bigjohnshea

It is amazing how good photos can really sell things online. :-) Are there any other reasons you liked this particular blade? It's style? The era it was made in? The smith himself? I always make an effort to research the swords I'm interested in. Usually if it's just another beautiful sword that won't do it for me. If there's a story behind it, or some details of it that are uniquely beautiful to me, then I get hooked. :-) Enjoy your blade. Cheers,

Welcome to the amazing world of Nihonto! I agree this is a solid purchase from a well respected dealer, and not at all a terrible price. It's certainly a damn sight better than my first Nihonto purchases. :-) What made you like this particular blade? Cheers,

Thank you, Darcy. I wasn't sure if they really had any good reason to think the sayagaki was wrong or if they were simply being doubtful due to a rare attribution. After studying the blade a bit more the last few days I'm realizing that it lacks two kantei points that appear to be key to the attribution of O-Sa tantos. These are both as described by Fred Weissberg on Nihonto.com The first is a widening hamon described as transitioning from yakikomi at the hamachi and growing wider as it ascends. The second is a long kaeri extending down the back of the mune. My blade lacks both of these features seen in every example of a Samonji tanto available online, particularly the three seen on sho-shin.com. I am wondering if this may be a Sa Yukihiro tanto given a few points Fred makes on his description of the difference between O-Sa tanto and tanto by Yukihiro. I'd be thrilled if that were the case, but either way I've convinced myself the last few days that the "Sa" mei does not belong, and the attribution is likely wrong if genuine. Your description of the reputation his sayagaki have, Darcy, seems to fit giving these missing features. As for the two samurai mentioned in the document, it appears to be well known that Takeda Harunobu carried a osoraku-zukuri style tanto, which would ofcourse not be this, but that does not mean the document is wrong. As for it having been owned by Yamamoto Kansuke, I haven't found anything talking about what tanto he may have used. Hope you have had a great weekend. Cheers,

Edit: I just emailed him via his website. Thank you for the suggestion. We'll see if I hear back. Cheers,

Thanks everyone for your comments. Sorry it took so long to respond. Had a busy day yesterday. I made an offer of about 2000$ on this tanto a few days ago. http://www.ricecracker.com/inventory/87 ... to_sa.html I approached the purchase of this tanto as though I was simply buying a mumei early Koto era tanto and not a Samonji. I'm assuming that since it hasn't been submitted for shinsa that the current owner and the merchant are even more in doubt about it being a Sa than they let off in the description. The truth is I will be perfectly happy with it for the roughly 2000$ I paid as long as it turns out to be a Kamakura or some early era tanto. I think that's a fair price for a tanto from that period. Also the old document that comes along with it is interesting. It does have a number of features consistant with it being a Sa, such as those written of in the description, and the fact that he tended to make shorter tantos than what was common for the time, with just a hint of sori in the nakago. However, I wanted to try and find a resource that might detail which blades had sayagaki written for them by Honami Choshiki. I guess I was assuming there was some kind of list somewhere out there that detailed the blades he had made attributions for. Love to hear some additional thoughts if anyone would care to share. Thanks for the links and the advice. Cheers,

Hope you are all well. What resources would you all recommend to verify the authenticity of a sayagaki by Honami Choshiki? Appreciate some advice on books and/or online resources to use. Cheers,

I think the tsuba on the one side is stripped of patination and what we see is the genuine clean copper color. I don't know what the silverish material is in between the copper. I picked it for the restoration I was planning because of the copper color, and the the swirling form of the pattern. The Habaki of the sword it was intended for is copper as well, and one of the "menuki" I had acquired for it (actually a fossilized Mako shark's tooth) had a similar copper-like patina to it so they would have worked well together. The swirling pattern of the tsuba looked to me like tumultous waters, or waters disturbed by movement of fish. As a bit of backstory: The sword this was intended for was from Kaga, which is a fishing town, and the theme of these fittings was going to be a legend from the coast of Kaga. The legend is that there is a shark in the waters nearby that is the embodiment of a female diety. The fishermen were afraid of this shark and when they rowed past this region of the coast they would bang on the side of their boat to scare away the shark. Hence the other menuki opposite to the shark's tooth was a fishing boat with an oar hanging off the side of it. The tsuka was to be wrapped in shark's skin as well, which is not at all an unusual wrapping I believe. I would have completed this restoration had it not been for a recent change in my school schedule. Over the course of a few weeks I found myself suddenly needing the money due to this issue, and I already had made a lay-away deal with another seller here on NMB to buy a sword. Because of this change in my school schedule I couldn't complete both these expenses, but I didn't want to default on my obligations for the lay-away deal, so I had to sacrifice this restoration. I might keep the sharks tooth, and maybe find another Kaga sword someday, maybe try to reinvent this restoration in another form, but for now I'm stepping away from trying to restore swords. It's much too slow a process, and I think I'm too impatient for it also. Additionally, unless you are restoring something truly worthwhile (which I believe that sword would be) you stand little chance of breaking even if you have to sell it later. Hope everyone is having a good weekend. Cheers, John

Tsuba sold. Many thanks to the board for their comments. Will respond later tonight more.

