bigjohnshea

Jesse, Apologies for the delay responding. Been busy with board exams for school. It is still available, and will be at the upcoming sword show. I think that show is in Florida? Will let you know for sure come September. Thanks for your interest. It's a beauty for sure. :-) Cheers, John

It is the nickle content that smiths have to worry about the most when making meteorite blades. Nickle makes steel brittle, and iron from meteorites has much more nickle in it than iron from terrestrial sources. So much so that one of the first tests a lab runs on an unknown iron specimen (to verify it is an iron meteorite, and not a manmade slag iron that looks meteoritic) is the nickle reagent test. As for the cost of meteoritic iron vs. tamahagane? I'm an avid meteorite collector, and a minor player in the merchant circles, but I don't know what tamahagane costs right out of the kiln. You can get some meteorite irons relatively cheap. For as much as a katana blade weighs (1kg at most it seems) you can easily get 2kg of Campo meteorite specimens for $500-$1000. The cost of any meteorite varies by rarity and beauty. Campo (for example) is not at all rare, and there are many pieces out there that are not attractive.

Additionally, Mike's assessment of the sword, and the features of the sword itself, did not support the mei being attributed to O-Sa as the Sayagaki would indicate. These are the primary reasons for why the mei was removed. I don't think anyone who saw it prior to shinsa, perhaps including Mike, knows the Hirado Sa school well enough to make a solid attribution of this.

No, the mei was removed first. There was alot of discussion above about this being gimei O-Sa but we never actually thought about the possibility that this was another smith signing Sa in a lineage school of Chikusen Sa.

Raising this thread from the dead to post the results of Shinsa. The supposed gimei was removed and this was submitted to NBTHK shinsa. The result is Hozon as Hirado Sa, one of the two minor schools branching from Chikusen Sa. From Nihonto Club I see that one of the smiths from this school actually signed "Sa", so is it possible that the remnant of a signature which resembled the symbol "Sa" might not have actually been gimei? The Honami Chosiki Sayagaki was attributing it to O-Sa, and while that sayagaki was erroneous, could the mei itself have still been genuine? Hope everyone is doing well! Cheers,

Result came back: Hirado Sa, one of the small branches of Chikuzen Sa school.

FYI, Just learned that the reason why this is so delayed is that the merchant did not get the swords in at the NBTHK in time for March shinsa. He missed the deadline by a few days so they were pushed back til May shinsa. Information I wish I had months ago… -sigh- "What we got here is a failure to communicate..."

If anyone is going to take better pics it won't be me. I have no skill at it so far, and no good camera for it. Hope everyone is doing well. :-) Cheers,

Thanks for the kind words Florian. Honestly do not know why this sword or my other on Ricecracker have not sold yet. This sword in particular with a shinsa guarantee...? This is a very unique blade by a smith who worked at the time for the Hosokawa family, one of the longest running families in Japanese history. Very attractive buy. Cheers,

Bump! Still an awesome sword. Still at an awesome price. :-)

-sigh- Still waiting… I thought people were efficient in Japan…

Cheers Jon! Hope life is treating you good!

Here's one from a Yoshihara tanto I used to own. Hope it helps. :-) Cheers,

Bumpin it. Cause ain't nobody else gonna do it for me.

I don't know anything about the guy you asked about, but I ordered a custom sword bag from these guys once for a nagamaki I have. http://www.tozandoshop.com It was perfect in every way. Would go back again for sure. Cheers,

Personally I don't care if papers come from NBTHK or NTHK. The people conducting shinsa sure know alot more about swords than I do so either one works for me. If someone truly has enough knowledge to feel like they have equal expertise as the shinsa panel, then they likely don't need the NTHK. They're more likely to be submitting with Juyo as a goal at the NBTHK.

The implication appears to be that NBTHK's longer wait is the result of them being superior in some way. And yet most above seem to agree that there is no difference between a Hozon paper and an NTHK paper. Are we all not in agreement on that?

Bump. Still available. Will buy the new owner a beer at our nearest meeting.

Starting to think that with this kind of turn around time, and the annoying process of swords getting into and out of Japan, it's sort of pointless to submit a blade to the NBTHK if you're just hoping for Hozon. Hozon papers don't add any greater value than NTHK papers, so unless you're going for TH or Juyo, how does anyone benefit from the pain in the neck it is to send to Japan and wait twice as long for papers? Hope everyone is having a good week! Cheers,

Sounds like two things are happening, 1) they're understaffed for their workload, and 2) the market is destined to be flooded. Thanks for the feedback. Cheers,

Hope you are all doing well. So I submitted a tanto to NBTHK shinsa in March through a well known dealer. Here it is, middle of June. As far as I know my tanto is still in Japan and we have no info. The merchant has told me already that he hasn't gotten any info about the shinsa results. I believe him because I know his reputation, but it just doesn't make sense that it would take so long. There was another shinsa in May already... I have submitted to the NTHK numerous times and you get results back in a week or so from handlers. It has been basically three months. Is this normal for the NBTHK? What is going on over in Japan?

What about replacement NTHK papers? is that possible? Cheers,

Ah... So you are saying these are in Chinese not Japanese?

Apologies, but I don't know how to rotate the images. They keep turning. The artist's signature should be in the bottom left. Thank you again. Cheers,

Dear All, Hope you are well. I purchased these scrolls about 15 years ago from a small antiquities shop when I was living in Florence Italy. The merchant I bought them from seemed to think they were poetry scrolls. A friend of mine who is Japanese said he couldn't read them because they are written in caligraphy. I do not know anything else about them, and would be eternally grateful if someone could translate them for me, maybe shed a little info on their origins if possible. I took a closer photo of what I assume is the name of the artist. Would be lovely to know who that is. Thank you for your time. Cheers, John