Very interest article found on Reddit written by user voronoi-partition
There was a recent thread about the practical quality of
antique vs. modern swords. That got me curious -- how much did these antique
swords cost when they were first made?
It turns out we have some historical price records from
the Edo period that we can use:
In the late Edo period (c. 1800), 直胤 Naotane (perhaps the
greatest shinshintō smith) charged around 5 両 ryō for a bare blade -- no fittings,
just the bare blade.
In the early Edo period (c. 1660), we have some shintō
greats: 井上真改
Shinkai charged around 11 ryō and 忠綱 Ikkanshi Tadatsuna charged a bit
over 5 ryō.
These are all sai-jo saku "grandmaster" smiths
who would be at the top of their profession. These were treasure/heirloom
works, not intended as disposable combat weapons.
Of course, this also just turns the question into
"how much is a ryō." The ryō was a gold piece weighing about 16.5
grams. In terms of other currency in use at the time, one ryō was 4 貫 kan,
and a kan was a string of 1,000 copper coins 文 mon. Unfortunately, this doesn't
tell us anything about relative purchasing power. For example, saying a
hamburger costs $10 is not helpful if we don't understand how much people earn.
The TL;DR is that a low-ranking samurai made 3-5 ryō per
year. (See footnote for more details.)
This means that for a top-quality sword in the Edo
period, the average low-ranking gokenin would pay between 3-5 years of income.
For a higher-ranking hatamono, a single blade could cost 1% of their annual
income.
But this shows that the vast majority of swords used in
the Edo period were simply mass-produced because they had to be. This level of
artisanal workmanship was far out of reach of most of the samurai families. The
grandmaster works, even those newly made, were practically unobtainable except
by the higher-ranking nobility.
This discussion has also completely omitted the cost of
kotō -- including the Kamakura and Nanbokucho "golden age." To dig
into that, we need to understand how old swords were appraised and valued.
Happy to talk about it, but it's a lengthy post in and of itself, so maybe next
week if people are interested.
Footnote on samurai pay
If you are curious, here is a bit more about how samurai
were actually paid.
The basic income of a samurai was called a 本高
hondaka, and was paid through a grant of land (or the monetary equivalent).
Land values were tied to an estimate of how much rice could be produced: one 石 koku
of rice was enough to feed one person for one year. One ryō had an approximate
value of one koku. Family income was largely linked to your social status.
The highest-ranking families were the 普代
fudai who had fought on the side of the Tokugawa at the foundational Battle of
Sekigahara (1600). These were the majority of the approximately 200 daimyō
families, and they made at least 10,000 koku per year. For context, the very
wealthy Nabeshima family controlled around 350,000 koku, and the Tokugawa
family directly controlled around 4 million koku.
The next highest rank were the 旗本 hatamono. If the fudai
were like the hereditary CEOs, the hatamono were like middle and senior
managers -- or military officers. They made between 100 and 10,000 koku, with
most of them between 500 and 1,000 koku. There were about 5,000 hatamono.
Finally, the lowest rank was the 御家人 gokenin. These were
responsible for routine administrative duties and served as the core of the
army. The standard basic income of a gokenin was 3-5 koku. There were about
12,000 gokenin.
All of these incomes were taxed by the bakufu at a rate
of about 65%. Much of the rest of their income went to meeting military and
social obligations. There's a whole sidebar on the effect of taxation, currency
devaluation, and the financial collapse of the samurai during the Edo period.
While a fascinating topic, it is definitely too much to include here!
Further down in the comment section, the author added some more interesting information about what other goods might cost:
Well, for reference on prices, a liter of sake cost about 15 mon. A room in an inn was 30 mon at the low end and more like 75 mon on the high end. A formal outfit (hakama, haori, etc) was 1 ryō.
A maid made 2-3 ryō per year; laborers made about twice
that. I believe that the price of a byōbu (folding screen painting) from a
major artist was 5-40 ryō, so probably not that far off from a top-quality
sword.
Of course, merchants could not buy katana. There are a
number of wakizashi from old, great kotō masters that have been cut down to
just barely under the civilian length limit; I often thought that these may
have been "show pieces" for the merchant class.
Another way to think of it would be that the gokenin were
kind of like sergeants, who make about $40K USD in base pay. So by this metric,
a sword would cost around $150K USD. Really expensive for a sergeant, but not
that bad if you're in the top 1%.
