TheGermanBastard

I agree. Good deal considering the polish is nice. I would recommend Randy Black for getting Shorasaya anbd Habaki made so a comeple deal would be about USD 1200.00

@ Stephen: I challenge you as the master of grump for the Reinhard Trophy

Dear Geraint, yes my comment WAS grummpy no question about that. I can also tell you why: I am both an adminsitrator or a large metal detecting community and a father who has little spare time. In case of the topic starter I took the liberty to send him a lengthy personal message a while ago. It was not grumpy but friendly with an helpfull educational approach. Result: Nada. No reply at all. I do not have a problem with people who want to use the internet as a learning approach. if I had I would neither care to try to help people both by writing to seem and offering a special interest community myself. I have a problem with people who do not have the manner to follow up and that makes me grummpy. Being a poor idiot I was lucky that all those people who were neither idiots nor poor gave me great advice on my most stupid questions. The only thing I had to offer in exchange was a lame thank you. But still I traded it eagerly for more and it infact "bought" me more free advice great advice. You say that almost every thread advising beginners here starts with buying books ... so if the topic starter uses the web to learn about Nihonto he will read that advice often. Obviously he has done so but made the wrong conclusion: People advice me to buy books but hey I do not want that or I can not afford ... I want the advice for free instead. I wish him good luck with that approach but I guess it does not work out. You can not have the cake without eating it. If you are not willing to invest into a hobby then you have to find a hobby that does not require any investments. Nihonto is probably not your best bet then. You have to plant a seed to harvest something and seeds also need to be bought. You can not bake an apple pie without having bought apples first. if you try to play smart and avoid spending your money on the apples yu will get a pretty lame apple pie afterwards. Please don't get me wrong, I would love to see more people entering the world of Nihonto collecting. Infact I believe that is what Nihonto needs the most. Sowrds and people have one thing in common: they are gettimng older all the time. People unlike swords to not necessarily have the benefit of getting any better as time passes. Look at any of the sword community gatherinsg and you will mainly see a bunch of white haired old farts .. unlike me ... I would be the one who even no longer has the privellige of hairs. So yes bring on the young / new collectors who are eager to learn and willing to learn which will just imply having to spend a couple of bucks on some books at times. My advice for the topic starter: Visit Darcys web blog at nihonto.ca ... it is a great read and most educational not only in regards of Nihonto but in all aspects of life.

I have 60% here in Germany. I wonder what humidity level they keep inside museums running a virtually artifical climate. As some pointed out allready we have diametrical demands. While wood will demand higher humidity, swords will benefit from lower ones

You inquire about swords in the 10k range in another topic and which one to buy ... then you continue to state in this topic that you are either unable or unwilling to spend a fraction of that amount on ebooks complaining they are too expensive. I do not get this so I will pick up on your starting post and call myself a poor idiot for completely missing your point / not understaning you. From my poor idiots point of view what you call expensive is dirt cheap. You can buy most excellent eBooks these days at close to nothing. Books of this quality had not been availableonly some years ago not to speak in this price range. By buying these books you can and should save yourself from buying a junk sword. People will spend several hundred dollars on a junk sword as they think it is cheap - yes, because it is junk. On the other hand a 30 bucks book may help avoid this and save you hundred or rather thousands of dollars. I am however with you on Markus Seskos eBooks. The prices are indeed mindblowing! What Markus makes available at bargain price is just amazing! It does NOT get any cheaper than this. Or go to Grey Dorfsins site etc. Also great deals there BUT when I say a 200 USD book over there may get you sweating. What does 200 USD buy you in the world of Nihonto? A starter Tsuba, That's it. End of the story. Or spend 100 bucks on a Compton catalogue and you can enjoy looking at master pieces for years to come. Of course you can save on that money but then it is like with what Henry Ford said: If you want to save on advrtising you could also try stopping the clock from ticking in order to save on time ... and it is the same with buying books - in ANY hobby. I do not appreciate the attitude of people who think everything is free on the internet and that wisdom is not worth a dime nor the paper it is printed on. People writing Nihonto books spend tremendous time and lots of passion at what they are doing and bring in years of expiriende. The book then gets printed in small numbers and thus simply has a higher price tag than your daily newspapers. Those people are real enthusiasts and do not make a fortune on this kind of work BUT offer a treasure of knowledge to anybody who is willing to pay a reasonable price. USD 1000.00 will not get anybody a great sword in most occasions but a quite decent library. Books are your daily tools ... you can buy cheap tools or believe in having a swiss army knife is all you need but then you are simply wrong. I read in a post from Jussi that he has spent most of his funds on books in order to buy a good sword when the time is right. That is smart. Buying junk swords and then books to finally discover you wasted your money is a smart move. The best piece of advice is quite simple and servers his great logic: Darcy Brockabank once told me to not buy none great swords but rather spend my time on a plane ticket and go to look at great swords. That's also what he did. Or could join a club or attend a show ... but if a eBook price tag allready drives you away, a flight to Japan or show admission will for sure. So if I were you I would consider getting into something that is more affordable to you like collecting stickers or old newspapers. Doest this sound grumpy or harsh? Maybe it does but it is my honest oppinion and advice, if you wanto to get into muscles cars but looking at the price for a gallonof fiesl does make you sweat allready and breaks your bank account then that is simply not your cup of tea. Nihonto is a costy hobby depending on your approach but again if an eBooks makes you stumble you won't enjoy the way at all ...

