Geoff Keyes

I'm only in $50. I suspect that I could polish it out myself, (in the sense of cleaning up the scratches and putting a good foundation on it), and mount it as a Dha and get $500 for it. At the worst, it's a very nice bit forging and would make a great fantasy piece. At the best, it's still got some value to a collector. Or it becomes a saddle knife for my wife. Geoff

I am a custom knife maker, most of my work is forged, and so, while I do not consider myself a sword maker, and Japanese blades are well outside my core skills, I can recognize good work when I see it. I bought this at a knife show, I was told that it came from a garage sale. The owner at the show said he was going to make a blackberry cutter out of it, which made me sad, so I bought it. It has a Kissaki, though badly eroded by misuse. The Mune is Mitsu and comes up to a point just behind the Kissaki, so there is a short (about .5-.75") area of reinforced tip. The Machi are clean and well defined. 18" to the Machi, 22 to the end of the tang. The blade is pretty compete, except the end of the tang appears to have been hacked off. There is no furniture, but the lines are nice and clean. So what should I do with this? I can see so hamon activity through the scratches, so my intitial thought was to give it an overall 600 grit polish and see what's there. On another forum it was suggested that I open a small window and polish out to 2000 grit. I don't know any local (Seattle Wa) nihonto people, so my next opportunity is the Oregon show in the spring. Any advice is welcome. Thanks Geoff Keyes 5 Elements Forge