Jussi Ekholm

I hope you will have a great meeting, and with a great presentation topic I am sure it will be enjoyable.

Very nice to hear about your experience Curran. They have quite interesting items in inventory and while I am not shopping anything I still keep browsing them often as they have many interesting items.

Thank you for posting this Uwe, your photography is just stunning.

Awesome job, that looks so neatly done.

Yep you are correct 秀永

Here is some data to back up what Guido was saying before. Nakajima Rai is a good attribution and direct Rai Kuninaga attribution is a great one for a mumei blade. Where as Echizen Rai / Chiyozuru attribution is not as good for a mumei blade. Now mumei blades are real pain for an amateur like me and that is one of the reasons I will value signature so highly. Some minor differences in perceived details might change an attribution to one way or another. At least that is how it seems for an amateur collector, mumei blades require lots of skill to fully be appreciated where as historical significance of signed pieces is so easily identifiable. Here is info from my small database of stuff sold by good dealers in the past years. I put my project on pause for a while as there are too many swords out there, as I started already to cut some of them out as I get swords & schools that interest me more and more. Of course the numbers are still way too small to draw any serious conclusions but it will at least give some hints. Nakajima Rai 5 mumei Rai Kuninaga - 4 Jūyō / 1 Tokubetsu Hozon 5 mumei Nakajima Rai - 2 Jūyō / 1 Tokubetsu Hozon / 2 Hozon (this sword will be 3rd Hozon) Echizen Rai 6 mumei Echizen Rai - 1 Jūyō / 2 Tokubetsu Hozon / 3 Hozon 10 mumei Chiyozuru - 1 Tokubetsu Hozon / 9 Hozon And as Guido mentioned Rai Kunizane for comparison too 6 mumei Rai Kunizane - 3 Jūyō / 2 Tokubetsu Hozon / 1 Hozon

You can also try kanji searches by radicals -> http://jisho.org/#radical That will be helpful if you see a part of kanji that you recognize and try to fit the missing piece of the puzzle. However these will be "dictionary kanji" as mentioned by Guido so it is sometimes not exactly putting 1+1 together directly.

You have a nice signed and dated wakizashi, from a decent smith so it will be nice collectable piece. However unfortunately in my opinion it will just be a nice sword nothing too remarkable historically but I don't focus this era so I don't know much about these. To be honest if you are sending it to Hozon already you might as well send it to Tokubetsu Hozon too, I mean it is just 10,000 Yen if it fails it, and 30,000 Yen if it passes and you'll have TH papers. As the sword seems to be in Japan and the dealer will act as an agent for you go for it. It would be much more money if you decided to give it a go at later time. Here is the but... if it would make huge financial gain to get higher papers I'd bet Aoi would have tried papering it already. After all they are in the business of making profit on their sales. I'd say the "market price" for the item might be pretty much the same with Hozon - Tokubetsu Hozon or even without papers.

I'd think that the purpose of udenuki would be keeping the sword within reach even if you lose the grip for example on horseback. I've only read the not drawing referencing to Satsuma, but might be more spread out as there was not any wars during the Edo period so udenuki were pretty much useless during peace time.

I could throw in a katana kake. Quite basic but a decent one.

Welcome Martin, very nice to have you here on the forum.

I guess the first one would be 備後国??横山祐成作 - Bingo no Kuni ?? Yokoyama Sukenari saku other side 備前友成???? - Bizen Tomonari ???? , I believe it might have something to do with him promoting himself as 56th generation Tomonari. Reference: http://sanmei.com/contents/media/O70239_S2842_PUP.html

I like Jeans guess above. Mumei swords are to me extremely difficult to judge. Here are 3 examples and Norishige - Tametsugu - Ko-Uda are different tiers Here is a tanto that got TH to den Tametsugu: http://www.aoijapan.com/img/sword/2015/15856-2.jpg And for comparison jūyō Norishige: http://www.aoijapan.com/img/sword/2016/16443-2.jpg Here is Ko-Uda blade which is polished in style that seems to bring out jihada: http://www.aoijapan.com/img/sword/2012/12552-2.jpg

豊州高山住盛家 - Hōshū Takayama-jū Moriie

I think you got a great find Robert. I can't see the mei well enough in the auction pic but if I'd have to guess I too would go with Genzaemon and early 1400's. Would be really nice to see more of the sword

1. List as much information you can about a sword, including lots of high definition pictures 2. List some basic information with a picture Number 1 approach is in my opinion the best as it includes that everyone will get that information. However the number 2 approach most likely will exclude "tire kickers" who have no intention of buying the sword but I'd think it will generate less traffic but maybe more serious inquiries. I've seen many high end item sellers use the number 2 approach too. For example I always want to see some asking price for the item, I get frustrated if the seller has something like "contact for price & information" etc. As I am not actively in the market for any high quality stuff I will never bother the seller no matter how interested I would be. I understand the "ask for price" for super expensive and rare items but not for some average items.

I think the double hi starts nicely. That is pretty much all I can say. Unfortunately the blade picture has focused on the background cloth and kissaki picture is blurred.

