TheGermanBastard

Japan

Stegel In understand you and where you are coming from. You want a relic / artefact / item that is in most original condition. No debate on this. I fully understand you. My point is just that it makes no sense to debate in Showa22 Frankenstein lab. He will keep on feeding the market. Everybody is free to buy his merchandise or to dismiss it. As long as there are still thousands of NCOs in unaltered condition preserved I see not much point in worrying about his actions - for the main reason that our debate does not chang anything. He will continue as long as he makes a buck on it. Since we still have larger quantities of these swords left - since they are mass produced - I would want to think he is causing little harm in the end. Decpetion and lies are core behaviour in any society. I may not like them but as long as I want to socialite I will have to cope with then, The modern Gassan smiths, Kiyomaro and some other great master were also great conartists. Should I ignore their work? No. I would be most happy to own it and it also part of their history. Now would removing a Gimei by Kiyomaro be wrong since it is an alteration? I can not answer this question and everybody needs to be their own judge.

@ Stegel: You are welcome to call me an arrogant wanker. I don't take offence from this. No hard feelings. However I'd prefer to be called ignorant or stupid or both. This would be more accurate and do me justice. Looking at your latest post it feek a bit pedantic bean counter like. I have no idea how many NCOs there are. Probably several thousands. I see no point in documenting them. Look at what Showa22 has up for sale. If you like it then buy it. If you do not like it then do not buy it. Personally I just do not look at his auctions and I am too busy to document other people auctions. Wanking myself is of higher interest and pleasure. But everybody do what they enjoy best.

The catfish Menuki is very nice

Christoph: It is what it is for whateber reason. We can not know who assembled it for what reason. Can we rule out that what we see is what a Japanese dude had originally assambled from the pieces he had? No we can not rule this out. In a War people will take what they have available in parts. Especially towards the end of the war you will have lost of short cummings and people will improvise. Take a look at the Gendaito you had bought from me. I was probably the 1st person to take its handle off since it had left Japan and the Seppas / Tsuba had different numbr. For whatever reason.

I do not own a goldbar but I do own a gold testing device for checking on the validity of a bar. Like when buying a sword I would first buy the necessary reference work. I would always assume the worst and if I get cheated then it is my fault in the 1st place.

My oppinions should be taken with a grain of salt. I am just a funny misantropic guy. But Matt, you say I can not appreciate it appropriately? The implication of this is invalid. You say you come from a scientific dichotomic valid / false system but then argue in a pretty personal right / wrong point of view. All I can say is that I can appreciate anything to the best of my abbility - whatever it is. One can argue about taste but it is pointless just like this discussion is. if I showed you the "original" setup of this NCO blade and the later modification, could you tell which one was the actual original? NO you could not. Even the 1st setup we see may NOT be the original one. We simply do not know - that is all we know ... and it does not make any change.

Hello Matt, I think Archeology is one of the most obsolete sciences with the least to be gained from oustide an ivory tower ... What can be learned from past societies is that they completly failed over something. So sad, That is no news at all. I do not need someone else to fail and study him to fail myself. I can accomplish this myself pretty well. If you want to secuerly travel in the future you musn't be driving by looking at the rear mirror. I absolutely see no reason other than to keep itself alife and claim itself to be of importance why Archeology would dig into the recent past, a past that has been well recorded through modern mass communication. In one years archeologists would start a debate over the Playboy Magazine collection under my bed and speculate would could have been the reason for storing magazines on a ground level. I bet there would be some great, most obsucre theories ... I am more concerned about plastic in the occean, a climate change or other problems endangering mankind ... the present and future rather thant past. See it from the brightside: If there are more Showa22 destroying the "historical value" of things, it will just add more "importance" to the remaining artefacts. Isn't this great?

Hello Neil, I am a sociologist and fatalist. Looking at societies I see little being learned from mans past and personally attach little to no value into digging in past societies history. I do not see much point in what value there is documentation and research on mass produced weapons from the last century. But that is just my point of view. Howeber I know what I am talking about since my PhD thesis is atleast as useless focusing on public toilettes and Norbert Elias. So back on topic. Let's say the Tsuba he put on is not stamped at all. So what does it tell then? Nothing. Now lets take the case it is stamped but not matching. What does this tell us? Nothing but that it is not matching. You have no way to tell when it was changed. There are many Gunto type swords that will come on the market as a virging without mathching fittings simply because the Japanese dude who assembled them did not care or had made an error or whatever. Or take the case that there has been a GI who mixed things up 60 years ago. Now does that add positive or negative to the story? Has Banksis halfy destroyed image become even greater art or been rendered usesless?

