TheGermanBastard

Hello Alex, the Tsuba looked to be copper aloy? The Saya looked late Edo periode to me like the whole Kodugu. the blade caught my attention ... but too much on the table for satisfying my curiosity only ...

I think this was another intesting long Ubu blade on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Japanese-Sword-31-5-Active-Samuri-/282740142928 Maybe a board member got it? Congrats! Let's not look at the common Handachi style Koshirae. The blade looked Koto periode. I'm not sure where to date it exactly. I couldn't read the Mei. 1st Kanji Suke? 2nd? Masa? No ... can' tell. If anybody here bought, please shed more light on it and good luck!

Hello Alex, interesting point on the lacquered Habaki. Could be possibly. I am not sure if the Tsuba is homemade. The Tsuka wrapping is bad. Not question on that. If I did it, it would be the or worse. So we can agree it is bad. However if I di theTsuba it would be much much worse ... I am too ignorant about Tsuba but think the Tsuba is not homemade ... also coming from my bare expirience that GIs used to mess up things by enchanching them but doing a Tsuba on their own is not something we see often. In my humble oppinion the tsuba is made to well to be by a GI. Interestng thing remains teh blade.

hello jose, it went so high because someone was digging for a lost treasure / sleeper. A disguised Nakako will unfortunately more often bring up the price than down ... However I do not think that this Habaki and Tsuba are Chinese made. The Habaki seems to be a rather decent Shakudo covered piece. It fits very nicely judging from the pictures. Neitehr do you get a Nagamaki shaped Habaki of Chinese origin that easily nor would the random chances of it being a good fit be a gamble I'd take on. I will need about 50 spare Habaki to find a good fitting one. Hence all I think that has been a recent addition is the string on the Tsuka. The blade could be pre Muromachi periode in my cheap oppinion. I saw some good potential in it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/WWII-Japanese-Wakizashi-Short-Sword-w-Wood-Sheath-22-5-034-Long-/292336236614 I am curious what exactly it was more ... went for more than I was willing to spend out of curiousity.

There are good polishes and bad polishes. Expensive ones and cheap ones. From my own expirience whenever I had something covering up all the way in Kesho then this was for a reason. In 100% an unwanted reason. If you see a woman who took a jump in the make up bowl you probably don't want to see here uncovered either but simply stay away ...

Ray, I am 99% sure this blade has been in a fire. That is why I said it is an iron Tsunagi. hence no glue on teh Nakako but what look like fire damage corrosion. The guy has some images in his auction where the kesho is rubbed off and there is plan nothing underneath. I striogly believe all we have here is a bare metal blade with some drawn Kesho look a like Hamin. So in my humble oppinion whoever bought this got a basically nice Habaki in the end ...

@ Christoph & Ray ... what kind of Hamon do you see? Look carefully. @ Ray I think that this is probably not glue.

Hello Eduardo, unfortunately NO Tokugawa Tachi it is a Tourist Koshirae.

Thank you very much John.

The katana size sword was appropriate bizen work ,,, unfortunately with some unwanted openings but I'd say they were acceptable. It went n a floor auction recently at around 1000 bucks. I was hesitant to bid as I had never seen such a repair before and thus could not determine if it was okay or a total deal breaker. What do you think? Again this is of course very much dependant on the specific sword in question. There is one Rai Juyo blade that could papered in parts - with t he signature part of tang chopped off. But assuming is an avwerage blade I believe it is a rather undesireable repair.

attribution is 99% not correct

Hello Ray, yes only in one place. It is not an extension. As it is the original Nagakoi pinned there with some part missing inbetween. John, thank you ... do you happen to have an image of that sword in question or any further information on why it was shortened this way? I believe a major goal was to preserve the original Nagako as much as possible.

.. my hand stays down. First time for me to encounter this ... Mid Muromachi Bizen NagaXXX I wonder how such a shortening is to be considered? And why it was choosen? To do away with a Hagire? Possible but I don't think so. Some kind of flaw or damage would be the most reasonable explanation though.

At foremost I would like to think what the attribution says - depending on who made it. Does it have a current NTHK or NBTHK paper?

