bone

Hi guys! Could someone please translate "Ozark Token Kai" to kanji and send them to me as a cdr or ai? A couple of us are meeting tomorrow and I want to give out a small gift. Thanks!

Hartford's a bot. Brian already gave em the boot.

As one of said sheep I didn't know enough to be buying. However when buying on ebay if I don't know enough about the subject matter I go straight to peoples comments about the seller. Over the years it's proven to be a pretty good anti-fleecing device. *shrug* Just didn't work this time. That's life. Still annoying though.

I recently bought an "edo" period Kanetada from him. Like a lot of other items he sells this had been hit with a grinder or dremmel on the boshi and a couple spots on the blade. No serious damage but curious. Mine also has one on the nakago and it's been done very recently. It's there to hide the arsenal stamp. I'm still new but I'm pretty sure they didn't put arsenal stamps on during the edo period. The worse part is before I realized my mistake I'd bought another one from him. Some of his stuff is real but I don't think it's worth the risk.

A simple way to create an outline of the blade is to trace it on white paper scan it at fairly high resolution, convert and trace it. A hairline trace and deleting the outer image should leave you with a nice clean vector image. The hamon could be done by the owner on plastic or acetate, backed with white paper and scanned afterward. You'll only lose a small fraction of integrity joining the two images. The kanji? You're on your own! One caveat. Tracing the sharp edge of the blade is hazardous to your sharpie.

Welcome Jerome! You're gonna love this site.

*dope smacks self* That probably would help, huh?

This is my first attempt at describing a blade. I'd like to get a start on what schools/era/smith it might be from. Remember; if you don't have anything nice to say, say it anyway. If it helps it's all good. I'll be sending this off to a pro soon. Thanks guys! Daito (katana) Nagasa 63.5cm Ha-machi to Mune-machi 2.5cm Shape: Shinogi Zukuri Sori: Tori-Zori 1.7cm Hada: Mostly Itame some Mokume Hamon: Notare Mune: Ihori Kassaki: O Boshi: Yakizume (Hard to see. Unsure.) Utsuri: Midare Nakago: Futsu Nakago-Jiri: Haagari Yasurime: Sujikai Mei: Sa(?) (Probably gimei) (Note: The nakago has been brutally cleaned and then waxed. All this information is "best guess.") http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e382/boneami/Sa/

Welcome! And something you'll see here a lot is don't buy ebay. Too risky. In the faq section I believe theres a thread about spotting fakes. It's great for beginers... like me.

Thanks Chris. I've had this translated 3 times and all by people I figure would know. It's been Kanetsugu, Kanetada and now Kanetsuna. It's making for a fun puzzle!

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e382/ ... 0_1124.jpg Thanks in advance guys!

Is the second one Kanetada?

Thanks guys. I fully intend to have it examined by a pro. I'm hunting for someone now that I can send it to. No sense in sending it to shinsa yet, since I first want to make sure about the signature one way or the other. Any referrals would be greatly appreciated! Exciting times!

Woot! That pic nails it Reinhard. That's exactly what I'm seeing. And your advice on following the blade and not the signature is well taken. Mark! I can't think you enough for jumping in on this thread. And I'll take those beers with relish! And preferably a hot-dog under the relish... :D So... any guesses on age? Or do you see anything else that would help describe it? Anyhow it's late and those beers are making me sleepy. Thanks again all!

The space between the hamon and shinogi. In the right light most of the area is a flat grey not very reflective. It's general shape would be kind of like a sine wave and in between each "wave" is an area that's more reflective. The lighter areas are just slightly less reflective than the hamon. I'm going to try and describe it from one angle only. Hmmm, if you imagine looking down with the sun at a low angle in the sky it looks kind of like a series of rolling hills with the peaks in light and the valleys in shadow. Does that make any sense? Talk about a picture being worth a thousand words...

Hey all. Pretty much all I can contribute is some observations. I'll take it to work where some better photography is available next week. The hamon is easily seen in the pictures. Just above that is a darker line that the utusri only touches in a couple of places. It's visible all the way along the blade, Mark, though much easier to see on one side. There seems to be a fairly regular pattern to it that doesn't mirror the hamon but as the hamon moves up and down the depth of the utsuri follows the darker line above it. Once again depending on the lighting, it looks like a grey "wave", for lack of a better term, originating just above the hamon or soft blue droplets hanging from the shinogi down toward the hamon. From the mune to the ha is under 3cm is that within the norm? I don't know whether any of this clears anything up, and bad or good I just want to discover what I have. Thank all of you so much. Extra thanks to Mark!

And it's here. I had to try different lights and such but I can see the utsuri if I hold th blade right. It was really exciting to see it and then compare with online references and recognize what I was looking at. Thanks for pointing me in that direction, Mark and Reinhard. Getting it to show in photos has so far been fruitless though, sorry. I'll keep trying. The nakago is polished smooth! Ack! At the top there is some pitting that's fairly deep and certainly the black inside the pits is very dark in color. I'll keep working on pics and finding out what I can.

*chuckle* I got it Mark. When I read that I wanted to celebrate! I think Organic is a great way to describe the grain of the metal. In many ways it resembles fine grain on wood.

Very helpful, thanks!

Brutal! If you're worried you could always ship it to me... I'd take good care of it for you. :D When it comes PM me some pics and the description. I love that stuff! They should really make a show-off thread so we wouldn't have to think up reasons to ask questions in the other threads. Bet it'd be the most popular on the site.

Ack! It's here but sitting in the post office. Hopefully they'll be open as usual but with the fourth this weekend... I'm like a kid on christmas eve! Gonna be a long 15 hours that's for sure.

Hey thanks Mark! As soon as it arrives I'll be taking lots of close-ups. I want to thank everyone who has assured me here and in PM's that it is definately old. Woot! Good times. :D

This is just a shot in the dark but what if they "polished" it to remove the real mei? It's common practice by people trying to change mint marks on US coins. There is a very shallow line coming down on the right side from the highest horizontal slash, there's the wide spot in the long vertical stroke and it would go a long way to explaining the extra horizontal stroke at the bottom that Grey talked about. Is there any evidence this has been done before?

Thanks! A couple of other people have told me pretty much the same thing. It'll be a fun research project! EVERYONE has remarked on the nakago. *shaking of head* Seriously what do they think they're gonna find under the rust?? I'm fighting the urge to name mine. They're all so different. And any of you that want to send me some pics and tell me about your sword, I'd love to hear it. I have an easier time understanding when there are images and descriptions in the same place. I really appreciate it guys! Steven B

Wow Joe, thanks. That really takes a load off. I don't know why someone feels the urge to clean something that's very old. I remember an antiques roadshow where a man had a 50k high-boy. Of course if he hadn't refinished it... 500k. I have a little mayan cup that someone diligently and thoroughly cleaned. What lilttle value it did have is now completely gone. Anyway I'm really looking forward to researching this one! One last question, do people name their swords?