AI-generated conjecture · below the evidence/publication boundary

The gimei premium

Status: Prior

Status is derived only from the shepherd-authored triage/prediction data above -- community submissions and claims are a separate overlay and can never change it (see the participation panel below).

This is a proposed connection between two domains, generated by a language model. It is not an article and not evidence: it sits below the evidence/publication boundary. A quantitative prediction and a named kill-dataset are attached (when registered) so the claim stays falsifiable rather than merely evocative.

Claim (verbatim)

The gimei premium. Joins the economics of luxury counterfeiting to Japanese sword connoisseurship: forged signatures (gimei) on blades are counterfeit branding, so the forgery rate should rise steeply with the smith's brand equity, exactly as fake rates concentrate in the top handbag brands today.

Prediction clause (verbatim)

In modern certification outcomes for signed blades attributed to pre-1600 (koto) smiths, the share judged gimei rises monotonically with the smith's traditional rating class: top-rated (sai-jo saku) smiths show >=40% gimei among signed submissions while average-rated smiths show <=10%, a gradient of at least 4x that persists within each school and period class, so it is brand value and not mere age driving forgery.

Kill-dataset (verbatim)

Kill: NBTHK and juyo certification tabulations by smith and rating class (Fujishiro grades). A flat gimei rate across rating classes, or an inverted gradient, kills it.

Provenance

Run: Fresh agent generation · model: claude-fable-5

Generated by a fresh Fable-tier instance at maximum effort with generation-first blindness (no repo reads, no searches, no DB queries); title list supplied at launch, titles only, no verdicts or dossiers seen; prompt pre-committed in docs/GOAL_CONJECTURES_BATCH2_20260705.md (7e55eb8). Novelty unverified by construction.

Novelty / leakage triage

Adjacent (closely related prior work exists)

Both halves of the mechanism are stated in practitioner commentary citing NBTHK experts — 60-70% of signed market blades gimei, and the most-forged names being precisely the priciest smiths (Kotetsu, Masamune) — but this is dealer/enthusiast literature, not a published tabulation; the rating-tier gimei-rate gradient (>=4x by Fujishiro class) was not located anywhere formal. The claim's substance is trade knowledge awaiting quantification.

Tokyo Nihonto authentication guide (citing NBTHK expert estimates) — Practitioner statement of the mechanism

Predictions

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