md02geist

Sadly still looking.

You ain't kidding. I just recently got my Chu-Mihara in and it's around 600+ years old give or take....I get chills looking at it. Simply amazing. Thank god the culture was so respectful towards passing down family weapons (plus it's helpful that the warrior class ruled so strongly for such a long duration) etc.

Please forgive the poor pics.

Great grab by the purchaser!

Great looking blade.

Anyone happen to have one they'd like to sell? Neat blades!

There's a ton that goes into pricing; who made it, when it was made, what condition it is in, the particular market at the time being hard or soft for a certain sort of sword, whether the fittings catch someone's eyes or not, whether it's papered or not, if it has a horimono, is there some special provenance surrounding it or was it a temple sword or something, is it signed or not, is it dated or not...there's an insane amount of variables and none of it is easy to nail down. There isn't any hard and fast rule as to the value of something in this "world." You can take an educated guess on it based on past and current sales but there simply is no way to predict it properly. We've all seen swords we thought would go for a lot more sell for a pittance and vice versa. Also keep in mind sometimes ebay sales have shill bidders etc. Ebay isn't a great place to get a sword but you can find some good stuff there. As a new collector you probably want to go to a respected dealer such as Aoi or similar where you will be far more guaranteed to get what you believe you're purchasing. Regarding handling your sword; don't be afraid to hold the tang (nakago) with your bare hands. Never touch the blade with your bare hands. Keep a light sheen of choji oil on the blade (but not a ton of it, don't let it goop up on you). Don't use uchiko (the powdered ball) on it please. If anyone thinks anything I've said is wrong here please do feel free to speak up, I am still in the early stages of learning too. By the way: show us your sword! I love pictures and I'm sure a lot of other folk here do too.

A few pics. Forgive my crappy photography skills!

That's a shame! You should be able to log into your kickstarter account and get your rewards.

Great pickup!

No idea. As I stated I haven't seen the documentary. I'm wondering the same thing everyone else is.

Per Paul: "It's currently making it's way through various film festivals. Even while it's doing that our audio guy is touching every up. Our colorist is 1/3 of the way through. As for an actual date of release, I don't have one right now."

This is becoming a pattern.

No word as of yet, I'll ask him and let you know what he says.

I'll be interested to see if it turned out well.

Old Army buddy of mine I was deployed with back in the early 2000s did this documentary (along with several other people) about attempting to return a surrendered sword to its original owner. I haven't seen it yet but it has been winning a fair amount of awards at independent film festivals. http://fdfmovie.com/

I'm a fan of it. For the price tag I could hardly beat it! I'll try to take some pics of it this week if we can get a decent day for reasonable lighting.

Mihara seems a solid guess and they share a lot of similar features with Aoe. Beautiful blade!

I've seen it too. It's just a modern cheap way to make fittings work better I think. Natural rubber has been used since BC times for things and modern day "rubber" as we think of it has been around hundreds of years in one form or another, but I agree I really doubt period artisans used it.

Thanks Barrie that's fantastic info. Wonder if it has sentimental value to someone or maybe they used it as a practice piece to work on designs? The added designs are quite nice quality in my opinion. Kinda neat to find niceness quality somewhat intricate design on such a plain basic iron tsuba. A nice duality.

Guys. I'm aware. I'm tech savvy. Not tech stupid. Please refrain from any more comments on picture orientation they sideline the topic at hand.

Incorrect. They show up perfectly on my phone and when taken the orientation was perfectly set. Give me some credit here.

Please forgive me I have no idea why the forum keeps turning my pictures sideways.

Won this tsuba a while back, in one of the board raffles. Lucky me! Anyways was wondering what y'all thought of it. Love any input you'd have. It is wakizashi sized. No interest in selling it, just wanted some input and commentary

Muneware is correct.