Brian

Oh, just want to clarify, there are no thoughts of increasing Gold membership fees. My intention is to try and increase numbers. At $5/month, I think people are getting a bargain. But based on the lack of any response, doesn't seem like there is much motivation or interest. Would have to have to limit free sales listings or consider some form of income from that beyond the current voluntary. But if no-one has any interest or suggestions I am going to have to give some thought as to how to raise some funds. We're going slightly backwards, and while it isn't uncomfortable right now, I don't want to have to stress later.

in SA, you have to do some pre-notification to make them aware it's coming back and avoid import duties. I know this for cameras and other expensive items you take overseas. I expect there's a similar procedure that side.

Sometimes a sword gives off "has possibilities" vibes and makes you think it's worth putting decent effort into looking further at it. This is one.

Just a question for you guys out there. Really could use a bit of an income boost here, and with Paypal preventing raffles etc, the easiest way is to increase the Gold Memberships here: https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/subscriptions/ My question to you guys...both current Gold members, and non members is, what features would you like to see offered in Gold membership that would either convince you to renew your membership, or those that aren't, convince you to take up a membership? We currently offer a bunch of advantages such as increased pm limits, editing time, daily posts, reduced search delay time, posting size limits, commercial signature link (gonna have to crack down on that one) and other features. Are there other features that would sway you? Are the current limits enough or would you like any of those increased? A section available only to Gold members? Maybe with shoshin signatures or a private chat area? Or anything else that the software is capable of? The upcoming software update will have a lot more features, and there will also be exclusive Gold member themes/color schemes and other things. There are a ton of features we don't use. I don't want to lock non-Gold members out of any useful downloads, or resources we have currently. Would like to remain limit free on sales listings. But would really help all of these if we can come up with some way to increase interest in Gold. Let's hear your ideas, if they are possible and don't take a huge amount of admin time, I'll consider them.

Kozuka in the Ishiguro style...

I have no defense Somehow that whole sentence got scrambled. I have edited and fixed it.

WW2 souvenir or general soldier's tanto, or made for sale to soldiers just after the war. The nakago is crudely shaped. Not traditionally made, but Japanese. Could be the front part of a repurposed broken longer sword, but nakago is crudely shaped. Likely of interest to a WW2 militaria collector in the low few hundreds of $'s.

@Matsunoki @paulb Know of anything?

Lack of a stamp doesn't indicate Gendaito, but presence of one indicates Showato. When getting a military sword, you have to assume an "arsenal" type blade no matter if there is a stamp or not. Only when you look at the hamon and hada can you start thinking it may be better. If you have activity and hada, you can then start suspecting water quenched and/or forged. Without those, forget about what the mei tells you. But in this case, even the mei looks like a classic Seki Showato. Maybe with some additional processes in the forging, but nothing there points towards Gendaito.

This is how it ended up. Does it look correct?

Based on that hamon, I do not. Looks like a typical wartime oil quenched hamon to me. Just an opinion.

I doubt it.

It is not unusual for Kyu-Gunto to be fitted with older blades using this method, by threading the back part of the nakago. A known method. Looks like a nice blade, well signed.

I think if Japanese (Big if) then indeed, it's lost the front of the blade, and there likely isn't a boshi there. The hi is crudely cut, making me think this was a cheap sword cane. Nakago is way out of proportion.

Could be lacquer/Urushi?

According to the hosts, we had indeed reached a daily sending limit and outgoing mails were paused. They have reset it and they should be going again, but I need to look at upgrading to allow for more mails etc. You can imagine how many notification emails go out daily. Please let me know if you are once again receiving mails.

Bit far from Japan, and I know that there are some awesome polishers there. But you may even want to have a chat with @Andrew Ickeringill

A very easy one for a leather guy to make.

There does seem to be an issue with the server sending emails. I am trying to get to the bottom of it.

The people who supply yu your internet connection... or email account. If it's gmail or yahoo etc...then you are out of luck, not much you can do with them. They have filters etc that you can't really get around. But then check in your spam or junk folder.

If you right click an email in your inbox, you can usually add that email to your safe sender list or something similar to that wording. This tells your mail program never to block that email address or consider it spam. ISP's can do the same their side, but not sure if they do it on request. But it prevents their server from discarding it.

Got discharged today. They did some stuff, but some stuff they were reluctant to do because of the blood thinners and need to close some veins. So we are waiting it out to see if I decide to dump huge amounts of blood again. Sunday was scary...almost passed out and couldn't move my arms while I was showering to take myself to hospital. Ended up calling an ambulance. First time. Anyways, all ok for now, we'll see what happens. There are no indicators of anything specific causing it or anything very concerning. G&C scopes are clear...still dealing with the same abscess/fistula thing from the beginning of the year.

Can't be anything this side. Probably something your side or your isp blocking them. Knowing the situation there, probably OFCOM blocking them to save you UK guys from weapons I'll check things my side, but try and whitelist admin(at)nihontomessageboard.com and ask your isp to do it too. Or re-add the email notification settings. Things like this tend to be temporary, Ip's get blocked and unblocked and spam defences change. I'd guess wait it out.

Moving this to Military as its use for research outweighs the fake swords discussion.

Out of hospital now, and recovering, and this sort of nonsense is going to stop one way or another. All of you, back down. And that goes for everyone. Been poked? Ignore it. Makes it easier for me to delete a comment. Once you reply, you are opening it up to an ongoing thing that makes you just as wrong. I thought we had adults here.