Tsuba now 100$ Will keep it if I can't get that for it. Cheers,

Menuke sold. Tsuba now $125. Somebody buy it for god's sake. Cheers,

Hello all, Up for sale is an unsigned antique tsuba and menuki. These were purchased as part of a restoration project that I have decided not to pursue. I don't collect fittings, and don't know a lot about them, so I've decided to sell them relatively cheap. The tsuba is a lovely brass design of swirling waters or wind. It is only half restored though and if you decide to use it, it will need to be cleaned up a bit. Price: $150. It was purchased here on NMB for 150Euro. Happy to let it go to for a good price. (Edit: Forgot to add that this is a katana sized tsuba) The menuki is a nice depiction of a boat with a single oar, situated in front of a small swirl of water. It has some gold inlay decorating the canopy of the boat. Price: $30. It was purchased on Ebay from a reliable Japanese merchant who sells primarily antigue sword fittings. It was $40. Preferred payment method is Paypal. I'll be happy to pay shipping within the US. If you are international please contact me for shipping quote at Bigjohnshea@yahoo.com. Please include your shipping destination. Cheers, John

This is getting out of hand fast. I think everyone needs to take a break from the detective work and just get on with their lives. Not going to find any evidence to convict someone with just accusations and theories. :-) Cheers, Other John

Honestly if I had seen it on ebay at 1500$ BIN I would have bought it. I'm not at all convinced this blade is as tired as others are making it out to be. The ha machi (or what's left of it) is diminished but there is still plenty of hamon and I think it could survive a careful polish. I bet we've all seen worse. I just can't afford it unfortunately. I'm a risk taker but I have enough on my plate.

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.vi ... 19&alt=web I've been using this oil for a good while now. Seems fine to me. Just a thought. Cheers,

But it looks like there's a lip around the perimeter of it, as if something displaced the metal outwardly. Also there is another circular blemish in the texture surrounding it. Any reason this couldn't have been a bullet strike?

I don't think I can afford it. Just interested. I've already spent my play money for a good while. :-) Good luck if someone bids. Cheers,

http://www.ebay.com/itm/171438796046?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT I'm wondering if it's ubu or not? Looks like koto to me. The photos aren't good enough to see much detail though. Mei looks genuine enough. Anyone have any thoughts? Cheers,

I was not at all convinced the mei on this is was genuine. Surprised to see it sold for so much. Also can anyone chime in if they think the nakago is welded on or not? It looks suspicious to me. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Japanes ... RTM1562569 Cheers,

Bob, The tanto looks nice. The hamon concerns me though. In the first and third photos it appears as though the hamon vanishes as it approaches the habaki-moto. Could just be the condition of the blade. Cheers,

Bob, I remember the first time I bought a fake Chinese made sword. This was about 10 years ago. I hadn't even really wanted to start collecting Japanese swords but I wanted to own one so I went onto ebay. I bought a very long sword (probably about the same size as yours) for around 200$ and whatever amount for shipping. It's a nice wall hanger, but at the time I thought it was genuine and that I was buying it from someone in China who didn't really know what it was worth. Atleast that's what they said. I wanted an idea of what it was really worth so I went to a local sword shop I knew of not too far from where I lived and asked him how much it would be to appraise it. He took one look at it and his first words were "There's no point in appraising fake swords." That's when he showed me some real swords and that's when I learned. If there is a collector out there who doesn't have a similar story then they are very fortunate to have not been taken advantage of. Save your money, sell things you don't want, trade things you don't want, and save more until you can afford to buy good items from well respected merhcants. Best advice I can give you. Cheers.

The thing that pisses me off is that people benefit so greatly from the sale of things under false pretenses. This right here is the perfect scenario to illustrate this point. The blade that Trent purchased was sold by me to the seller who then sold it to Trent under false pretenses. That seller bought it from me for around $700 if I remember right, and then resold it for a significant profit to Trent. I won't state how much for his own privacy. When I first bought that blade I bought it from Tim Pepin. This was about 2 years ago when I first started collecting. It cost me nearly $1800 and that was when it was out of polish. I then had it restored by an amature polisher which cost an additional $900. I then put it through shinsa for another $200, which it failed due to a gimei, but it was attributed to one of the Echizen Shimosaka smiths. I then sold it on ebay with full disclosure of the fact that it failed shinsa, and included the shinsa papers in the package to the person who won it, who is the most recent seller. So what cost me roughly $2900, was sold with honesty on ebay for $700, (a $2200 loss) and then resold with false pretenses for a significant profit. It may seem like a small lie to make up a story about a sword, but in the long run someone somewhere has somehow paid for that lie.

I'm afraid Mr. Spencer is accurate about all this. The seller is making up the entire back story about his swords. Personally I don't buy from liars and swindlers. As was said before there are too many good people who deserve your business more. Cheers,

Thanks Harry. No I wouldn't dream of trying to remove the rust myself. I don't have time for it anyhow. Too busy trying to pass my board exams for med school. Cheers.

Barry, Yes I had contacted some polishers a while ago to see what it would cost, but I've been putting the money elsewhere since then though. I still have other swords to focus on. Have a really nice Shinto blade I got from Chris Bowen that has been in line to be polished for more than a year now, and have another I need to make payments on. With those two going I'll be lucky if I EVER get any extra money to put into this blade. :-) Until then it will just rest and be cared for. BTW, I never asked anyone this before, but is there any good reason not to put choji on an unpolished blade? I have a few others that are out of shape and I usually put choji on them (with a different cloth) when I clean my swords every few months. Is there any reason not to put choji on blades out of polish? Thank you again to everyone. Cheers.

Thank you all for your insights. This sword has never been a priority for me and it was very cheap. I have bigger fish to fry, but I always liked this little blade for some reason. Like Peter said, I don't think there will be much left of it if it was polished up though, so I'm just going to leave it the way it is. Wrap it up in some cloth and let it rest in peace. :-) Hope you all have a great weekend! Cheers.