Andreas W

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keKlbOwB1xE#t=55 Hello friends, I have just received this link from Pablo (Unique Japan) about above mentioned movie. Busy watching it now on youtube, its great (49 minutes long) Regards Andreas

http://www.dhl-usa.com/en.html Hi Curran, I only use DHL in Europe. I send a Wakizashi insured for 20.000 Euros (it wasn't worth that much, but they only had insurances up to 5.000 € or up to 20.000 €). I have had only good experiences with these guys in Europe, don't know about the States, though. Might be worth a try. Cheers Andreas W

Denis, I did the following as I was expecting hassles with German customs (anything just remotely looking like a weapon gets these guys highly agitated) when someone sens sends a sword from abroad: I formulated a nice letter in German to be attached to the outside of the package marked "for customs attention" in BIG letters. In the letter I very politely described the sword in detail, its historical value and age as well as asking them to only please handle it with great care, wearing soft gloves and not to touch the blade under any circumstances. I also stated my cell phone number asking them nicely to phone me if there are question. The result: they did read the letter, never opened the package themselves, but asked me to open it when I picked it at customs to inspect it (they never wanted to touch it). Maybe this would help with customs in other European countries as well; these guys obviously don't have the knowledge to handle Nihonto ( and to be honest, how could they?). Anyway, we have a small local customs office, and by now they know me and are interested if packages arrive from Japan :D Andreas W

James, this is probably not what you are looking for, but I went another route because I couldn't find kake that appealed to me. Thus I thought that a sword stand would be nice that doesn't distract from the object we adore, and had some acrylic stands custom made. Andreas W

I have bought 2 Nihonto from Pablo, he's a friendly and honest business man, will buy from him again. Kept me in the loop on progress all the time, went a mile to get all kinds of additional information for German customs as they can be difficult Andreas

Hi John, thanks for info, will be interesting to see the result, Andreas

Hello everyone, finally decided to register after lurking around for ages. Name's Andreas, born in South Africa, grew up in Namibia, currently live and work in Germany, 45 years old. This forum has been great with a wealth of information which helped a lot before I bought my first Nihonto. I quickly realised that Nihonto is addictive (my wife, too ) Looking forward to slowly climb up the learning curve, regards to all, Andreas