Kronos

It seems awfully difficult to do as Koshirae was meant to be replaced while not many smiths dated all their work. Outside of historical records I can't see how you could provide sufficient evidence.

Some good information from another thread: Brian

This was a very informative topic to read. Sorry to necro but I was just wondering if anyone knew the requirements to pass shinsa as a Daisho? For instance these are by the same smith and practically identical: http://www.ricecracker.com/japanese_swords/katana/Past%20Katana%27s/sk6-1_daisho_tadakuni.htm yet have 2 papers. So would they have to be dated or in period Koshirae/what exactly to pass shinsa?

Wow, I only purchased this 2 years ago for £30 and it's atleast quadrupled in that time. Thanks to everyone for recommending it, just a shame I didn't get 10 copies as thats some investment

It may of come across poorly, what I meant to say was that I simply have too much to read and learn so there simply wouldn't be enough time in the day to add to that currently and I can only fit a certain amount of information in my head before it explodes.

Thats wonderful, I eagerly anticipate reading it Barry. I am considering joining the JSSUS in the future but I don't think it's for me until I have a certain level of connoiseurship and have had more time with blades in hand.

It's hard to say if thats nioi-gire from those photographs. The only example I can find online is here http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/kizu.htm and as Paul stated nioi-gire are usually much smaller. Also in one of the photographs you can barely see what might appear to be the Hamon running through the alleged area so could easily just be rubbing or anything like that. This is a perfect example to anyone reading of why more often than not you'll lose out on ebay unless you explicitly trust the seller because 90% of photographs are sub-standard and you cannot trust your own judgement without having all the information. For all I know it could be the 3rd gen Kunishige rated at 75 points by hawley in fine condition apart from small kizu that after a polish would paper well and be well worth the initial price. From the information provided there's just no way of knowing either way.

From my understanding I seem to recall that the human brain will autotune the percieved colour when compared with known samples that are so well known by all humans such as an orange or possibly a white sheet of paper. So theorhetically one could simply carry an Orange around everywhere they go and no matter what the light source (provided it had a multitude of different frequencies to give a proper variation instead of just red light for example) then you would have an accurate point of reference and you could tell the colour of anything held up against the said orange despite variable light conditions. Now I wouldn't like to test comparing the colour of steel against an Orange but on that basis someone could produce two cards at each end of the colour of Nihonto or photographs of two opposing blades that were taken under D65 or a similar light source in a white/grey room and use these as reference points when inspecting blades. It sure beats the alternative of carrying a Tanto with you wherever you go Barry, I would be most interested to see this article if you intended to make it available to those of us that are not members of the JSSUS.

Tentatively I'd say it looks to be gimei kan2022/kan2023.

I would tend to agree with keith as a beginner myself I would be extremely cautious about buying on ebay especially and other online sellers although from what I gather the Wakizashi in question is from a reasonably well known Japanese seller and looks to be a good price for what it is. My thoughts on what i'm currently looking for in my first purchase would either be a Wakazashi in the $1000-$1500 range or maybe a little more if it appeared to be a bargain or perhaps a Katana of no more than $6000 which one could get a nice blade with from looking around, but any more would probably be risky until you are more confident in your knowledge and less likely to poorly judge an item. Wakizashi's tend to be a little undervalued in my opinion in todays market as they're a bit tarnished with the "merchant sword" stigma and everyone wants a real Samurai sword aka a katana. So I guess what I'm saying (which you should take with a pinch of salt) is that you can get a nice Waki for little money which you can learn alot more per $ spent from but it will be harder to move on if you decide to sell. With Katana they're more a safe bet and as long as you make a good choice or buy from a reputable dealer they'll retain their value and you should be able to sell it at cost should the need arise or you decide to "upgrade". The most important thing imho is to just make sure you know exactly what you want, read all the books possible and see as many swords in person and generally be very picky when browsing until you find something 1) you're happy with, like and will continue to appreciate. 2) You know enough about what it is e.g. Age, not gimei if signed, good polish, no flaws, if ubu, school and Overall quality and balance of the Sugata etc so you won't be surprised when you get it home and do further research or post pictures here to find it's not what you thought. 3) You know enough about the market values so you know what it "should" sell for and finally 4) Is a good price that you know what it should sell for should you wish to later so you're not going to have buyers regret with which all comes with #2 and #3. Essentially it all comes down to the old Sun Tzu maxim of how well you know yourself and the enemy (the market). If you know yourself well enough to know how good a kantei for quality you can make and what the market value is of your appraisal to within your knowledge range then you'll never be disappointed with any of your purchases as you should always be able to make your money back when selling and will gain further knowledge for the future in the process. The people who I have found to end up disappointed are those that either jump in and buy the first thing they see within their price range or do not know themselves and their knowledge so end up spending $4000 on a gunto while looking for a bargain on ebay when they would of been better off going to a reputable dealer and getting what they pay for. Another thing I've noted is with specialist dealers you'll usually get what you pay for which minimizes risk as the dealer has their reputation to think of but you'll be paying top price. Whereas buying from other sources there's more risk but also better possible deals to be had so it all depends upon how confident you are with your knowledge after you've read the books that have been recommended. The connoisseurs book is very good and I'm currently reading it, I'd also recommend any of the books on the Compton collection, particularly 100 masterpieces as the photography is exceptional and will do alot to show you quality blades especially if you're unable to in person as much as you'd like.

Ah ok, that makes alot more sense now, I always think of more nefarious reasons it seems :D It strikes me as odd however that the Japanese would think this way when they have easier access to the Juyo Token Nado Zufu etc. One would think it would be westerners that "buy papers" instead of swords, not the other way around.

Would that be because they are Suriage or another change since the papers were issued?

