Brian

There used to be a very large and active Japanese sword forum in China, here: www.hfsword.com/bbs/forumdisplay.php?fid=4 But it seems to be gone now. Perhaps some Wayback Machine work will pull some info. https://web.archive.org/web/20200920171955/http://hfsword.com/bbs/index.php

Dan, I think you will find that most of us don't even notice or care about reputation. It's part of the software, so it's included. Don't stress about it, less than a handful even look at it. And it can indeed be handy when looking at responses to know who has been here a long time, and who has a handful of responses from people.

Likes

Bruce, NO picture should ever be even 1 meg. That's insane. Please resize. 300k or so is more than enough for pics. At this rate, we'll need to double the hosting costs to keep up. Modern cellphones are a PITA. Just Google free image resizer. Uploading straight from cellphones is going to lead to me having to rethink hosting.

The blade pic you just posted, that's the tachi or the Gunto? If the Gunto, may be a Showato. Not sure. If it's the tachi, grab it.

Hmm.....that does look terrible. Nakago is going to have to be the deciding factor. Even the minimal fittings that are there are worth $200 or so... Tsuka was stripped of the typical tachi fittings/menuki. No signs it had a wrap would be my guess. Blade may be an issue...may even be a steel tsunagi. But easily decided when you look in hand or get more pics.

Ignore him Colin, the rest of us do. Every forum has the resident troll. I hesitate to get rid of him because of "the devil you know" thing.

I also suspect it's a fake. But am waiting for the experts.

Grab it. Fast. It's a tachi. You really can't lose much at that price. Bet it's gone.

Definitely a lot of work went into that. It wasn't some 5 minute field repair. Hmm. Someone must have wanted that system specifically instead of just whittling a wooden dowel. Very interesting.

For some weird reason I see Winnie the Pooh

As mentioned, I like these a heck of a lot. But I have no educated opinion worth mentioning, so I just appreciate from a distance. But thanks for sharing them. Quality work.

Ok guys, points made. Let's get back on topic. And I do agree that we need to be careful about making absolute statements when they are not proven facts. Opinions are fine. But statements of facts that are not if they can't be backed up. Done now...let's move on.

He spent many months in Japan, hanging with top dealers, Tanobe san, and others in the highest levels of the sword world there. So YES.....I expect he attended many shinsa.

Very very definitely planned. These were not casually churned out, there was a lot of design work and pattern books etc.