Ken-Hawaii

Give him a buzz, Grev. Here's his Web-site: http://www.hizento.net/author.htm

One image of katana plus koshirae, or separate?

Some fairly-nice blades, too. I'm impressed that I can zoom in a long way, without pixelation.

PM on #1

You couldn't be more wrong, Troy! I have over 200 references in my library, & I can't read Kanji at all. On-line, start with https://markussesko.com/kantei/ Markus is an NMB member & a prolific writer. He sells most of his books on Lulu.com (https://markussesko.com/books/)

Bjorn, one thing catches my eye. Almost invariably, Koto blades have an identical pattern from hamon into boshi, but yours looks different.

Nice exhibition, Peter.

The chance of finding an "original tsuba" is pretty close to zero. Even Samurai changed them out, & the good ones were sold off by the generations of "caretakers."

Darius, the blade may have ashi in nthe hamon, but the saya is where you draw the blade from.

Gwyn, I agree with your observation. Your thumb is always on the tsuba, at 11 o'clock, both to hold the blade in the saya, & to facilitate drawing it. Putting the thumb at 12 o'clock can easily get you a split, bloody thumb, & a mess on the blade. However, when you draw the blade, the wear will be on the bottom of the tsuba, as it faces your opponent.

In a darkened room, shine a single light down the length, Chris. If the edge of the hamon glows, you have a strong nioiguchi, & likely a top-notch blade. Not easy to photograph, though.

Interesting. One of my sword club members brought one in, & none of us thought it was real. I learn something new & useful every day on NMB!

E-mail sent, Alex.

Great writeup, Yuri! It clarifies several points that I had wondered about. Are you related to Kenny Endo, by any chance? He's my Taiko sensei.

When you're not sweating, Chris, try playing with reflected light down the length of the blade. Seeing the nioiguchi will tell us a lot.