Salvatori Moretto

Some pictures of the hada finally Also this must go ASAP, any fair offer will be accepted!

This is with my wak for sale on the forums right now and I would love to be able to tell people what the signature reads or what school/style this is. It looks very nice but I know little to nothing about these still. any and all help is appreciated! Thanks again in advance Sal

Thanks!! I contemplated re doing the tsuka maki but couldn't find that type of high quality silk :/ I can try to get a picture of the hada tonight, I knew i was forgetting something! :D Sal'

Beautiful Edo period mumei wakizashi for sale. Very fine koshirae in what seems to be butterfly theme as well as other insects, menuki appear to be birds, but again, could be wrong as the ito obscures it. Blade is in a fresh polish,just got this one back in the past week. No obvious flaws, but then again I am new and still not able to find them the way some of you can. Nakago has two mekugi ana, and most likely Edo period. Tsuba is iron and is signed. Habaki is silver foiled. All fittings are original and match the blade. Saya has some slight damage in one area, pictured at bottom. I can try and take more pictures if anyone needs and can send them via email for higher resolution. best measurements are: Nagasa 39 cm Sakihaba - sakikasane 1.9 - .4 Motohaba - Motokasane 2.6 - .6 Weight 616 grams fully mounted Total length 61 cm Tsuba 2.59 x 2.51 Asking $3,500, open to all reasonable offers. Shiping is included CONUS please add the paypal fee's or send as "gift" I offer a 3 day examination period to guarantee blade is as described and that there are no fatal flaws. In the absence of an issue with the blade or fittings, all sales are final If blade is sold at this price i'll give 20% to Markus Sesko's project. percent goes down accordingly if price is lowered.

These are about to go up at a local auction in the coming weeks. If there is anything you like, no reasonable offer will be turned down

Yes this was one of his, often he has decent one's for my projects, but this one is bronze it looks like... But for about 50-60 its still a lot better than buying at Lohman repro prices :D

Thank you guys very much for your input. It looks fantastic in my living room so I'm happy either way A local small auction house had this and a few other pieces or art that I won for literally about $2 dollars each, money very well spent Thanks, Sal'

It's been framed, I tried to take it off but the framing company that mounted it (a local one in Tallahassee before I owned it) seems to have at least affixed it somehow to the frame and out of fear of damaging it whilst trying to take it off I just left it :/ It does appear to been done on a screen thought, and it appears silk if that helps. Thanks

Thanks! To be honest with these I can't tell if it's 20 years old or 100, any idea of the age?

Hello, I'm fairly new here but just thought I would help out if I could because I can see already how much help this place has been for me and would love to see the resources continue to grow. I have a very nicely mounted mumei wakizashi coming back from polish in the next week or two that after I re-wrap was going to put up for auction. Instead of loosing 20% to fee's on fleabay or any other auction site, if sold through these forums I will donate 20% of the sale price to this project. I'm not great at taking pictures, giving discriptions, or valuing many of the antique items I have, so I would feel more than fine allowing another senior forum member or Markus himself to take possesion of the Wak for photography etc. I can also leave on the current old tsuka-maki but it has major faults on one side. Let me know if this could work to help out the project get started. Thanks, Sal

Hello folks I received this wood block print (I assume that's the name for this) some time ago and was wondering if I can get some help figuring out if it's real, who's it signed by? age? any info at all? It looks nice and I don't mind it hanging in my living room, but it's just always nice to have some background history on things when people ask Thanks, Sal

Thank you everyone for all your great input! Then my next begging question would be about the fuchi. It was found after I acquired the tsuba at the san fran show a little while back. It looks to be almost a dead match to the tsuba but has what appears to be a different signature. Does this make the fuchi a bit dodgy as well? Or were these both originals that have had gimie signatures added to them over time? Probably going to write both the menuki and fuchi/tsuba off to "learning" and use them for a showa stamped blade i'm mounting for use : / Thanks!!!!!!!

