reeder

Here’s one off the saya from a sword i recently purchased.

That's a lot of low grade, uninteresting smiths to learn their style and signitures on.... I doubt anyone that spends their time studying nihonto is going to waste the time on blades that don't have much to offer. We have Slough's & Stein's to compare the signatures to already. Maybe folks can work with Brian to add oshigata to Stein's website? Probably better served to set up a sticky or FB group than submit to a shinsa type team for in hand inspection & papers. Seems plenty of people post stuff all the time as it is on all of the various platforms so what's the point? Not sure if anyone collects pocket knives, but the fakes have gotten pretty much identical to the real ones. I've heard that a lot of the fakes are mostly made from the left over parts to assemble & sell at a fraction of the price. So essentially buying the same knife from the same plant, just 1 is approved and the other isn't. So I've been told, pocket knives were never my thing.

Here’s another.

Never paid attention to it whether or not the mon were on showato. Have had many swords come and go. Have had great blades you would have never guessed would have been in plain Type 98 mounts w/ no upgrades (e.g. pierced tsuba, mon, etc.) and had total junk seki blades in mounts I was certain was going to have something spectacular. I want to say I've had/seen mantetsu-to w/ mon. I think I had a mantetsu-to that was missing the mon, it was dated 1939. Maybe it had the mon, maybe not, have had a dozen or two of them and let them go while they were hot and hard to keep them all straight.

Very nice!

I think Stephen has a really nice Torio Hiromasa for around $2K...

Ouch. Sorry to hear. Hopefully it can be returned for a refund.

Yep, I replied to him same day it was posted and said I’d take it and provided my number, never heard back from him.

for $280 or whatever he was asking just grab it and figure it out later.

It's not eBay, there was a new ruling/law/whatnot that allowed states to elect to collect sales tax on online sales from out of state sellers regardless whether or not they had a physical presence in that state. IIRC this is from the decision on Wayfair v. S. Dakota. I suppose you'll see PayPal (as well as other payment processers) automatically collecting the sales tax on transactions if they haven't started already.

Congrats that the PO didn’t run it over with a truck and destroy it like my Yoshimune. ????

I read it, it doesn’t change the fact that the RJT document provided by Chris clearly lists the blade must be dated among other requirements. Could there be examples that slipped through? Maybe. I have traditionally made blades by RJT smiths that aren’t star stamped but not sure I’ve seen undated star stamped blades.

Being dated was one of the requirements to receive the star stamp.

I have 3 gendaito all katana length in matching WWII mounts all at or under $2,000.

There’s couple of eBay sellers selling blades with similar aged nakagos. Their swords are bad and this looks like one. Iirc the listings usually are “the Japanese samurai sword”.

Bummer, not fun taking losses. Had one that was papered to interesting shinto smith, mumei though, but 27.5" nagasa, tobiyaki, premium gunto mounts, hang tag.... lost about $1000 on eBay auction. Sword didn't even break $1500

Nice find, how long is the cutting edge?

I have a tough time with tassels but they did buy all of the swords from US sellers last decade...

another poorly done gimei - https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F114016905761

Y'all see the one he posted today w/ the added horimono using a dremel tool (presumably)? It looks horrible. 114014317451

Never know, it’s a good time to buy, not necessarily for resale though.

There are tons of WWII blades made by Kanenori & his students/workers. Not all were made or signed by him. Nothing is wrong w/ the Kane having the line like that, it's still Kanenori. I've had both seki & star stamped blades by this smith. Even in mint condition, none of them were too exciting. He has a high rating in Slough's so his swords seem to get more interest than typical factory smiths from WWII, but I can't say that I agree w/ the rating from the countless examples I've come across. They're definitely no where near other 1 mil. yen rated smiths.

Very difficult. I still can't figure it out. LOL. Tried numerous things for years and no matter what I do or how good it looks on my computer (to my eye) they get compressed and lose all definition when I upload them to eBay (for the ones it's time to move on from).

It looks like a gendaito by an RJT smith to me. Dated, more than 2 character mei so it certainly appears to meet the requirements to have received a star stamp. I have a type 3 with these same type of plain copper fuchi and kashira that has a star stamped Hiromasa blade. Iirc I’ve seen one or 2 more examples of these fittings with star stamped blades (I believe another Hiromasa and a Kanehide). They’re not very common compared to the other type 3 mounts.

Thanks, Stephen. It's a real nice, early one. Just one small pitting spot near the tip. It's got the early brass guard that's thicker. Feel free to pm and I can send you as many detailed pics as you want, although as you can tell, I'm no professional photographer.