Gakusee

Commissioned, they are $1500-3000. So be careful what you ask for )!

I have met Peter a few times together with Paul Martin, Maurice Hayes, Tony Norman, Stan Nazarenko, Peter Farrar, Ian Chapman etc when Paul comes to London to deliver swords, kodogu etc and take new commissions. A number of UK members will know him and the more Northern community in the UK and Ireland will know him well. There are not that many "actives" among us in the UK (probably 40-50 people among the 300-400 or so who are signed-up members in the hobby across our UK & Ireland sword societies), so we have met a reasonable number of times.

He is very efficient and his delivery is subject to what you need done - simply because he depends on third parties to get your job done (e.g. shinsa turnaround and release of items, polisher time, sayashi time, etc). Furthermore, it depends on whether you want to receive back your item in person (Paul only comes to the UK once or twice a year) or are happy with items being shipped. Same with outbound logistics really (I only hand stuff in person as I do not trust the couriers, RM staff).

Grev The reality is you have relatively few options. You need a knowledgeable, experienced English-speaking agent in Japan who takes good care of your sword and sorts out the logistics. So, somehow you need to get your sword over there first and then the agent will sort out the admin aspects (unless the agent, like Paul on his biannual UK trips, picks the item in person in the UK). To me, Paul's personal attention and picking up of swords have been indispensable. If you are OK to send your items to people you do not know, then you can use any of the Japanese dealers (acknowledging less English knowledge, slower speed of response etc). There are some North American Japan-based people there (Bob, etc ) who can also help. Further, in the U.K. - have you checked with Pablo Kuntz from UniqueJapan (have not used his services but good reputation)?

Yes, Jean, it is a different approach, which he calls "high and narrow" or something like that. I was talking about quality of website , illustrating what makes it exceptional (forgot to mention the informative blog, by the way) and not referring to the extent of merchandise ) Anyway, I wish both parties luck

A few responses to NihontoCollector (apologies but on mobile cannot see names) and Stephen: - this is well-intended constructive criticism from people who have been using the site for 10-15+ years. We like what is there and wish it to succeed - our suggestions are gradually being implemented, which shows there is merit in what we are doing. We are highlighting aspects which can make it more user-friendly and practically usable - clearly, we have nothing better to do and we lack engaging topics to discuss, so we are jumping at this trivial opportunity to engage in a discussion (a self-effacing, semi-sardonic wake-up call to the community) A personal opinion here: Darcy'a Nihonto.ca website for me beats everyone else hands down: - no one matches the hundreds of razor-sharp high-quality photos there - his essays are extensive, informative and full of insights (e.g. how many of the smith's other blades have made it to Juyo and beyond) - translations and phonetic transliterations of sayagaki - user-friendly, uncluttered, straightforward and clear - solid archive of study materials

Thank you, that is better and clearer than before. Clearly feedback is taken into consideration. Good publicity for Fred and his website by the way, too, for those outside of the US, who might not know him.

Guys - no one says the format or design are not good. They are pretty and sleek. What most of us seem to mind is the lack of logical systemisation of his merchandise into logical groups such as: swords, tosogu, books, katchu, miscellaneous. Furthermore, we are missing the price subgroups which allowed people to instantly identify where the items are which fit people's budgets. In the current website version, one needs to scroll and scroll and scroll and leaf through items and open them up in the hope they might be affordable only to find that the price is not right or whatever. So, the new website might look very pretty but it is not as logical, easy to navigate or immediately usable. Let us not confuse these two aspects please.

While I do like the intuitive, scroll-down design (favoured by so many websites nowadays) in principle, I do miss the hitherto more straightforward classification he used to employ for his swords according to price bands (sub $5k, $5-10k etc). Now, on my mobile devices, So the upper end swords (the various Juyo for example) are mixed with others (plus kodogu and books) and one needs to scroll through endless sequential pages to find something specific. Am I missing something?

