Brian

Can only confirm what Ray said. This is essentially a fake, made to deceive. They have been doing them for decades, maybe since soon after the war. Any stories of this coming back from the war are likely a bit muddled over time, we see this very often.

Thanks to the current auction, people like the sponsor, Sam and many others who have renewed recently and assisted, I have made a large-ish payment to a professional developer today who will be making some adjustments to the server environment and reducing load on the CPU, managing some huge bot traffic, and also taking us through the whole update process, making various tweaks and improvements. I am not rushing him, so the above will take place over the next week to 3 weeks, and I'll keep you guys updated. If there are any issues or funny things noticed, it will likely be him making some changes. We are almost there, and I am very positive about the future of the forum, thanks to you guys.

Just saw it. Thank you Mr Curran...and the others who have renewed recently. Big help. I have made a large-ish payment to a professional developer today who will be making some adjustments to the server environment and reducing load on the CPU, managing some huge bot traffic, and also taking us through the whole update process, making various tweaks and improvements. I am not rushing him, so the above will take place over the next week to 3 weeks, and I'll keep you guys updated. If there are any issues or funny things noticed, it will likely be him making some changes. We are almost there, and I am very positive about the future of the forum, thanks to you guys.

What a stunning looking book. Wish you all the best with it, and congrats on what looks like a very important reference work, superbly well done.

Basically a utility knife, of the sort taken to war, maybe for good luck or just general use. Not traditionally made, but of interest to militaria collectors.

Let's not get too off topic here. But I'll leave you with this thought....Elon Musk and Charlize Theron....both born in SA and now with US citizenship. Do they have more claim to being African American than many that are born in the USA? Before anyone takes offense, I don't mind either way. I'm over classifying people. People are just people.

Cookies in your browser store your password. That can NEVER be relied on. Everyone should know their password and not rely on it being stored. Same goes for all websites. Most browsers have a stored passwords list that will show you what it is. I suggest if people don't know what it is, they make a plan to find out or use the lost password feature etc. Login name will change to email address...your browser might pop up asking if you want to update your login details. Then you should be able to carry on as before. But please...make sure you at least know what your password is, or change it to one you know. I don't have access to people's passwords...I can set a new one for you, but I really don't want to know what it is. And yes...make sure your email is up to date, as if you ever use the lost password feature, it's going to email it to you. If you don't receive the email, check your spam folder!

This would be the obvious place to start. There are some serious collectors and people with knowledge among the members. https://www.ny-tokenkai.org/

One thing I NEED to mention, and I KNOW there are going to be a ton of people who only visit every few weeks or months that are going to me emailing me complaining they can't access the forum after the upgrade. So I am warning everyone NOW. Conventional forum security practice nowadays is NOT to use login names to login anymore. Because these are visible, so only the password is needed to hack an account, and there are ways to get those. So modern forums are going towards using your EMAIL to login, along with your regular password. Your username still shows with posts etc, but you will be using your registered forum email to login, not your username. For now, you can use either. After the update, only the email will be allowed to login. Soooo...I suggest EVERYONE goes into their profile, and makes sure they know what their forum email is that they used to register with. If it's old or obsolete, change it now. Or message me if you really don't know how to do it. Not all at once...we have a few weeks. But keep this in mind. Again...start getting used to logging in with your email and password. You'll be doing that in the future. No-one else can see your email, and your display name stays the same. It's just the login name that changes. You can do that now already, and change your browser saved login details for the future. Thanks.

My developer has identified a very complex and way above my pay grade set of reasons for all the issues, and has a plan in place. Some of it will be done soon, some towards the end of the month when we upgrade the software. We also have some great plans in place to improve the forum, the main homepage, and really jumpstart everything. Yes..this all comes at a cost, but thanks to the Gold members, the current auction sword donator, Sam and the buyer..and others who support us, we have this under control. I'm feeling better about getting everything sorted and looking forward to the next few weeks. Thanks for your patience all.

Only managed to get on now after rebooting the server. Seems that for some reason, the software is hammering the CPU useage up to 100%. After days of no issues, suddenly nothing loads again and CPU useage is up to max. I have now found a serious developer who will be doing the maintenance, looking into this issue, and also assisting with the update to the new software. he'll be working on the CPU issue now, and the software update likely end of the month. So please bear with me. We are now working on it, I have some quotes, and I am going ahead, so if the forum loads slowly, please know that we are doing something about it and at the end of this, I'll make sure we have a fast, reliaible service.

Hi all, Picked up a wakizashi this past week to sell for someone locally, found a buyer, but wanted to clarify the mei on this one for the buyer. It's signed tachi mei, appears to read Kanemitsu. But what I find odd is that there appears to be a partial date underneath the mei? If I am correct, this is odd placement, and an odd date too. Should I just assume gimei/added later, or dies this make any sense? Am I correct that it reads a day in the 8th month, without a year? Thanks in advance.

Look at the FAQ section above. Although not a detailed as you would like, the subject is covered a bit and gives some ideas.

Why look at only Japan? There are competent people in the US and elsewhere that can do this. Yes..there is a considerable waiting period. But you won't have the stress of waiting and exporting and importing etc etc. If you search the forum, you'll come across some of the ones that are consistently recommended.

We are being spoiled today with the addition of a superb and in depth article covering the smith Yamato no kami Tadayuki, compiled and shared by our member @Jan Horyna. Many thanks Jan, and well done on a superbly written article. It is available to members in the Downloads section.