Brian

Damn John, you are setting us all very high levels to follow when we return there next. I hope Paul is also prepared for this, having shown what he can organise. :lol: Amazing stuff. Also wanted to mention that the pic of the cherry blossom above is picture perfect! Beautiful photo. Brian

Just got off the phone with Ford, and had a looooong conversation about it. It's amazing what you can learn from an artist who can see things with totally different eyes, and I learned a lot from this impromptu lesson. I can't really communicate as well as he does why this appears to be a modern piece made by student or amateur tsuba maker. Hopefully others who have a request for serious discussion can chime in and we can have a good educational thread about it. I know I am learning a lot. However at least I now agree with Ford and Ludolf. Perhaps others would like to give their opinion and comments? Do not worry about fakers "learning from our pointers" as this type of work is still labour intensive and I call it Milt's "modan" school rather than a fake (ie, it is likely made in Japan by someone learning to make tsuba etc) rather than a Chinese fake made cheaply to deceive. I guess strictly speaking with a gimei it is a fake, but there are more than one level of fake I guess. So what do the tsuba guys say about it? Brian

I'd be pretty shocked (though not surprised) if this was an outright fake. A late or modern work I would have accepted but an outright fake may make me go back to blades in a hurry :D I don't claim to know very much at all about tsuba, but this kind of work is scary to me. Maybe the "old iron" guys have something there. I look forward to hearing more about this one. Would also like to see a pic of the other side. Brian

Andrew, If the boshi is wide enough to keep it in the kissaki after reshaping, then it can be done and saved. If not, then a fatal flaw. The only way we can know if it can be saved is to know where the hamon is in the tip, can't realy make it out from the pics. You need to get someone good to fingerstone the kissaki so that you can see the hamon, and then an expert polisher can tell you if it can be saved. My mind sees a wide hamon there, and a possible fix, but I could be seeing things. Brian

Morita san, both you and Moriyama san never fail to amaze me. Can't thank you both enough. Brian

Since I have never had any feeling besides unease about this user, I have deactivated the account. Nothing about this user has made sense. Any appeal can be done via email. Brian

Thanks Rich, good to save in case it goes again. Lotta guys backing up older websites in case they disappear. Btw...Dr T's Random thoughts page disappeared, and I emailed him about it. Seems the university moved it, and when it came back, one letter having a "t" instead of a "T" made tyhe old link not work. So I updated my link, and anyone who has it bookmarked or linked, please update the link to http://www2.una.edu/takeuchi/DrT_Jpn_Culture_files/Nihon_to.htm Brian

I see what Ford means about the strokes though. They seem very hesitant, and not fluid. Look at the actual tagane. Not confident at all? Seems almost to have been copied very precisely by someone who wasn't able to carve them fluently. Or am I seeing things? Brian

David, Edit your post, and add the pic. If you need help, check the How-To section. Kogatana and also kozuka were often signed by the makers. I have seen both with poems too. Gimei is just as prevalent as on swords too. Brian

Drat...was just going to send you a sword to commemorate the event...and then you went and said you were joking! Milt is the only one who gets to play the mischevious kid here. In fact, maybe I should change his title from Ronin to Oni or Kappa! :lol: I'll resist the urge to play some pranks on the forum today. Have a good one folks. Brian

Have no fear, we won't be making a habit of discussing these. This one example was a good representation of what to look out for, and the growing popularity of this style. We won't be going into manufacturign techniques or the benefits/disadvantages. It was interesting to come to a conclusion of what it was and where it came for. It belongs with other modern custom swords, and as such I think the topic is done for, and we won't be analysing it I'll leave it up for a few days so that everyone who wanted to know what it was has seen it, and then remove it. We won't be visiting this topic again, back to genuine Nihon-to. Gunto are tricky, as we come across so many that need to be positively identified, and there are so many manufacturing techniques that blur the lines between traditional and machine made. Emura used a power hammer. Murato? Koa-Isshin? Not easy to always come to a fast conclusion. So their discussion will be limited to identifying them, maybe showign who the maker was. Not much further than that. Some of us trade them to buy better swords. Many of the Gunto mounts contain old blades. So that is too tricky to ban outright here. I don't think we have a problem with too much discussion on them, it's not like the forum is flooded with them We won't be having lengthy discussions on them once they are conclusively identified though. A happy medium? I hope so. Brian

Thanks Carlo, that does clarify it a lot. I assume this is the same maker and some of his work on a Chinese bulletin board? These cost a few thousand dollars each, and would fit into the class of modern custom swords for collectors of those things. Brian

Merged the 2 topics (this new forum software does have its advantages ) and updated the topic title. You can always edit your own original post title in the first post to update it. The fact that it isn't signed isn't a train smash. Nice sword and a good find. Lots of posts about whether to polish or not. Seldom will it increase the price as much as the polish price, but sometimes it is worth it if you really want to appreciate it. I would think a professional polish would be upwards of $2500 on this one. Brian

Shhhhh!! It was only you that we blocked, everyone else could view them :lol: :lol: :lol: Ok..fixed now, guests can view images. Milt..you too. :D Brian

I had considered that, but not being able to read the Chinese, I assumed it clarified the situation and maybe proved the opposite. But it is always a possibility not knowing any background on it. Might be a high level smithy doing better work at high prices..who knows? Someone must be able to read it and post what the price is, and find a nakago pic. Not that it matters, none of us would buy from China and it isn't really relevant except to theorise a bit. Either wway, we all agree you are not getting a Nihonto Brian