Thank you very much for your thoughts!

Hello Members, I would like to hear your thoughts on keeping Nihonto in a room with a (closed) fireplace please. A bad idea? I know that fire will basically work like a boost for rusting metal. Anyboy who has ever looked at wood fired oven will notice this likely. Now I wonder if it is a smart idea to have Nihonto stored in my living room where we just had a fireplace stove installed. The ake with the blades housed in Koshirae / Shirasaya and storage bags is located about 3m away. Do you see any problems with this setup and an increased possibility of the blades catching rust? Thanks for your thoughts, Luis

hello John, the Naginata posted by Marius is a great example for an exception ... the blade is in exceptional condition. Again just relying on the image Iw ould not have put this anywhere near Kamakura in 101 out of 100 attempts.

I tend towards Bungo

In general we should focus on the rules not the exceptions I would like to think

Hello Christophe, since you are in Japan the shinsa is affordable. In general I am not to eager about getting Kodugu papered unless it is of soem importance / value. E.g. spending USD n a Hozon Paper will not work out with many Tsuba. I have seen people selling a 100 bucks Tsuba at 350 because they had 250 in the papers. Your tsuba is a fine tsuba and you don't have to get an agent for handling the Shinsa and pay for overseas shipping so you should be fine. Let us know how it turns out. It is a nice piece

Nagako is the give away in my cheap oppinion.

Thank you. The blade seems to be Machi Okuri but in my cheap oppinion it is not Sue Koto but later than that. Has not seen much polishing.

Please give us a shot of the mune in Habaki area ... and thickness

Great piece

Pssibley Mino approx 1700 -m 1800

PS: But I want to enphasize that I can even do poor assumptions on perfect pictures

Given perfect images you can probably make a perfect assumption. Given poor images it will be a poor assumption. Word on this. Then we need to base our assumption on what we have.

As Marius said it is a Meiji periode mounted piece, set up for sale to tourists, Don't expect a good blade in that mount. The blade is most likely a rather late blade given its structure. A Kanbun Shinto piece at the earliest but I think it is most likely a late Edo periode piece that got remounted. Pull of the Handle and we acan tell for sure. The economic value is roughly about 750 - 1500 USD. You should most likely not get it polished but keep it for what it is.

Hello Paul, well the Sugata, color of steel and Condition lead me to believe it is a rather late Shishinto periode piece. I am having a hard time to nail it down in words. It is just after having looked at and handle sufficient blades that you get the feeling for it. if we can see the Nagako it will be a way easier call ... but just looking at the images that is my impression.

Looks like a rather late piece. Shinshinto likely. Not for the battle ground.

I like especially the 2nd Tsuba. Nice piece als fine condition. Definatelay above average!

The topic starter should buy both swords.

This one looked interesting to me ... https://centurionauctions.hibid.com/lot/35858032/Japanese-tanto/?apage=2&ipp=100&ref=catalog&q=25670 BUT likely the temper was bad and possibly tiered. I suspect this as I can not recall ever having seen a good quality blade in these junk tourist mounts. Probably once was good but now dead. Quality mounts on this one: https://centurionauctions.hibid.com/lot/35858056/Japanese-wakizashi/?apage=2&ipp=100&ref=catalog&q=25670 Overall a decent package. The Hzen blade went for too much considering it is rather much Machi Okuri. I agree this one was interesting, too: https://centurionauctions.hibid.com/lot/35858062/wwii-Japanese-wakizashi/?q=Japanese&apage=2&ipp=100&ref=lot-list The late Bizen Tachi with huge Sori was junk but an interesting investment piece at the given estimate but then went for way too much and beyond retail

Which one do you like better? That's the one you should get. There is no ultimate answer to your question. As an investment blade you can buy either or neither as one is about as good or as bad as the other one ...