w.y.chan

Sorry for another resurrection. Here is another Sadaroku with kokuin and mint gunto koshirae

So the gunto koshirae was the deal breaker. The seller ended the listing, did it actually sell for $18.5k?

Had the entire country glued to the set

I had the mick taken in school playground everyday when Shogun was on TV. My Geography teacher was a Japanophile and talks about it everyday. There was an English guy with a Japanese wife who lives near me. Everytime the couple goes out he doesnt want to be seen with her, she is at least 20 paces behind him, but when Shogun started airing on UK TV during the early 80s the couple began going out arms around each other. Such is the power of television. I believe they are now divorced.

I've been away too long plus its a bit quiet No point creating new threads when there is perfectly old ones around. Anyway about the new Wolverine film. Sanada with a sword appears on every Hollywood movies about Japan these days.

Come on admit it.... How many of you got into Japanese swords after watching Highlander

Reeves is 1/32 Chinese plus other races that attrbuted to Hawaii and other places so he is not half Japanese.

Interesting Clive has met Neo I hope you taught him sword etiquette? Here is the trailer, very Manga.

Not any referencees to any swords discussed here but I've seen others describe utsuri when it is a double hamon or worse a slip of the clay. I've seen utsuri on a very good WW2 gendaito.

It is nice sword. I nearly bought an Okimasa for the Y650,000 or $6,500 it was not a shrine sword and no fancy mei dedication but has Fudo and ken horimono carved by the smith and every bit as good. Another one was a big postwar shinsakuto, Okimasa at his best, made for Kodama Yoshio for $12k so I would say $18k is a bit steep.

Probably. I would guess it would be mounted with elaborate koshirae. One would imagine exchanging gifts between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan goes on frequently much like bankers and politicians do today. Though anything shiney would have ended up in Goering's private collection

Thanks Chris. I was curios why some pre WW2 swords even though were high quality by the smith's own standard were signed but without date or other "fanfare" inscriptions usually associated with it being special. In WW2 even machine made gunto has dates and occassionally extra inscriptions added for something slightly special. It almost feels as though the smith had them signed but left spaces for something else to add when the sword get sold to the new owner.

Hi All, Can anyone elaborate why some early gendaitos particularly pre WW2 ones has no dates? Some of these blades are really good quality sometime just a simple two character mei. Are these stock blades the smith kept aside ready made and when an order comes in they add the rest in?

I had the previlage of personally viewing Clive's sword and it was a day that stays in my mind because it was the first time I met Clive and also there in front of me a relic that belong to the personal collection of someone who changed world history. At the time I commented along the line of discovering a missing Van Gogh It must have been 1998 I was an early adopter of digital cameras so with Clive's permission I took a few pictures of it. I've not shown it to anybody since but I found them again recently. Hope Clive don't mind me putting a couple of low rez photos up on here. BTW in case anyone is wondering the sword is on top of a glass display case.

Carpet beetle could be the culprit. They are mostly unseen in daylight and does serious damage to clothes too which were wrongly attributed to moths. Museum curators apparently knows them well.

It is true Nihonto and indeed collectables in general have not kept pace with inflation therefore cheaper than what it use to be. However certain wartime gendaitos by top smiths has bucked the trend, at least that how it appears in online sales. 10yrs ago a Gassan Sadakatsu katana in good condition can still be had for under $9k in many websites, these days that will get you a tanto by the same smith.

In my view a sword that involve collaborations, in the case of forging and yakire done seperately by two craftsmen, are gassaku. In Shigetsugu's case he is the overall charge and his students were contributing their efforts to their teacher. Not surprisingly Shigetsugu's reputation as the number one swordsmith increased in the 1940s even when he was suppose to stop forging swords. Kurihara Akihide also finishes the work of his best students and put his name on it. Clive's sword signed not with sosho but his block style mei also made me believe Shigetsugu may not have completely stopped making swords but probably taken him longer to make a sword all by himself after Showa 12 or 13 restricting it to a very few special orders from dignitaries.

Revisiting an old thread here Chris might correct me on this. I believe many Shigetsugu daisaku blades were forged by his students and yakire done by Shigetsugu and signed by him. In my opinion Shigetsugu's better quality swords were forged by his best student Okimasa and to me they are in no way inferior, if not better, to his kaisho mei when he forged the blade all by himself before his disability. I have seen a Shigetsugu with sosho mei but look rather different than one that I own, clearly made by another hand and far inferior.

I have repatinated old WW2 buttons with mix result. Does takes a lot of practice to get it spot on. I won't try tsuba unless it is a cheap one you let your kids have in their collection.

Hi Joe, Pretty sure I have seen this sword before, the first time was over 16yrs ago then again a few years after..

It is not that unusual to have bugs living inside old scabbard I suppose. I have had insect half eaten a horn koiguchi on a shirasaya I didnt check for 6 months, BTW the blade was not treated with choji oil as I had avoided using. Years ago while inspecting a sword up close after drawing it from the scabbard I found a microbe comming out of a pitting on the blade. I suspect it came from within the scabbard even though it was newly made and the sword was newly polished. I believe plant oil such as camellia was the traditional oil popular in pre-industrialise Japan. I found this particular oil being mention as made from the old ways, the price is extortionately high yet I'm told plant oil such as this is not as good as mineral which are a lot cheaper http://www.taibundo.com/gallery/yougu/y004.html

The latest I've heard from a Japanese website regarding choji oil is that it act as an insecticide with a highly concentrated smell implying that choji was traditionally used to keep insects way from your swords. I'm not sure if they mean all "choji oil" or they mean the ones they sell.

Well I've just got hit with VAT charge for importing a katana makura from Japan, actually the handling clearance fee cost more than the VAT. For small items of low cost I would avoid using EMS from now. Cost of shipping is higher and likely to attract VAT. I never got charged when using SAL, it cost less and took longer.

In case people hadnt seen it already here is an article with Billy from an interview a few years ago. It is no longer online but I manage to get a web cache snap shot of it http://web.archive.org/web/20120614172956/http://www.liverpool.com/capital-of-culture/microguides-cheapside.html BTW Billy was still wheel and dealing late last saturday at the pub well after he handed over the key of his shop :lol: Here is to Billy

Hi Arnold, Gassan Sadakazu 1st is regarded as a shinshinto smith even though the sword may have been made in the gendai era.