Milt, Isn't that the piece you said you were going to donate to me? :D :lol: Nice piece. Are there any matching fittings that go with it? Would love to see a matching fuchi if you have one. Brian

Thanks Ford, I had a decent chat with Ford on the phone (ever helpful and informative) and it made perfect sense afterwards, even if I had not thought of it before in depth. You would not make an expensive alloy like shakudo, and then go and cover it entirely with gold. This would be a waste of what was a good material, and reseved for areas where it was showing for effect. So likely better to use copper, and cover that with gold foil, saving the hassle of making shakudo for nothing. It does go against the grain of an artist and the work ethic. Regards, Brian

Paul, Not taking anything away from the excellent job the various parties did. Not an ounce of criticism there, they did very well. Just trying to point out pitfalls that come when the various govts write things in a slightly different manner to what is expected. To me, defence means that they arrest you, you go to jail for the weekend only to be released on Monday because you were able to defend your position to the public prosector. Excemptions means that they don't arrest you at all. But I don't know enough about the law to be sure about this, hence the questions. Yes, the prior excemptions are good, and I think everyone who owns swords should have a copy of them at home, or with them, to show any policeman that doesn't know the full law. It is my experience (most of it very current) that the police on the street know less about some laws than the public. Right now we here are fighting a public that is handing in $50,000-100,000 individual arms in for destruction because the police tell them they must, and no-one is able to reach them and let them know they don't have to. Try cased Purdey shotguns....cased 1873 Colts...and a host of other stuff. All been destoyed in the name of "a safer environment" Brian

Well...you woldn't say "a man's first sword on reaching manhood" As a teenager reaches that age, I think it is correct to say a boy reaches manhood. Good exercise Darcy, will look up the smith when I get home to learn more. That tachi mei must be pretty unusual for the Mishina school? Do you think it is restorable? A nice find from someone who probably thought they had junk. Brian

I want to use paintings as an analogy here to better illustrate the problem. You might have a very good artist that is able to copy an old master very well, to the point that only an expert can identify it as a copy. In this case, the best way to spot it ourselves is to become and expert ourselves. This just means that we have to keep studying, and the more we learn, the better we will be able to avoid these fakes. None of us will call ourselves an expert, but you get the idea. Learn more, and you will not fall into these pitfalls. The other thing, is that you don't study all the good copyist artists to try and identify their work and hence the fakes. You study the best paintings, and the copies will become apparent. Hence, don't try and study fakes so that you can identify them. Study the best swords you can, and the fakes will identify themselves. Not saying it is easy sometimes, as in this case. But when spending a lot of money, just follow the advice of buying from reputatable dealers and sellers, and you will be fine. If you are spending a lot of money with a source that is unknown, without proper validation, then you take your chances. And if it isn't a lot of money and worth taking a chance? Well...then you didn't lose too much if it was a fake. If the sword here was $100, you wouldn't lose too much. If it is $2500 or more...then refer to the advice about dealers and backups like papers/origin etc. Thanks about all I can offer. Brian

Good luck is all I can say chaps. I don't know enough about legal-speak to analyse that, but there seem to me to be a host of possible problems there. All other curved swords besides Japanese swords banned? Do I have that right? Not exemptions...but legal defences? So with a Japanese sword, with that wording, you don't have an exemption but a defence? Not the same thing afaik? All events must have public liability insurance? Am I correct reading that? So that means informal sword study groups have to take out public liability insurance? I hope someone can explain this all to me, I may have it all wrong. Watch out for old-timers who will flock to police stations to hand in their old WW2 bring-back for destruction. Not many of them care about reading the exemptions, they just go with what they are told to do. I can guarantee you there will be many old Nihonto destroyed though. Ouch. Brian Edit to add: I do see a thriving interest in tanto and shorter wakizashi coming though. Maybe that "wakizashi worth half of an identical katana" is about to change. :?

Milt, Just a thought here, but shakudo isn't black normally. It just patinas to a nice black (or the other colour variants) when treated with patina formulas. So if you cut into shakudo, you wouldn't see black, but a gold colour anyways. So you might be looking at the shakudo under the gold foil inside the cut I would think the entire tsuba was shakudo with a thin gold foil covering possibly. Will check with Ford, and clarify. Brian

I think we have proved pretty conclusively that the original statement is false. Brian

Moved to General Discussion as it is not Nihonto. What does the nakago look like? If you take good iron, and have the time and resources to forge and temper it properly, then you are going to get an item that isn't bad..and in the style of a Japanese sword. But it will never be a Nihonto because it is not made there, from tamahagane. Similar to some of the custom sword makers. Even Paul Chen claims to have a tamahagane range. But they are expensive custom swords, that are not the same as the cheap Chinese junk. And yes..they may get close to looking like a Japanese sword, but aren't. The aim of junk swords is to make money as fast as possible. The time, effort and knowledge involved in the better forged blades hopfully puts them somewhere else. But we have to keep vigilant of course. Buyer beware and all that. Brian

This is the last time I am going to ask you to sign posts with at least a first name, or initial and surname. This is a forum rule and not a suggestion. Also, if you are not going to follow through on the auction, then I suggest you end the auction now with a "item is no longer for sale" reason, instead of waiting for the auction to end. Unless you do intend to sell if someone bids? Or enjoy paying listing fees for nothing? You realise how fishy all your posts are, right? Brian