Hello folks, I have a set a menuki coming to me that are kirin, bought at a low price, but I have seen many that look almost exactly the same. Is there a way to tell for sure if these are older originals or more recent reproductions???? Also I have had this tsuba(and fuchi) pictured here , but was wondering if someone could tell me what style it is called or what school made them? I feel this information might better help me with the task of finding a kashira for it. I am also going to post the tsuba in the mei translation section to see who they are signed by. Thanks again in advance for any and all help, I hate being such a novice : /

http://nihontoclub.com/smiths/KAN1813 This was the closet to that name I could find, do you think this is it possibly? Any if so, according to the smith or what you see here, was he well known? was he putting out good work? I'm fairly new and still don't quite grasp the rating systems sometimes from Hawley and the others. Thanks

When I get it in hand I can take better pictures, the guy who sold it to me didnt really know what he was trying to capture in the picture :/ Thanks for the starting info! :D

Just picked this up, it was going for such a relatively low price, mounted in some weird americanized mounting, but something about it just screamed save me Seller didnt have pictures od the nakago originally but sent them to me just an hour before auction close and I didnt have time to have it looked at. Sword hasnt come in yet but I would like to see if you guys could help me figure out what I just got myself into. The picture with the mei I had to alter slightly so the mei could be seen as it was very hard to see. the picture of the other side of the nakago was left un altered to better show better the patina. All lines look crisp, nakago looks well shaped and as if some time went into it, bo-hi looks well done, and I can see where the notches are for the habaki yet it does not have one at the moment. I can also see glimpses of the hamon in areas as well. I'm looking to eventually do a full polish, habaki, and shirasaya on it if it warrants it. I love when I find something like this listed on ebay with a description of "Vintage Antique Sword," means I have a chance at getting it without much bidding competition :D Any and all help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Thanks Kam!

Still in need of more info! Trying to decide to mount in the dragon fittings or in lower cost iai fittings to make this into a user sword. Still no conclusive evidence about this smith in any way, just because it is showa doesn't actually tell me anything about this blade or the smith. I don't think this is a national treasure, I just want to know conclusively who this smith was and what type of work he was known for before I go further with this project in any direction.

PS, open to all reasonable offers, need to get these sold quick to pay bills!

Nope, those I'm sure of Just had my friend Wally Hostetter find the fuchi at the last show in San Fran

Should I just save the tsuba and fuchi for a more deserving piece? Thanks

Recently purchased a showa stamped blade in mismatched civilian mounts and the signature reads Yoshikane, but I haven't been able to find anything about this smith. It came with a reaaaalllly nice signed hand carved brass tsuba in dragon motif with gold inlays that I posted on here trying to find a kashira for now, and what appears to be more of a handachi style saya. It had a completely poor fitting random low grade tsuka thrown on it that was obviously never on the nakago as it wiggles and moves around more than dutch shepherd at chow time. Blade over all looks pretty darn nice I think it may be tamahagane but i'm not sure. So here are the questions: -Anyone run across this smith before? How good was his work known to be? -What's the value of this? It's going to either be sold as it is now, or if it's worth it, I already found the matching fuchi for the tsuba, continue to look for the kashira and make a new tsuka for it. Either way I don't want to under or over charge. -Is it tamahagane? -Should I even consider using the dragon koshirae for this sword? I know those are higher quality and don't want to mount them to a lower quality project potentially. Thanks for any and all help!!!! Sal

For sale are two more from my collection. There is not much on the list of things i know about these besides that they are mumei, almost certainly ubu, and that the blades are in near perfect condition and with no flaws that I have been able to find. The Gendaito is beautiful and hada unique with very nice full dress file marks on the nakago. Again it's mumei, ubu, and there is no arsenal stamp. i think maybe it was a pre-war blade mounted for the war but I can't say for certain it's age; many of you may know more by looking at it. The Tanto looks to be either shinto or shinshinto. Ubu, mumei, and beautifully done. Blade has recent full polish and a lovely turnback. I had a new habaki and buffalo horn fuchi made for this by Wally Hostetter. Saya is all original and in almost perfect condition with beautiful ribbing done in lacquer. Matching Wari-kogai, and what I think is probably a mismatched but beautiful signed kozuka and signed gokatana. Original jabara-maki is still intact. Prices include shipping CONUS fully insured. As I mentioned before I know very little about these, if you know anything that influences the price of these positively or negatively please don't hesitate to let me know! More pictures including views of nakago and better hada pictures can be seen here : https://imageshack.us/a/6H94/1 Gendaito: $3,000 Tanto: $2,700

Hello folks, looking for some help locating the matching kashira for this set. Would like to purchase it for a current mount that I am doing that I would really prefer not to make a buffalo horn kashira for

Ahhhh Wally Hostetter I presume you're talking about? I have used him for cutting polishes on a few of my blades, he's a great guy to work with and never hesitates to take time out of his day to explain different things which is rare in this day Dare I say he's becoming a good friend. I use his polisher for my more expensive blades.