Brian

I would second Moriyama san's deduction. Nice piece of history.

If I can make it to Japan this year (health still uncertain) you can bet that I look forward to seeing Moriyama san again, and he will hopefully accept the forum taking him out for lunch or dinner on me

The geometry is completely wrong, the habaki is completely wrong...very typical of Chinese fakes. Markings on the habaki (and these are gibberish) are typical of fakes and not present on real ones. The handle wrap is completely wrong...not even close. The edge "sharpening" is completely incorrect, and even if was present on a real one, would render it worthless. Can't tell if any of the fittings are genuine, but it's irrelevant anyways. And this style of fake is generally modern, so calling it early 20th c is misleading, and I would think subject to a refund. Man...that habaki is bad.

Yip, correct. They were all made by TGE, and the number produced is correct. Very sought after model Correction: Just remembered: I think that there were only 550 made by TGE....they are very rare. I think the rest were made by another factory.

My Baby is in shockingly bad condition. Came from China, must have been captured and stored there for 60 years. Congrats, great Grail set. Very desirable grouping.

Yes, but those cloths can pick up particles from everywhere, not just the blade. Put the cloth down on a table or wherever you store it, and you have to be careful you don't get some dirt grains on it. Best to store it in a clean small box or something, and even then make sure you keep it clean. I'm inclined to agree with Tom. Something in the scabbard at some point. Maybe gone now. But could have happened at any point. Blow out the saya with a compressor carefully. Tap it upside down on a table. Whatever did it might be gone now, but you'll need to pay careful attention.

This is Ray's dealer section, which will also give you a link to his website https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/forum/121-swordsofjapancom/

Naginata poles are usually slightly oval if I'm not mistaken, with yari being round like this? Just wondering if that's somewhat of a rule.

Suggest you convert them from Apple .heic format to regular jpeg. No-one wants to deal with heic

Good job Dale. Let's get this back into a nice .pdf, and I'll upload it to the articles section.

Fascinating!

Use a .177 airgun cleaning rod. Brass at the end usually, you can heat it, hammer it and shape it into a sharp hook. Stiff enough to move around and sometimes it's enough to attach a coarse screw at the end (braze, solder etc) and screw it into the paper and extract.

Yeah, but remember that they have been doing gimei for hundreds of years,.

The brief answer to this is no...there are no laws around this at all. The only thing that can resemble that, is the regulations against exporting the top levels of papered swords, such as that described here: https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/23644-juyo-bijitsuhin-export/

Welcome back! Gave us a scare there. I noticed a lack of posts from @Stephen lately too, but I see he has been logging in, so I assume he's ok and hibernating. Good to know people are missed when they disappear. You need to at least get a carrier pigeon Dale!