Do you have any dates planned? Or is any date possible for you? This one is currently on display at the Tokyo National Museum until 25th of February: http://www.tnm.jp/modules/r_free_page/index.php?id=1890

Here are few maybe bit controversial thoughts... Collecting Japanese swords is not a hobby for everyone. For example, I don't think collecting nihontō is a right hobby for me. So instead I will just focus on study & appreciation. For collecting you need a lot of money, while study & appreciation is much more affordable and I enjoy latter more. I've come to realize that owning something is not as important for me than seeing something. You will not learn everything just from the books. The reason for this is there is book knowledge and applied knowledge. My own is just mostly book knowledge as I have had just few opportunities to enjoy swords in real life. When you see swords and get explanation about them for example in sword study groups you will learn bit differently than from books as you have real live examples to study on. It is always amazing to hear more senior collectors opinions on things as you can learn a lot. There is a limit what you will learn buying 1,2 or even 10 swords. Yes you can learn a lot of things from even a single sword but there is a limit to it. For example you cannot learn to identify features that are not on that particular sword by looking at it. You have 2 very different swords, great but there will still be limitations. That is why sword study meetings are amazing. You get to see various swords and can discuss them with other interested folks. You've gotten great recommendations for books. My advice would be avoid buying too specialized books for a long time, you won't really need them. For example I got "Bungo Taikan" from Grey some time ago. I think I have only had one good use for it as a friends friend got a Bungo sword and he needed help for the signature. It is nice to have specialized books but even though you might have very large collection of books, I could throw in a bet that you mostly use the few good ones you've used for many years as first thing when looking stuff up. As Luis mentioned earlier Darcys advice of buying a plane ticket, I can agree totally on that. Seeing great swords is very important for study & appreciation. And travelling is really really fun. You'll get multiple trips to Japan for a price of mediocre sword, I'd rather choose the trips. Also I do not know any Hungarian collectors or collections but geographically you are quite close to Germany & Italy which both have very strong nihontō scene. As I live here up north I do not know Central European transportations too well but you can probably catch trains or busses cheaper than flying as I see you live near Budapest.

What made you choose these 2 swords András?

I think it is important to learn the correct Japanese terminology but it is also important to be able to explain things to for example beginners in their own language too. In my opinion you need to be able to explain things in easy to understand manner so that newcomers can start learning too. As new people are not exactly popping out around the corners I think we could/should ease their way in as much as we can.

Congratulations Dave, I am very happy for you.

Oh I guess my line of thought didn't come out very clearly as I meant the swords themselves have "prestige" when collecting at high level. I guess "desirability" would be a better word to use. As I saw discussion thread about bitcoins where Darcy had made a blog post (just skip the bitcoin part and focus on nihonto pricing as it is very well written) https://www.nihonto.ca/ha/?p=507#more-507 Darcys writings are always nice to read and they of course blow mine away. However as I live in different world than him it would be really nice to friendly headbutt with him on these things. I agree with him most of the stuff he writes/says but would be fun to argue friendly some small points back & forth. When you read his post you can see that even high end dealer will easily agree that there is big fluctuation in prices at the high level. Of course if you think someone who has money to spend say 50k€ to a sword is not on his/hers last pennies but you could easily say the value could very well fluctuate between 40k€ and 60k€. So that is a huge risk/profit potential. Where as for a very basic sword you could say 5k€ and it fluctuates between 4-6k€. The range is similar in percentage but monetary losses/profits are small.

Here comes part that might irk some dealers and high end collectors... I have been planning for few days to write a post about "prestige" "air" etc. what term you want to use, and it's involvement in sword price. This is actually quite difficult concept as swords are one of a kind art objects. And I personally feel that the pricing gets lot lot tougher and more fickle the higher up you go in rarity & value. We all have probably witnessed what we personally consider as overpriced items. And item being overpriced is in my personal opinion easier to spot at lower level. For example if a sword has ko-Uda attribution it will not be in the " most desirable" class even though it would be jūyō or with very nice koshirae. Now this is where I might go against the common "norm". As it is often said that buying the best quality one can afford is the best investment wise etc. I will say low-mid class swords are much less fickle when it comes to pricing. Therefore in my opinion they make a safer investment than top tier swords. Of course they do not have the profit potential of high class stuff either. Yes high & top tier swords are of course in different league in terms of prestige but they also have lot more "air"/leeway/potential profit, whatever you want to call it in their price. In some cases this is perfectly understandable but there are lots and lots of swords that get a lot of prestige that I do not yet fully understand. Those who know me better, might know that I like signatures a lot. As to me signature carries a lot of prestige. However some mumei sword carry prestige that overrides many lower swords that have signature in the eyes of art collectors. As a historical collector it is for me a slightly difficult concept to grasp. As on these cases with some mumei ō-suriage swords the attribution carries a humongous prestige. Also to note the the higher you go the more fickle the pricing will be. There can be big drops or raises in prices. Because at this level items are rare one of a kind items. But like I said pricing will be lot more fickle, 10-20% price drop for example will be a lot more cash than same level price drop in item 10x lower in price. Then there is a case when item is so rare it might be pretty much unobtainable otherwise, then it pretty much does not matter where you put the asking price. As if someone will want to buy that they will have to get that piece. Examples might be something like signed Awataguchi pieces, signed ko-Bizen etc. For example I saw a Gojō Kanenaga tachi at Taibundo (same sword was sold in the USA some years ago), I understood it was rare but had to made research to really understand how rare it is. I believe only five signed Kanenaga tachi remain, 3 jūyō, 1 jūbi & 1jūbu, so the chance to own a signed Gojō Kanenaga is pretty much that sword... Would be nice to hear some more thoughts about the subject.

I've said it before but it can be said again that Mike is doing great work on tv screen. I am impressed as he seems to be very natural.