Lokke

Thanks to everyone for the replies! Curgan - My Father-in-law gave me one lesson on proper sword care, and I will go over the details with him again. There's no way that he will be paying to mount the swords, however, that's going to be on me. My initial inquiries gave me a price range of 50,000-500,000 yen, using non-antique fittings, and I probably can't afford much more than 150,000 yen at the maximum, so if I won't be able to get something worthy of the sword for that, I may leave it in shira-saya. Clive Sinclaire - So you feel that even if I have a koshirae made, I should have the sword put back in shira-saya for both transport and storage? Although I had not thought of it before, it might be preferable to display the koshirae in my living room and have the shira-saya with the blade locked away somewhere more secure. My wife and I don't have a child yet, but that is planned for the future and I do occasionally have stupid friends over. Mark - Do you know if we can translate the documents ourselves, or if some sort of notarized translation is necessary? Grey and Ken - I have heard about the gun case method and the golf case method in the past. I suppose a call the the US customs agency is probably in order to make sure that I follow all necessary procedures on entry at JFK airport. After all these detailed responses (thanks again!) I still have a couple of questions. 1) Can anyone recommend a well-regarded company to make a koshirae in Tokyo? 2) Have any of you flown through JFK with Shinken in the last couple of years (It seems that the security gets tighter every year, so any recent information would be appreciated, as what was OK only 5 years ago can sometimes be not OK now.)

Hello, I am new to this forum, and new to Shinken, but my wife is Japanese, and her father gave us a Katana (and Tanto) as a wedding gift when we got married four years ago. Unfortunately, until now we have never made arrangements to transport it to the US, from my Father-in-law's house in Japan, but we will be traveling to Japan at the end of April for 10 days to see our family there and for some other business that I have. Information on the Katana in question: It is antique (I believe that it is around 500 years old) It is properly registered in Japan and I have a copy of the registration paper, It is presently mounted in Shirasaya I came to this forum to get some information, and found some but I would still like to ask some questions that I feel this group may be able to answer them best. 1) I read the page on importing swords, and I see that because of the age of the Katana, I should not have to pay an import tax, but I may have to pay a sales tax. What would that be in the case of a gift like this? 2) What method should I use to transport it? I have considered sending it via FedEx or checking it as baggage while flying. I had found a fantastic case suitable for air travel by Bujin designs but unfortunately they are no longer made. 3) My Father-in-law just mentioned to us that since the blade is mounted in Shirasaya, we ought to consider having it mounted in something nicer *before* taking it out of Japan, as he was unsure if high quality work could be done anywhere near New York City where I live. Is this true? Also is the style of Saya, Tsuba, etc purely a matter of taste or is there an appropriate style for my Katana due to its age and place of origin? 4) Should I ask to keep the current Shirasaya? can they be re-used in the future for storage of the blade? 5) When my Father-in-law showed me the Katana he also showed me a Tanto, and I believe that he also intends to give us this, although I have not seen the paperwork for it. Are Tanto subject to the same rules as Katana in terms of export? It is also mounted in Shirasaya, so I assume that I would want to get it mounted as well in an identical way to the Katana, correct or is this purely a matter of personal taste? Thank you for any advice you can give me, Lokke