denominations used for valuation, if we want to try to produce a list from high to low it is difficult to give a reliable result. What I have done for my method was simply to adopt Dr. Tokuno’s ratio which is 20 kan for 1 mai.

Data sources

I used all of the Juyo, Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo Bijutsuhin swords (about around 13,000 swords in total) as one data source, and I added to this Yamanaka’s reports on the Kyoho Meibutsu Cho.

During early Juyo sessions, the NBTHK reported when a blade had Honami papers but they did not always report the value. This also depended on the owner of the sword to submit the Honami paper with the sword to Juyo. This is not something that was a habit. We need always to remember that Juyo when it was new, is a process that had to find its own way. Over time as the NBTHK published results with Honami papers, that encouraged others to submit. By the time Tokubetsu Juyo was introduced in the early 1970s, Honami papers were more often included with this higher level paper and photographed and displayed on the description that goes on the back side of the photograph.

Compared to these two papers, Juyo Bijutsuhin is a much older paper from another era and it was a real rarity that one of these would include photographs or mention of the Honami papers when present. As a result it was hard to get a lot of data out of that set of about 1000 blades.

Lastly, many papers are obviously lost now. People lose Juyo papers within years or decades of obtaining a blade, and sometimes this is through carelessness, or lost in the mail, or the owner died and the paper couldn’t be located, or any of a dozen reasons. The papers may exist somewhere and just be separated from the sword, or the papers could be destroyed.

So we need to understand that failure in the modern period and then realize that keeping a Honami origami side by side with a blade for 300 years requires perfect custodianship and care as well as luck. As you will see in the following list, fires from war and earthquake wiped out a lot of important blades. For every world class blade wiped out, a lot of very good blades went with it. Someone running for their life might also grab the family treasure sword, and not take time to go through the paperwork to find the origami.

For all of these reasons we need to understand how precious the Honami papers are, because they are in some cases the only remaining window we have into the past life of the sword. We can see if it was held in high regard or wonderment through these papers, and when we see centuries of careful custodianship it needs to make us put steel in our spines and make sure we don’t dishonor those who came before us by messing up what they were able to hand to us.

What I looked at

Now in analyzing the Juyo and Tokuju works, we need to understand the following categories:

1. the vast majority of blades never had a Honami origami
2. there are those that have origami and they are not mentioned because the owner never sent it in when the blade went in
3. there are those that are mentioned but not described in detail in the Juyo and Tokuju descriptions
4. there are those that list all the information on the Honami origami within the sword description
5. there are those that have a photograph of the Honami origami that let me read the papers directly

Out of 11,852 Juyo papers issued, there are 11,648 swords that fall into category 1 and 2 combined.

There are 113 swords in category 3 of which 27 went on to pass Tokubetsu Juyo.

There are 91 swords in category 4 and 5 combined of which 18 went on to pass Tokubetsu Juyo.

At Tokubetsu Juyo 3 origami were revealed which did not have valuation information on them. These are all in the first 3 sessions. 73 were revealed that had valuations on them. So by subtracting the numbers above, (73+3) – (27+18) = 31 of these swords had Honami origami that were not reported at the time of Juyo.

This number is useful to us because it lets us understand that when a blade went to Juyo, if it had a Honami paper then half the time the owner didn’t bother to send it in, at minimum. There may be some more Tokuju blades that didn’t have their paper go in, but since the NBTHK photographs them and it is known that the Honami origami is part of the package that is important to have when passing Tokuju, people have a very strong reason to send them in when they exist.

So if it holds that about 50% of the Honami origami were skipped over at the time of Juyo, it implies there are only about 400 swords with Honami origami out of the approx. 12,000 that passed Juyo.

This would imply then that roughly only about 3 swords out of 100 have a Honami Origami at this point in time.

These numbers surprised me, as I knew Honami origami were rare and precious but I did not know how rare.

I will say that almost all of the old Honami origami seem to have valuations on them as can be seen by the Tokuju report. Whenever an origami was photographed, it contained a valuation on it.

For Jubi, as mentioned they come from an older era and I was only able to directly confirm 5 blades with origami and valuation on them. At this point I confess I was getting pretty tired and I did not take the time to go through all of the Jubi on a fine print level. There are maybe more mentioned but my feeling is that the Honami origami were skipped over more often during the time that Jubi were actively being issued.

Yamanaka

Albert Yamanaka wrote up extensive comments on the Kyoho Meibutsucho and included valuations wherever he found them. Some of these are sourced by saying who did the valuation, and some are sourced with only a timeframe. If the timeframe was middle 1600s then it let me narrow it down to a guess at the judge who made the valuation. But since the summary and the comments did not always agree, some of those values had to have been inflated in the last half of the Edo period along with the fame of the blade.

Because of the unreliable and unattributed valuations in this section, I did two reports. One with only information that was sourced to the judge who made the valuation, and then a second one with whatever valuation data was available. So you should take anything without a judge named with a grain of salt.

