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A Chinese good copy?


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Hi Eric, With the limited supplies of tamagahane available from the Japanese tatara and the amount of swords claiming to be made from it coming from China and elsewhere, they must be smelting their own. Iron sand ore is rather commonplace being found in China and could be imported from Indonesia or New Zealand if needs be. A small tatara type smelter wouldn't be too hard to make. Now, that is, if, their description is accurate for the steel they use. I know a lot of swords coming from there of half decent quality were made of Swedish powdered steel and I recall an advert that touted steel coming from old Manchurian rails as being extraordinary because of the daily pounding of the trains at sub zero temperatures strengthening the steel. What tripe. It matters not though, foreign made shinken are still not nihonto and if made to deceive brings about a whole different question. They do however fill a niche market for practicioners who wish to enjoy their sport without paying high prices. John

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Hi Eric, With the limited supplies of tamagahane available from the Japanese tatara and the amount of swords claiming to be made from it coming from China and elsewhere, they must be smelting their own. Iron sand ore is rather commonplace being found in China and could be imported from Indonesia or New Zealand if needs be. A small tatara type smelter wouldn't be too hard to make. Now, that is, if, their description is accurate for the steel they use. I know a lot of swords coming from there of half decent quality were made of Swedish powdered steel and I recall an advert that touted steel coming from old Manchurian rails as being extraordinary because of the daily pounding of the trains at sub zero temperatures strengthening the steel. What tripe. It matters not though, foreign made shinken are still not nihonto and if made to deceive brings about a whole different question. They do however fill a niche market for practicioners who wish to enjoy their sport without paying high prices. John
....John, did you look at the pictures of their swords, they look a lot better than the average Chinese ones I see, but you can still see a Damascus kind of look in most of them. I was just wondering if they were actually using tamagahane or if that was just b.s. and if its not iron sand from Japan it would not be considered tamagahane I would imagine.
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Oh yes, in fact a lot of martial artists find them excellent for tameshigiri. I wonder when these products are said to be made of tamagahane. Is it of Japanese origin (which I doubt) or their version? The word isn't proprietary and there is no international regulatory body to administer the material or word. Certain manufacturers produce very good swords, however, for the type. I personally prefer to buy shinken from American smiths in support of their craft. Soon I will be able to buy a Japanese trained smith's swords, who is from Canada. 5 or 6 years from now, I expect. John

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Tamahagane = Advertising. Cheap advertising is everywhere these days of crisis... :roll:

 

Tamahagane and L6 are probably the most inflated "magic-words-to-sell" in the sword industry. But Tamahagane in the wrong hands still will not give the expected results

as in the hands of the smiths it should belong to. At least for now.

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http://www.zu-ben.com/zuben/swords.htm

 

his swords look like the one in question.

 

Eric I see from your link he has also met with Gassan Sadatoshi

Stephen, I saw that to, and it made me wonder, except for the tang looking so new I could see some people being fooled by these. With a little more work who knows what they could accomplish.
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That is Rich Chen that I mentioned above.

This link shows him making the steel, forging, tempering and polishing.

http://forums.dfoggknives.com/index.php?showtopic=14133

 

It's "iron sand from North China" so 'Tamahagane' is a falsehood.

So thats one of the Chens you mentioned, much better quality than most of the Chinese blades I see, I guess the word Tamahagane means different things to different people.
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This thread has raised some interesting points and they bear discussion. To me, a Nihonto is a sword made by a Japanese craftsman in Japan, by hand, using traditional techniques, from native materials.

A Japanese style sword made of American materials by an American in America regardless of the techniques used and the craftsman being trained in Japan, is an American sword not a Nihonto. Similarly, a Japanese style Chinese sword made of Chinese materials in China (etc.) is a Chinese sword. Are the lines of definition becoming blurred by the style of a sword regardless of its country of origin and provenance?

I realise I may run into difficulties here defining the products of native Japanese craftsmen working in America or China, using local materials.

However, for the sake of discussion, may I ask others on this board their views on so called Nihonto made outside of Japan?

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To my mind, Nihonto means Japanese sword.

Therefore, a sword made by the traditional methods by a native Japanese person would be Nihonto.

I don't believe it matters where it is made as long it meets the above criteria.

 

Case in point - I saw a katana on Aoi-Art a short while back made in Hong Kong.

"FAKE! FAKE!"

No, it was made by a smith(I forget the name) who was part of the team of smiths sent to Shanghai to repair the damaged swords during WWII. Apparently they returned to Japan through Hong Kong (occupied by Japan at the time) and this sword was forged.

So a genuine Nihonto forged in Hong Kong...

Would love to own that one. :D

 

In my opinion, the exception to this rule would be foreigners trained by a 'qualified' Japanese smith such as Keith Austin.

If you do the proper apprenticeship and are recognised by the authorities in the field, I think you deserve to use the correct label.

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Take for example our friend Pierre who is studying in Japan currently. Once he is fully qualified....if he brought back some tamahagane to Canada, and forged a sword there, would it be Nihonto? IMHO it would be.

Franky, it is all semantics. Doesn't really matter what we call it, matters what it is.

I expect given the right amount of training, and sand iron from China, a Chinese smith could probably forge something equal in quality to a Japanese smith. It would be of interest to martial artists and collectors of Chinese arms, just not Nihonto collectors for the most part. And it would be priced appropriately, not like a cheap Chinese fake.

One thing that isn't mentioned enough is that yes..the fakes are getting better. But most of the top level stuff isn't made to deceive, and is priced at a high level.

It's good to keep up with what is happening over the sea in China, but let's not get obsessed over it. More pages of "fakes" discussion than real nihonto once again. ;)

 

Brian

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HI,

 

Take for example our friend Pierre who is studying in Japan currently. Once he is fully qualified....if he brought back some tamahagane to Canada, and forged a sword there, would it be Nihonto? IMHO it would be.

 

Can this kind of sword get a torokusho? If yes, it is a nihonto. If no, that depends of your feeling, for many persons nihonto is dead with the disappearing of the samurai class.

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