Type "about:config" in your browser which will take you to advanced options. Then edit "browser.link.open_newwindow" to "3" and "browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction" to "0". That should make all links open in a new tab, but may be a little buggy with javascript links. If you want them to all open in a new window instead then use 2 then 0.

ctrl + click opens in new tab shift + click opens in new window Alternatively let me know which browser you're using and I'll find out how to change the settings. Opera is definately the best for this type of thing though.

Right click on the link then select open in a new tab?

From what I understand of it (which isn't much admittedly) this wouldn't be the case. From my understanding swords were a very expensive item that a low level samurai would only buy once in a lifetime, have passed down or maybe have replaced because of fire/breakage now and again. Daiymo and other higher ranking samurai would likely have multiple swords simply because they could but this was an extremely small proportion of the population and would not of affected the overall demand too greatly. In 1200-1300 the population of Japan was in the 6-8 million range after just recovering from a plague (possibly bubonic) in 808 and having doubled since around 1000CE. Between then and 1600 the population doubled or trebled to the 12-18million region, but even taking the lower initial number of 6 million and the higher number of 18 million the samurai only made up 10% of the population so between 1300 and 1600 only 4000 swords needed to be produced each year to keep up with the population. You could double that again so each samurai had 2 blades and double it again for fire damage/kizu/breakage in battle and the 1500 or so swordsmiths active at any one time during this period would only need to produce 10 each year to keep up with demand. So given these numbers I think they may of been only making one long sword a month to keep the quality levels high and they would still have time left to make Yari etc Personally I think it varied a bit the best smiths working exclusively for higher level Samurai and Daiymo would be more picky with what they presented to their masters apart from a few who could consistently churn out exceptional blades and some of the lesser known smiths may of mass produced somewhat to make ends meet producing upto 40 blades a year.

Is a mumei blade of higher quality than a blade signed Masamune still not the better piece? Now that would be a rare occurence in this example as I doubt there's many mumei swords of higher quality than any one of the signed works of Masamune but it's largely an illogical psychology of the human condition and if one were able to think completely impartially the unsigned blade would be regarded higher. Unfortunately this is not the case as shown by all branded items whether they be a designer handbag or a painting. There's also the possibility of it being signed originally and then the mei being removed later for any mnumber of political or personal regions, the story of Muramasa swords and Tokugawa Ieyasu being a prime example.

5. The smith considered his work to speak for itself and "it to be known who made it"?

There's 2 ways: 1) Use the tags and upload the image to photobucket or imageshack then paste the link to the image within the tags. 2) Or alternatively add the files as an attachment to your post from your computer where it says "upload attachment" when creating a message. After browsing for the correct image file click "add the file".

Yeah I asked the same thing. Some of the books were a little overpriced, some good prices but I wouldn't want to buy the lot if I had the money as I'd only want half the books or less.

This is very perculiar indeed. The internal server error I was getting before has stopped which is good. However the avatars are only "semi-working" for me now. For instance if I were to refresh this page I would see Brians avatar and either Johns or Sanjuro's but not both. Everytime i refresh it will show one but not the other, alternating.

Thanks for all the help, I'm just about to order Connoisseur's and am presently searching for a cheap copy of 100 Masterpieces from the compton collection. I was wondering about a pair of books I saw with similar names: Nippon-to: Art Swords of Japan" and "Nippon-to: the Japanese Sword" and was wondering what a fair price for these might be as at Satcho they were priced $325 and $175 respectively and about that at other places but much cheaper in a local used book shop near me. Are these books any good? Another question I had was on different editions of Hawley's, Fujishiro and Nihon-To Koza and how the different editions rate against one another? Edit: Also any information on Japanese Art and Handicraft by Joly as that looked interesting?

I'm having the exact same problem. It only seems to happen when trying to open a subforum making it impossible to start new threads etc.

Thank you for the suggestions Paul and Franco. I shall definately be picking up a copy of The Connoiseur's book of Japanese swords and keep a look out for 100 masterpieces at the earliest convenience at a reasonable price. If I find Hawleys while browsing a used bookstore I'll probably pick it up but won't be going out of my way to get it on your advice. I'm not sure on the merits of Nihonto newsletter so I'll probably leave that for now until I've looked into it's content more and try and work on getting Nihonto koza, or atleast the Koto volumes. I was using the papers more as a rough estimate of the quality available and would hope I wouldn't be daft enough to buy something based on that alone, although I have been known to do online shopping while drunk on occassion :lol:

While I have read the FAQ regarding beginner and intermediate books and found it helpful there's one or two that I thought may of been included that haven't and am not sure if any on the beginner list would be surplus to requirements if one were to dive in and head straight for the likes of Nihonto Koza. The thing is I'm not much of a reader so ideally want a small concise library and now that I'm in a position to save enough to get the books and head towards my first Nihonto purchase I'd humbly request some guidance in what more experienced collectors would consider their essential list of books to have, maybe 5-10. Hawley's Japanese Swordsmiths and Nihonto Koza would be the first two on my list but beyond that I'm a little lost. Some information on a decent price to aim for when getting these books would be very much appreciated as well if possible. I'm particularly interested in the Koto era and Soshu/Mino dens if that is significant. P.S. While I'm asking questions I'd be interested to know how much you'd consider a good price range for a novice to buy a first Nihonto that would make a good study piece that I could learn alot from. I'm lead to believe that getting a lower end Wakizashi for maybe £1000/$1500 may not be as beneficial as say saving £3000-£5000 and getting a very decent Koto Hozon or maybe just a Tokubetsu Hozon although the risk is always poorly buying on the first attempt. Thank you for humouring what may be silly questions from a beginner.