Gentlemen We seem to be delving into specifics here. I believe we should buy in order to enjoy our items, learn from them and if we manage to negotiate well - perhaps break even or make a profit. But for those of us who are not dealers, making a profit should not be the main prerogative, is my presumption, and should be only a fortuitous corollary. Notwithstanding the aforementioned, I am also not in favour of selling at a loss and have never done it so far with blades (but suspect I might need to do it with a tsuba which I bought on the uneducated / amateur belief it was something but it was papered to another). With my blades, I have been very rigorous and have luckily made a profit or broken even. But I wish to emphasise that I buy a blade once every two years or so after a lot of inward analysis (self introspection about what I like and also external analysis of market prices). The way I have managed is by: - buying recognisable and quality items (so commercially viable) which suit my collecting interests - having been lucky to have had reasonable sellers willing to give me good prices - recognising the quality I am buying and managing to paper the items higher (this point goes to an extent hand in hand with the two points above - either the sellers deliberately left some value upside to me or I recognised that the item was under appreciated, or needed polishing, etc). But sometimes it is luck, currency foreign exchange movements et al (eg, yen depreciating after the monetary easing in Japan and buying with expensive pounds, then selling with a cheap pound and expensive yen, making a profit). As others have said before - this is also akin to market speculation and could be done with other financial instruments (shares, bonds, ETFs). The main prerogative for me has always been to enjoy the item in question and derive gratification from its ownership.

I entirely support Jussi in his approach. I have been interested in Japanese swords since childhood but began seriously studying Nihonto in the early 2000s. I started off by attending meetings of the ToKen Society of GB and arms fairs, reading books and browsing the Internet. I bought my first sword (NTHK papered blade and tsuba, great koshirae) from M Becerra at the end of 2009: so for 7-8 years I did not buy anything. So, like Jussi, I persevered, saved, studied, introspectively deliberated about what I liked and did not like. My first sword was a great commercial package (papered signed ubu Shinto, visually pleasing koshirae and papered beatiful Edo tsuba). But in time, I realised I liked other things and also due to financial pressures I had to part with it. Luckily I broke even on it but the market was merciless ("the smith who made it is no one and only 10-15 pts in Hawley", "it is only NTHK papered" etc). If I could have kept it, I would have as it was delightful (quieter beauty described as "shibui"). But somehow the lesson taught me to be aware of what the market looks for in case I need to sell. I bear that in mind whenever I look to buy (even though the main prerogative is to buy what I like and can afford).

You might want to get in touch with the Northern To-Ken Society or message Ian Bottomley here. Even if you do not meet them, you should visit the Royal Armouries museum.

Nick, welcome. Plenty of collectors and experienced Nihontophiles in the U.K., with several clubs (the oldest and largest of which is the ToKen Society of GB, est. 1964). The Society has a London meeting at the end of this month, 27 Sept, at the usual venue - Senate House, University of London. We are also having a Northern meeting on 14 Oct in Centre Of Britain Hotel Haltwhistle. The Northern ToKen Society, a sister / separate organisation, also has regular meetings - e.g. in Leeds, in the Royal Armouries.

Kokimurasaki Is both classy and traditional but other colours look good too. That would be my first choice followed by deep red shinshu

I like the watch swans idea! They could be vicious

I think the problem is often old timers get tired of the same topics coming up and do not even bother answering. So we need to optimise how we look things up on the board. The issue is not your bandwidth but the way the NMB is hosted and the bandwidth it consumes when it generates search results. Some people have electric dehumidifiers in their gun cases and gauges. But I would be concerned with electronics running with my treasured items so I work with tonnes of silica. I have noticed sword museums work with mechanical dehumidifiers in the cases and in the actual room - proper , large dehumidifying appliances. Humidity of 50-55 apparently. Katana dantsu are also good but I would still add the silica dessicant.

Someone had posted about how they control humidity and temperature. There are options ranging from electric rods to small dehumidifiers to silica gel bags. I also live in a fairly high humidity environment and have slotted two 1kg silica gel bags in a rifle case in which I keep swords. Separately, I have these tiny 1inchx1inch silica pellet boxes inserted in the silk shirasaya bag at the mouth of the Saya where it conjoins the tsuka and that all goes in the dehumidifier gun case Finally, I am planning to buy these Zcorr gun cases impregnated with VCPI for extra measure. All of that I have learnt on the NMB so actually all of the information has been there over the years. The problem is, again explained in a different thread, the limited number of search results you can generate due to bandwidth etc. Brian explained it recently.

There was a thread here 12-18 mths ago and many people posted. It strikes me how so often we do not make the effort to look harder at the available data on NMB. In that thread last year there were cases designed by members, assembled with Ikea or similar components, there were safes arranged beautifully inside like little shrines almost , et cetera.

