jesup

Regardless of all the discussion about what this should be called... even being mother-of-pearl in lacquer it's amazing.

The one with the face grill looks very much like an SCA helm

Fun video. That abalone tsuba is insane

Any update as to what he's up to? Rates? How many years backlog?

I realize this is obvious... but perhaps "lacquer thinner"?

Ironically I literally just bought a Mishina school blade with kicho papers to tanba no kami yoshimichi (papers from 1950, so perhaps more reliable than later ones). It's mumei, though, so it can't be gimei, and it's clearly sudareba hamon, so it almost has to be some smith in the Mishina school (I already have a Tango no kami Naomichi (5th? generation)). We'll see what happens at shinsa; it will need a polish for sure, but most of the blade is in viewable polish.

Note: I'm no expert. A Shinsa committee is a group of people. They can be wrong. And they have considerable reason to err on the side of "no"; when they say something is shoshin they're putting their reputation and that of the organization behind that. If there's any question, they pass - and that may not mean it's gimei, it may mean simply they can't say it's shoshin (right?). Back when I was more directly involved (I worked the submission desk at the '97 Long Island NTHK Shinsa with Yoshikawa-sensei), my understanding at the time that NTHK was both more forthcoming with details (pass and fail), and also they were putting their personal guarantee on the result. I had several items pass with good results there, and a couple come back as gimei, but with details about what they actually were (one just as 'shinshinto' (gimei higashiyama ju yoshihira, absolutely no surprise), one as a specific mino school in early edo, one as unknown smith and (I forget the term - mass-produced war item, for a yoridoshi with a notare hamon). Another possibility is that it was a mumei blade by another smith in the school, and was made gimei to the bigger name. Perhaps even the same name - mumei by a later (lesser) generation. IIRC there was a story from back then about a sword being submitted and failing as gimei; the mei being removed and it passing as the original smith. Which could be the committee screwing up -- or it could have been mumei, and someone put the right name on it (similar to the first scenario). Imho, if you're confident, I'd consider resubmitting. The lack of feedback from NBTHK is to me pretty ... annoying. Not even on a shoshin saying what generation it is often (though they may give a era). Clearly if they're saying shoshin and given a smith's name they know which smith/generation they're referring to; why not put it in the papers? (If I'm wrong about this, great - as I said, I'm no expert, and my direct experience was with the (original) NTHK).

Is there any difference between bright green tokubetsu kicho NBTHK papers from the 70's and regular dark green tokubetsu kicho papers? (An example from the 1980 US shinsa can be seen at https://www.nihontocraft.com/japanese_sword_papers.html#japanese_sword_8 in the "Tokubetsu Kicho Nintei-sho from the 1980 US Shinsa" section. I doubt it means a lot, but I was just wondering since I have one. In this case I know it's pretty good; Mumei, I have papers from NTHK, Suiken Fugunaga and NBTHK (1975, bright green). Interestingly, NTHK and Fugunaga agree (55pts Hawley, 4.5M yen Toko, jo-saku); NBTHK to a similar smith (60 pts. 3.5M yen, jo-saku). The difference doesn't bother me; all say it's really good, and it's mumei so it's open to opinion. I agree with NTHK after chatting with Gordon Robson & Marcus Sesko about it.

Note, this is a couple of years old. She also did a day with a smith (Masataka Futsuno); link is at the end of this video. And her shtick seems to be kinda anime clothes (which perhaps isn't so surprising for a youtuber in Japan). Some of it is in English; most in subtitles. Interesting, though very much focused on the general public. Polisher seems like a very nice guy.

I haven't been to a sword museum in Japan. Got close once; was in Japan for 25 hours in 1992(?), but it was on a Monday... Ueno Museum was closed on monday (written in stone on the entrance). Called the NBTHK Museum on the other side of Tokyo to make sure they were open. Someone answered, didn't speak English, but I took that as open. Went 1/2-way around the city, walked took a local line out further, walked a few blocks, got there and someone was coming out to get something from a vending machine. Went to the door and .... Closed on Mondays. The person said they thought that all museums in Japan are closed on Mondays. I was in the Samurai museum in Berlin earlier this year. If you can make it *anything* like that, it'll be outstanding. The focus there was on armor much more than blades. The blade descriptions could use some improvements. But the entire museum was extremely attractive and interesting to non-sword people. Some of the items have fancy touchscreen multi-lingual displays to tell you more

61+, have been collecting since about 20, though only had a gunto (originally for kenjustsu practice) and an old koto tachi in WWII mounts until I was about 30.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/355931663409 and https://www.ebay.com/itm/176500947490 and https://www.ebay.com/itm/375568236655 all use the same images (though on one the background was changed)

I was assuming https://nihontoclub.com/smiths/SAD543, And thus certainly gimei if it's a wak that looks to be early edo or late koto.

Stuff like that helps remind us how much we've learned. :-) I still have the stainless gunto I first got in college for kenjutsu training

I would assume if I see a wakizashi blade with 相模國住人貞宗 sagami(?) kuni junin sada mune(?) and a date from gen toku(?) 2 (1331), with a tang that looks late koto/early edo, it's gimei.... :-) Maybe I misread the date and it's Genroku, which would make more sense... but there are no sadamune's anywhere near that. And no Sadaxxxx's in that timeframe that signed in a way that matches, at least from https://nihontoclub....&mei=kuni+junin+sada