celt72

Here's my Emura, which I also love. I've been a fan of his swords for a long time. My pics aren't that great, so I've attached the pics from Aoi.

Barrett, I appreciate what you have been able to accomplish in life with your military service and European sword training, but I did want to give you a word of caution. Being able to cut with a European blade does not mean you will be able to cut safely with a katana. There are eleven things you have to do correctly in order to cut with a katana. One of those is using the proper grip. The two-handed grip needed does not feel natural at first and takes lots of practice to master. If you try to cut without the proper grip, you run the real risk of accidently putting the tip of your katana into the floor when you stop your swing after cutting. Obviously, that's where the risk of damaging your katana comes in. Having a proper teacher is especially essential when it comes to target cutting. I'm not trying to lecture, just to give you a heads-up on a potential danger.

Very nice. Congratulations on the pick-up!

With the shortage of materials during 1944-45, I would be curious to know if there was a shortage of tassels produced also. This might also have an impact of the lack of tassels seen of the RS types.

That is incredibly impressive!

I studied Ishi Yama Ryu under Russell McCartney years ago and was involved in his Senbongiri event back in 2000. He performed 1181 cuts from kata without a miss over 1 hour 25 minutes. The sword he used was a Nakata Kanehide blade that was remounted and freshly polished. What was interesting was that over the course of the 1181 cuts through damp igusa goza, the friction of the cuts heated the monouchi up and caused the edge to fold over slightly! The fact that it performed so well was amazing. I was deeply impressed with the strength and cutting ability of the blade and after that Kanehide became one of my favorite smiths.

Hi JP. If you are able to post a picture of the copyright page, we should be able to determine if this one is a third printing or just a paperback version of the first or second edition.

I ran across this beautiful hanging scroll and was wondering if someone more knowledgeable on them could tell me something about it. The seller is asking $265 and I don't know if it is worth it. Any idea of age, artist or what it says? Any help is appreciated. 🙂

My understanding is that it is thicker at the kissaki to allow for the sword to more easily penetrate when thrusting. It decreases the chance of the kissaki breaking if the thrust is done improperly. In my old ryu, we used to practice thrusting with our katanas.

If that is celluloid same, cross your fingers and pray that it is a star-stamped Kanehide!

Thanks for the link Peter. I enjoyed watching that.

I thought this was pretty cool...

Brian it was $28.49 plus $5.99 shipping from Yesasia.com. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it is available anymore on their site.

And by the way the book covers the complete history of Japaneese swords and doesn't focus just on WWII era.

I bought a copy but my Japanese isn't good enough to actually read it.

I would definetly add Nakata Kanehide to the list. I've always felt he was underrated. I have a very nice example of his in original polish that actually has utsuri.

I'm a big fan of Emura also. Here are some pix of mine that I bought from Aoi. Their pix are much better than mine, so I'm attaching those.

Ray, Looks like he is also listed in the translated index to Tokyo Kindai Tosho on Richard Stein's Japansese Sword Guide site. You might reach out to Chris Bowen and see if he has any info on him. I hope this helps.

I found a listing for him in Fuller & Gregory's Guide to Shows Swordsmith's. I know this probably won't help much.

I've never seen one of these before. From what I can make out using Google Translate, it is for sinking boats. Here is the link to the site... http://www.nipponto.co.jp/swords5/ET560146.htm

That is an amazing blade! My deam is to have a custom made Gassan blade. Congratulations!

Nicely done!

Thanks for the clarification.

Hi Ted. Didn't Kuniie (Shoji) pass away this summer? I wonder if they will now start issuing papers.

I had a Kanenori gunto in modern koshirae that I was going to use for Iai, but I decided go with another sword instead. Showa22 bought it from me on ebay and a few months later I saw list it, but now in gunto koshirae….