Les Stewart in Scotland and Tony Norman in Essex are two polishers I am familiar with in the UK but I have heard others mention the name of John Bolton. They have not "graduated" officially and have not had the long Japan-based training SGJ is referring to above. Tony has exchanged ideas and been coached a bit by Abe San but that does not extend to apprenticed full training. The polishing skills of both Les and Tony have evolved a lot in the last 10 years and as far as I have been told (and have seen) they have polished Hozon and TH level swords which passed those levels after those two gentlemen had polished the blades. For full disclosure, I have not used the services of any UK polishers but have seen blades owned by friends, which were polished by them.

Excellent, John, I am glad this is amicable. I hope you enjoy it and take care of it for what it is - that is the most important thing. We need to have our differences - otherwise we shall be chasing the same items. As I said, I bore no ill intention. By the way - the NBTHK does put the generations on papers but only very occasionally. Therefore, we need to study extra hard and reach our own conclusions. Unfortunately the dated blades (which one can definitely attribute as they are dated and original) are mostly beyond the reach of us, non-Japanese. Take care as well.

John I am in a difficult situation: I have had positive experiences with Derek and can attest to his excellent commercial background and personal qualities and have bought from him without problems. However, you have also publicly thrown the gauntlet and why should we share only positive thoughts? This is fruther compounded by the fact this is an ongoing sale and we are not doing anyone many favours. I have numerous reasons to question the mei and nakago, notwithstanding this is a good blade and has some characteristics of a Muramasa blade (of course it should, otherwise why even bother). I agree on the kaeri, the rectangular nakago mune (only Nidai) and perhaps the hada points which could indicate a Muramasa here. Some of the hamon looks to point in that direction too but from the pictures I cannot see the trademark hataraki I would expect there. However, as you have taken the time to write such an extensive post, let me explain my own thinking. I did not write it lightly and off the cuff, exactly because I am aware of the background of Derek and have had positive experiences. Again, I am not an expert but have been collecting Muramasa for a while as well (10+ years). - on the balance of probabilities given the 15-20 Muramasa blades I have seen in person (unfortunately I own or have owned only 2 papered, signed ones myself - one with Hozon and one with THozon, so current papers) and my various reference tomes (probably with 100 examples altogether), in all the officially papered cases I have seen the third (horizontal long) Mura stroke crosses the second (left vertical) and not the other way around. Please refer not only to the document you mention but also Sato's Ise No Toko publication, Fujishiro, Nihonto Koza, Markus's books etc. - furthermore, the small diagonal atari at the bottom right of Mura normally intersects the second vertical stroke precisely at the junction - here it is as though someone drew the second vertical stroke too long and tried to overcompensate by pushing the small diagonal stroke further up. Not what the shodai/nidai did. - a National Museum katana of which I have a photo shows the sequence of strokes as I describe it. I think you are referring to the shodai blade on Derek's website but only the shodai wrote the Mura kanji properly with two separate characters and in a different handwriting from the conjoined Mura kanji here. The one on this tanto, is the more common, later, simplified version where the horizontal long stroke is always third and crosses over the second, left vertical stroke. - the nakago seems to have been reshaped - look at both sides and notice the hammering. Why? Normally not necessary for tanto unless someone in the past tried to give it a more tanagobara shape than origininally - again, on the balance of probabilities and given that you have pretty much annual shinsa in the US with the NTHK coming there regularly, it is relatively affordable and efficient to submit it for an NTHK paper even if you do not wish to bother with the NBTHK. I am aware that most of you guys go to these shows and it would have been a no-brainer to submit. Especially if you are selling a not particularly cheap item. In any case, I could go on with my thinking and other reasons but people need to judge the blade on its merits. It is a nice enough tanto. As it is we are both speculating and have or own reasoning. It is for a potential buyer to speak with Derek about this (e.g. has it been submitted for NBTHK or NTHK papers recently?) and also, as importantly, inspect the blade in hand. I am judging here by pictures and this is always fraught with risk. Again, I wish to emphasise that I have had positive, honest dealings with the seller here and am expressing personal thoughts on this specific tanto.

Try his email on the website

Try Richard Adams in Newquay

Also the private Mori museum. If you are heading towards Kyoto and Osaka

edit to previous post: to me this has a wrong sequence of chiselling the strokes of the Mei (as well as their execution) and that is why I think it is gimei.