Kronos

I'll have to pop in next time I'm that far down in Cornwall, probably the end of June. Thanks for letting us know

Curran, while we're on the topic of currencies, what do you think the GBP/USD/JPY is going to do over the next 6 months?

I presume he means on the cheap end, in which case about $150-200 should do it in ok condition and no damage.

It's actually a good feature although shouldn't be the default. Luckily there's both a "remove formatting" option as well as being able to change the default paste option in both this forum and every software I've used with this feature. It may be a little annoying to change an option before every post you make that has extreme use of copy/paste, but it's extremely useful when you need to retain formatting which in certain circumstances can save you hours of formatting.

Does the nakago look artificially aged to anyone else?

Unfortunately that was my attempt at humility and it must not come as naturally as it does to you Alan. Maybe I misjudged how long others may of taken on this. In retrospect the 2 hours plus however long I took when I first saw the thread wasn't a great deal of time, especially with how obsessive this hobby can be. As Brian alluded to ones " :crazy:" was aimed markedly at oneself and I apologize if anyone took offense at my conduct. I'll be the first to admit that I got lucky and would be knowhere if i had the sword in hand with no books. P.S. there should never be any embarrassment when education is the main focus so it would be a shame if anyone felt that way or even worse - didn't have a go out of fear.

I did have a post written about my reasoning as Jean requested but accidentally pressed the back button and lost it all. Suffice to say the Sugata is clearly Late Kamakura and could only really be either Yamato or Yamashiro with that hada so that narrows it down somewhat. It didn't seem like Yamato even with the masame as it lacks a high shinogi etc and I wouldn't expect masame just near the HA, but mixed in and more often near the mune. Just from looking at it it reminded me of Rai but i couldn't tell you why exactly, especially the Rai Kunimitsu on Darcy's site. After going round all the Yamato/Yamashiro schools of the time it didn't seem to fit in anywhere due to the lack of activity except Chu-Enju, however that would be too late for the Sugata and the Hada should be less refined. The Boshi is reminiscent of Rai Kunitoshi who was my first guess As Kunimitsu was a lot more flamboyant although with Kunitoshi you'd still expect Ashi, Sunagashi, Kinsuji,ko-chogi and so on as well as the shirakke utsuri and masame being wrong. So at this point I was floating round Rai or one of the offshoots like Enju and decided to look at Markus' Koto Kantei Zenshu and while browsing Yamashiro found Ryokai which was a perfect match. More subtle than Kunitoshi without all the activity in the Hamon, the slender sugata, shirake utsuri and masame near the ha, everything finally clicked into place. It took me about 2 hours and i doubt anyone else spent anywhere near that time so perseverance pays off This was a fun exercise and I learnt a lot about yamashiro which is probably my weakest gokaden so you should post more of these Jean if not make it a regular thing

As the person who requested this I must say it is a lot more thorough and encompassing than I had imagined and Markus has done a terrific job, especially offering it for free. My original thought was that when I'm off at auctions/shows/antique shops etc I have my phone on me and maybe a single book if it's planned and I can carry one around, however on my phone (tablet works better) I have Markus' Index for looking up smiths if signed, his Meikans for checking signatures and the Kantei Zenshu's for checking workmanship of the top smiths, if not giving a better idea of schools I'm not familiar with. The book would be Connoisseur's which is excellent for Kantei of mumei blades in particular but works on everything (I should really scan my copy to a PDF to take with me as well tbh). If I'm fortunate enough to have an internet signal I can then look up stuff like Wazomono, fujishiro ratings and maybe find some examples online. However you'll notice the one thing missing is reading signatures/cutting tests and whatnot in the first place which this fills the gap of perfectly and seems superior to all the websites I was using before and I cannot thank Markus enough.

Time period: Late kamakura School: Rai Smith: Ryōkai Edit: Changed my answer to Ryokai, seems to fit better...

I agree with Paul completely, Kantei has pushed me to explore things I otherwise wouldn't and made me learn a lot through necessity. I'll have a go at this later tonight.

Do we get a photo of the entire sword?

I think it's this one without checking Fujishiro's.

Thanks markus, it's much appreciated.

The photo's are quite blurry so hard to tell. My instinct would say uda but I expect to be wrong.

Markus, I already own eKoto Kantei and plan on buying shinto/shinshinto kantei zenshu but this leaves me with a little hole in my collection of the koto supplements, i also noticed the Zenshu and normal versions are the same price, not sure if only one is on sale now or? Is there any way I can "upgrade" to the Zenshu from the normal Meikan please

I don't think it's a traditional hagire as posted by Louie but deeper spider rust. so hard to call. Maybe I should send it to a polisher in the uk for a pre-polish, polish?

TWD is a very good show, I'm sad that last week was the season finale... Ontpic: I'm going to have to make the trip across the pond one of these days as has been said there's no comparison to seeing a lot of swords in hand. I'm looking forward to many pictures

If you submit it, submit it to the NTHK so even if gimei (it almost certainly is) they may give an indication of attribution. Although you're paying $250 for what will most likely be a failed shinsa it's worth it on the off chance as I wouldn't want to be the guy who had the signature removed off a genuine Shinkai.

If it was genuine any competent seller would pass it as Hozon so these questions don't arise... Would anyone here seriously spend $60k without seeing a sword in hand first anyway?

There's 2 that went for sale at christies years ago for insane prices (£10k-ish iirc) other than that I can't seem to find any information on them :/

Yes it does barely.

Same, I should of bought at least 5 more of Markus' books at Christmas when they were on sale. Basically all the Kantei's and Meikans are indispensable for the price not even mentioning his index, then there's all the fittings books and the non-reference books.

I'll see if I can give that a try Louie. I think it is the same spider rust which i have never seen before, it's just the odd shape and placement that had me concerned being a particularly thin blade already. Just the ura.

On one of my swords that I intend to get polished in the not too distant future I've noticed a few 'scratches' in the ha that could possibly be hagire or not be able to be polished out. None of them seem to go to the other side and there's deep scratches all over the blade like this but there's one of particular concern that I just can't tell how deep it might be. Here's some photo's if you could look or even if I'd have to wait until it gets to a polisher for a better opinion? The photo's are quite big to capture detail so may be best to download and zoom in/out to get perspective? The scratches are almost like someones keyed it...

It is true this is very easy, as a fairly bad translator myself it's incredibly easy and I recognized one of the characters immediately without even having to check. Only 6 months ago or so it would of taken me a while of searching to get this but if you push yourself eventually you'll be able to translate more or less anything without having to check references.