A word on value

The swords on the Kyoho Meibutsucho are famous swords. Fame breeds its own value. The Fudo Masamune is a great example of Masamune’s work and it is also signed. This blade was purchased for 500 kan (about 25 gold coins). No further value was given for this blade, but as it became famous it no doubt increased in value though no value was further recorded.

Some of the blades on the Kyoho Meibutsucho are also not the strongest in their departments though they were famous and became even more famous by being on this list. As fame is a feedback loop, the more famous a blade got the more valuable it got. This is an explanation for the values spiralling up for the blades on this list even though some were of questionable quality.

Now, why are there better blades that exist that never got onto this list?

If the Honami come to your mansion to ask to see your best swords because he is making a list of the best swords in the country in order to show the Shogun, you are just as likely to show him a sacrificial lamb than the greatest masterpiece your family owns. Such reports back to the Shogun might invite a social call from the Shogun and with that, a request to see some nice swords… and from there you may find yourself on the giving end of a nice treasure.

Thus swords that were in hiding and private treasures of the clan in the Edo period had some incentive to stay hidden than to be published all over the country in terms of who had what and where. Maybe it’s better to hand over your second best Masamune to make it clear you do have a Masamune and are a man of standing, and then to keep the better one quiet.

But if your clan famously received one as a gift, then there is no sense in keeping that information secret and you might as well put it on the list. To make the point I can quote from the Token Bijutsu on a Masamune that was attributed by Honami Koshitsu, is genuine, but was hidden in the Edo period and has no papers now.

With the good balance in the hira-niku, the shape is graceful in spite of its suriage condition, and the inside of the ha has a lot of activity. This sword displays abundant beauty and energy. It is a surprising thing, that until now, this sword has had no title, but we can say that this is Okura-Shukokan’s secret treasure. This sword was donated by Maeda Toshitsune as a memorial for Honami Koshitsu’s parents to Shonakayama hokekyo Ji Gojunoto.

So we can see from this, keeping your mouth shut about a good thing was indeed an Edo period practice.

Summary

First to summarize, I found the following valuations that I could determine the maker, and then  some that were narrowed down via the date and guesswork. This possible additional count is in parenthesis. Bear in mind this is origami with valuation.

9. Kotoku: 0, (1)
10. Koshitsu: 1, (1)
11. Koon: 21, (3)
12. Kojo: 40, (10)
13. Kochu: 74, (2)
14. Koyu: 13, (1)
15. Kojun: 2
16. Kokyu: 1
17. Koitsu: 1

There are another 118 valuations by repute, most of these are established by Yamanaka, and it is not clear who made them. For going through Yamanaka I have to thank my friend Nick Kolick who checked each of the individual records.

Signed valuations

These are the Edo period valuations that I can confirm in all of the published works available today with the judge clearly stated. The ranks of the blades, where it has a modern classification, are given and color coded. Judges that come at or after the middle Edo era inflation of prices are highlighted. Blades with names are stated, and if on the Kyoho Meibutsucho highlighted and prefixed with (M). Further notes are added if the blade appears to now be lost or destroyed. If the judge has a question mark after his name, the date of the appraisal is known and I assigned the closest family head to the time of the appraisal to the record. Take those with a grain of salt as they tend to be on the higher side and no name was attached to them. In some cases a blade carries an earlier valuation and a later one by known or unknown Honami judges who increased the value of the blade. If so they are sorted by the original value and the inflated value stated. It may be more accurate to sort by the inflated value. Final note, inflated value is not necessarily pejorative. As mentioned previously there are natural reasons for values to increase.

The following table has all of the reputed values I’ve been able to find out about. It is in text, the above is an image, but unfortunately it loses the color coding when I export from Apple’s Numbers (/casts dirty look at Apple).

An interesting note here is that the highest value I saw assigned to a blade was the Honebami Toshiro and it wasn’t a valuation. Rather it was a purchase price and it was outrageously high (3,000 gold pieces plus a stack of gifts). This blade has a long and interesting history, I will blog about it at some point. But it is a Naginata Naoshi and is unsigned, furthermore it was burned and has a new hamon put on it probably by Yasutsugu. But it has long been held to be work of Awataguchi Yoshimitsu and the blade is very beautiful with exquisite horimono. Its name means Bonecutter. Anyway the blade lost, found, lost and found… and one time spent a century or so in a castle moat before being found again. It was bought back by the family that held it prior to one of the times being lost, and that was the amount of money they had to cough up to get it back.

The second highest value blade on the list is the Wakasa Masamune, said to be 1,000 mai. I have had a chance to handle that blade in Japan. It is in rough condition now but is another blade with a long and flamboyant history.

These are reminders that treasure swords are not only treasures because of what they represent, but that they are historical artifacts. The exploits and stories surrounding a blade can be as important as the beauty, condition and artistic integrity of these blades when it comes to how they were valued in the Edo period. Sometimes when we view a blade these days that is in poor condition we can be dismissive, especially with our modern bias toward new and factory made goods that we dismiss after a year as obsolete and worn out. We can never look at swords like this but have to remember their centuries of service and the generations of warriors and warlords who came before us and treasured the blade. Without them we would not have the wealth of preserved items in this field that we have now, and we have to maintain this perspective.