Well, I assume most of us probably haven't maried a virgin either ... However this sword has no good intrinsic values

.... unless you are into iron Tsunagis. Nice Tsuba though. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=182944602730

Hello Andras, thanks for your kind words and sorry if I was more grumpy than I had intended, too. You may want to write to Markus Sekso directly. He is one of the best sources with the most bang for your buck on Nihonto. Regards

hello John, just looking at the Nagako I believe one might get the impression but looking at the overall Sugata, Kissaki and beef Construction I tend towards Kanbun. Too little Sori for an older piece. At first glance from teh previously provided images I would not have been suprised to see a Meiji or Teisho blade in there and bet on that.

Probably kanbun shinto periode shortened no obvious flaws in the blade ... probably a sound blade that somne doing kendo would like.

You've gotten great recommendations for books. My advice would be avoid buying too specialized books for a long time, you won't really need them. For example I got "Bungo Taikan" from Grey some time ago. I think I have only had one good use for it as a friends friend got a Bungo sword and he needed help for the signature. It is nice to have specialized books but even though you might have very large collection of books, I could throw in a bet that you mostly use the few good ones you've used for many years as first thing when looking stuff up. Absolutely! Maybe 500 USD is all to spend for a couple of used books or as jean said only 10% of that for a copy of the Coneisseur book. but geographically you are quite close to Germany & Italy which both have very strong nihontō scene Again right. There are NBTHK branches and they even none members to attend their meetings. I can only speak for the German branch but they used to have really good swords there for studying when the former Michael Hagenbusch was the president. I suppose they still do these days as there are fantastic collections in Germany. Howeber be warned! None member are asked to pay 10 Euros to attend the meeting from what I recall ... not to mention that the cost a NBTHK membership would possibly blow your mind away

Hello Christoph, now I have to admit that the word junk is a very wide one. What is junk? One mans junk another mans treasure you can say. Junk is something with a major problem. This can be an obvious flaw or are morder harde to discover one. Or we can have blade that has no flaws but simply the workmanship is not good ... or in the opposite: What has good work likely is NO juink. No matter on maker, periode, type. By saying junkI am implying things that you would't want to buy. In the end I would encourage anybody to buy 1. in the foremost what they like 2. in the 2nd place what is priced reasonable I like Pizza Magritha ... but I do not like it at 10 bucks ... Making a decission on pricing is difficult ansd requires both wissdom and expirience. So especially with cheap swords in terms of unrestored one has to make a wise decision on wheter it is worth the cost of restoration. Again I must take any punch from my wife for spending too much money on junk - she considers swords to be rather useless ... Nihonto IS and expensive passion. No doubt about that. It is both art and time consuming craftmanship. Hence if you can't take the punch you better get out of the ring. It is like when having a consultation where someone wants to start a business but is either unable or unwilling to spend the necessary investment then the frank and honest advice for him is to let it go and save his efforts as it will be a dead end road straight from the start. My first sword back in 1998 when I was still a student was a really messed up, sandpapered Wakizashi whoch I had bought at 350.00 USD on eBay. The next attemp was much better and a solid signed Ubu Koto Katana which my highly decorated martial arts teacher told me was a fake so I returned it. Had I done more studying in the 1st place and not listend to his BS I would have avoided another bad decission. I had spent 1000 bucks at this time while a good book would have been 5% of that.

This made my day

PPS: One has to take this dilema further: The more you learn on Nihonto, the more advanced you will become and thus probably grow a more advanced = expensive taste in swords. If I give an iron Tsunagi (= junk sword) to my daughter she will consider it cool ... once she has went through some learning she would hit me on the head with it for giving here the same thing. So the more you learn the more you will face the dilema in wanting deeper pockets to spend on more qualiyt stuff. The more uneducated you are the more joy you will get out of a junk sword. The more educated you are the less it will please you. It works the same way round: The less educated you are, the less joy you will get from a top class piece of art. The more educated you are, the more enjyoment yu will get from a top class art sword. Which again just boils down to the deep pocket needed problem with any sort of collecting / hobby. That is why you see old men driving in new sportscars I am just lucky for being a poor idiot as it allows me to enjoy my poor swords So nothing about taht and I enjoy being called it for its benefits