My impression, with his past history, is that he thinks this configuration is more desirable, and hence will bring in better prices for him. What he doesn't consider is the damage he is doing to the whole collecting world and the future of our hobby/interest. Yes, he obviously does think so and if the buyers choose to pay a higher price then who is to blame? If a customer wants to pay a higher price at a 3 star restaurant to get ketchup added to his Kobee beef so be it. One guy will call it a desaster, another say it is customer service, again another will say it is personal taste and in the end it is business in a mainly free world. I do not fully understand your point. A sword will most of the time (hopefully) face a longer life than a human being, meaning it will pass through a lot of hands - many of them changing things / parts due to personal taste. How many Koto swords do we see coming along in their original Koshirae? Close to none. Either because the mounts got used up / worn down ... or just because due to them having been changed most of the time for a personal taste / fashion. That is part of the story. Take the Du Guard / Kyu Gunto mounts. I hade them. I especially hate to see sword tangs having been grinded down to somewhat fit into this Prussian inspired ugly hands. But then that is just my oppinion. Other give them much praise. Overall I can not see much wrong about a sword getting parts exchanged. If I get a sword that is in mostly en suite Koshirae but maybe just not its Tsuba or Kozuka matching the rest of the mounts I will try to make it all fit. If you think I am destroying the swords history so be it. It has probablly seen a lot of modification during its lifetime and now it is my take. Some may even have a modern artist do a new piece of Kodugu. Are they ignorants messing with history? Everybody may have his own pick on this. Call me liberal. Yes I am. The owner is in command ... A different thing is if someone deceives a buyer by adding a Gimei signature or forging a serial number. I would not support this at all ... BUT then again from a historical point of view it is just keeping up with the "good" old traditioms and history repeating ... so we should not be amazed at seeing a growing number of Yasukuni, Gassan, Okimasa ... or whatever dude the markets is for in high demand. If you see a blade signed with a Yasukuni Mei but having a Seki Showato style Hamon then do the math yourself. There are more Yasukuni blades these days then back on the '40s ... and if you pay half the price for your Salmon than the market is, then it is probably no Salmon ..

The European sword is longer lasting and offering more possibilities but suffers from a forgotten reputation due to a faster developing arms technology than it was in Japan. Any sword is inferior to a fire arm. The sword had allready been abandoned in Europe at a much earlier than than it was in Japan as edged weapons became obsolete due to fire arms. It is a myth that the Japanese Sword is much sharper than other weapons. I do love the Japanese sword otherwise I would not have become a collector but there any many myth surrounding it without scientific evidence.

Infact the European sword is superior to the Japanese sword as a weapon / tool. Art is what people pay for extra ...

Well, I wanted to hear if somebody has been using this Remington Oil with some longterm expirience.

Also, has anboy happened to use this product? https://www.ebay.com/itm/16-oz-Choji-Oil-for-Katana-Sword-and-Knives-from-Japan/200722030480

Looking for it, I cam also up with this product: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Remington-REM-OIL-with-TEFLON-LUBRICANT-Gun-Care-HQ-CLEANS-LUBRICATES-PROTECTS/222705356440?epid=2254777676&hash=item33da460e98:g:FA0AAOSwPHxbCJC6 It says it contains cleaning chemicals. That seems to be Petroleum Destilates. So same thing as in Neverdull whoch I have found to be safe and good on swords. But I can not comment on the other indigrents? This makes me think twice.

Sorry for bringing up this old thread but I do have a question. First of all, this is an excellent thread! Thanky ou very much for the great work you have done. After reading everything and giving it some thought I decided that Rem Oil loosk to be my favorable product. However I read on its bottle that it contains Teflon Lubricant Teflon = Plastic. Any thoughts on this? Thank you

Thank you very much. Rem Oil seems to be nice. I had not been aware of it.

Hello Barry, it is difficult to run a search as it is limited to 4 characters minimum. So "oil" being only 3 characters causes an error. This was a reason why I opened a new topic. If you happen to know the link to the old topiic it would be much appreciated. Thank yoz

Probably this has been discussed before but let's see what longtime expirience member may have made. Doy ou think that Choji Oil remains the best choice for maintenance of a Japanese sword or do you think a cheap (non acid) Sewing Machine Oil is equal or even better?

https://file.ac/kfUyFN_ZxWI/ If yes, I would very much appreciate if they revealed what was under the handle and gease. Thank you

Hello jean, I am very sorry to hear about your friend. All the best for him!

Thank you Ray.

I think Hiratoshi Saku is correct but I can not located any WWII smith by that name.

Hallo Mark, thank you. I was missing the 2nd Kanji. I will check my records on a potential match.

I'd apprecitae a translation for this Kyu Gunto Mei. Thank you