Alex A

Yes, they are the words i was looking for Piers, cheers. Was told some years ago that those type of heavy clunkers are rare and were also used on battlefields When you think about it, if wearing armour and taking a blow, id rather it come from a sword than one of those , 1cm thick. The gent that told me, very experienced and had only ever seen one, that was in gunto mounts

Forget the name, but perhaps modified to fit........... Page 325, Stones glossary No9, "Made and mounted like a sword but it has a curved iron bar"

id save up a bit more

Be interesting to see your several straight blades John, with school and date.

In the images, looks quite straight with little sori, so maybe Kanbun era Whats your thoughts on sori?

Look at old over polished blades where all that is left are very shallow traces of the original horimono. When horimono is added a later date (atobori) there needs to be great care about the depth due to core steel. Openings in Bo-hi are common in old blades. Care has to be taken with even polishing Bo-hi etc, hence why you may even come across staining that has not been polished out, experienced polishers maybe thinking less is more.

Bit confused here, are you talking about the blade with 3 nakago-ana in this thread? o

Good to see someone new to collecting knowing what they want, for a change. And doing their homework Well done, good purchase The Nanako fittings are nice.

With a long thin shaft like that, the only thing i can think of is an exceptionally rare type of arrowhead, but what do i know Edit to add. Got me curious this piers so started a look at the Stone Glossary book. p673 , no 48, similar shape. Perhaps something along those lines maybe, if not for a bow, maybe a crossbow. Maybe be totally wrong, but interesting though.

John explained the Hozen paper...............genuine Hozen=worthy of preservation. This is an Hozen level blade. These papers are enough for a lot of people, dont need anything higher, even for blades well above the quality of this particular blade. Back up what they already think for themselves, which is how it should be, not just relying solely on a paper.

Hello, looks to be a good healthy blade.

Hello, Have you done clear pictures of the nakago ? Blade length ? Start comparing to Sue-Mino , end of Muromachi, see what you find.

Always great to see Brians display. Just a few things ive learned you may already be aware of. Dont display swords near an outside wall or radiator. Dont display swords above which is a boiler, in my experience seen too many spring a leak. When you go on holiday move your swords upstairs and turn the water off at the mains (witnessed a disaster once), preferably leave them in a locked gun cabinet (get them cheap on ebay) Move them out of the way if any friends or family visiting. Lastly, dont buy any blade that shows any sign of spider rust.

Made for hefty blade Bruno, even after being altered to the 8MM width. Seller said Momoyama, ana measurements meets the stout blades around at that time. Its difficult, just got to work with what you have Not studied tsuba for a long time, but from memory, read somewhere that when you come across thin plate tsuba like this that are not of the norm (as in square), was a Momoyama trait. The plate on your tsuba looks uniform, Edo, but perhaps just in good preservation, the edges also look crisp. Ive seen tsuba that date to the end of the Muromachi in this condition. Just thoughts, im here to to learn to. Perhaps ask folk like Ford Hallam, Mariusz a good call to as he has seen quite a few of these over the years. As for Katchushi/Tosho, dont really matter, to me.

Before you do anything read just one book, take you a day or two Enlightenment. The Samurai Sword: A Handbook: Amazon.co.uk: John M. Yumoto, T.C. Ford: 9784805309575: Books Nothing worse than buyers remorse.

I like it too What is the nakago-ana size ?

Georg, with looking at the koshirae totally missed the blade. Looking at what Ray pointed out earlier, can you make out the hamon at all ?, Choji ? Nakago might be messed with but could be improved. Ishido blades in Choji, if in good polish can be also really appealing.

Aye, the blades are difficult, some good advice on here if you do a search.

Those fittings will be really appealing to a lot of collectors, real Samurai appeal. Vey nice to see. Ps, those new images are excellent, dealer quality

Hopefully just a bolt in the bottom and not glued. I got one, black marble (not granite) base from a trophy shop lol, they made me one to suit, long time ago but was only £15. Will look so much better without the wood,

Some info here Kaifu 19 05 2016v1.pdf (to-ken.uk) That nakago though

Hi Jon, everything is off about the blade, its been heavily messed with. The only thing remotely ok is the tsuka.

Hi Jon, this is a red alert for a purchase

I dont know much about these but judging from what ive looked at over the years i would expect folk to ask between $400 to $650 for it. Its ok, but when i see these statues where the sword is out and with this kind of pose it kind of puts me off and reminds me of later stuff. Seen similar in the past and when you scour the internet you find identical pieces at varying prices, sometimes low, sometimes high. Be better if was signed but then again the price would likely be sky high. Base looks cheap (which might suggest ?), would replace it with a nice granite piece if i owned it, find them for sale quite cheap. Wish i was educated on these lol, as always wanted a nice example.

Occasionally i do look over the lanes site because from time to time they do have swords with attractive koshirae. You will rarely find papered swords , the reason they gave me years ago was that sending swords abroad for shinsa was a lot of hassle and expense, which i suppose is true. As someone new to the hobby, buying a sword with papers will bring you peace of mind so you may find buying from the Lanes armoury difficult unless you really know what you are looking at and have it in hand. There are plenty of people looking for authentic Samurai swords in the UK that dont really care about papers or the blades in top notch polish etc, so they will never be short on customers. If someone goes beyond this stage and digs deeper, buys books and learns a little, they tend to get a lot more picky and look for swords that suit their interests, hence why a lot of swords get imported into the UK from overseas. In contrast, met a few guys over recent years that will never buy a sword from overseas, they need to see it "in hand", as buying from images online is not always plain sailing.