Muki

There are clear crystalized particles within all the "spots" if that helps. Is it a bad thing to have tobayaki and devalue a blade? There are quite a few throughout the blade length on both sides which are clearly visible. Some more can be seen in this photo. The spots which appear on the blade are spaced apart 5-7cm apart almost for the entire length of the blade, all in all quite uniform in spacing.

Would those "finger prints" be similar to these in the photo? There are several all over the blade but most are fairly linear running the entire length of the blade. Each of the "spots" appears to have a corresponding "spot" or area on the opposite side of the blade. There are several visible in this photo as well. One of the spots can be see in the very center of the photograph above the ridgeline of the blade. I am sure that those of you who are purists are probably cringing at my lack of use of the proper terms. Please help me out and let me know where I can improve. Thanks

To be more specific I am trying to understand some of the differences between the appearance of hitatsura and jifu (spotted steel). My eye and the brain its connected to are not nearly keen enough to see all the differences in blades and then put a name to what I am seeing. Please be patient and dont flame me I am still learning!

Can anyone please post some photographs of jifu on a blade?

What is the approximate time before any findings or decisions are generally released?

Just wanted to say Hi. I have been living in Japan for a number of years and have just recently interested in collecting swords. Finally bought one recently and am now in the very busy process of learning as much as I can. It was very nice to find a board like this in English as I have a hard time following the Japanese sword discussions on the internet over here. I hope to learn quite a bit from the folks here and I think this will be the case after reading many posts prior to joining.