Jussi Ekholm

In my opinion it's buyers responsibility to do the research. I know I might have overpaid on few items and that is entirely my own fault. If you are not certain about your decision you should not buy. That is why generally people in this forum people suggest getting into books and meetings before you buy things. You need to know what you are buying. If you don't feel you have enough knowledge on a certain item, why are you thinking about buying it? Well as this hobby is our passion any reason is as good as the other one. You sometimes make decisions by feelings. There are plenty of people with enough money to buy swords but for me it's more important why you buy that certain sword. I always recommend meeting people who share this same passion. I know more senior collectors who know much much more than I do, and if I would think about a very large purchase I would discuss it with many of them to get advice. For example I don't know much about Shin Shinto, so I would not be confident in buying a Shin Shinto. I got to kantei few good blades of this period in the last NBTHK meeting. Needless to say I didn't have enough knowledge to guess smiths, heck I'm happy that I kinda got some clue about the general direction of one blade of this period. If you are not confident in your decision don't buy. It never hurts to seek guidance from more experienced collectors.

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Not exactly what you are asking for but this will be similar to what Paul said about Enju. I have a tachi that is signed Kuninobu, NBTHK gave it Nanbokucho attribution but kuni fumei (province unknown). So of course I've been trying to figure out as much as I can by myself, which is very hard for a novice. These are some of my findings, not sure how accurate they are. Rai school uses a lot this type of kuni character, here are some variations of it in easy to see form. Enju school uses a lot of this "3" type signature as Paul said. Uda school uses a lot of this type of kuni character. And finally pic of the mei of my tachi which looks bit like the way Rai school signs kuni but it's not quite like that I think.

To me it looks like 忠善作 Tadayoshi saku.

The stand is usually soft wood, and it seems there is also bit of a cushion between stand & target in this video. They are practicing/displaying horizontal cutting of makiwara. If a sword would be severely damaged in a cut like that I would think it as a poor sword. Hitting soft wood should not be devastating to a sword.

I think the first one would be 寫 Meaning copying (different form of writing utsushi): http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%AF%A

Katana, mumei, Uda 宇多

To me it looks like katana mei 家吉 Ieyoshi.

切羽台 Seppa dai 耳 Mimi (rim) 縦 Tate (height - vertical) 横 Yoko (width - horizontal) I am very novice at Japanese but I believe the "deformation" that I wrote would mean that the sukashi are not of even shape. To my eyes they look like mushrooms (I know I'm horrible in understanding design).

Nakamura san is a member of NMB and I think he sometimes has interesting items for sale. I would recommend improving the photography, as it's very easy to take good high quality pictures. High quality pictures make judging of the item a lot easier and I think they are needed when shopping online. I don't use eBay so I don't know if they have limitations for pic size. But there is always option for smaller sized quality pictures. I am not in the buying position but I'll still look at items every day. I would not generally buy items based on poor pictures unless the deal would be amazing.Window shopping is a lot cheaper than actual shopping. Maybe I'm starting to have peculiar taste as I tend to find fewer and fewer swords in my theoretically possible price range that I'm looking. There are lots and lots of swords for sale but only selected few that light my fire. Of course when you go above my budgets there is lot of great stuff... One reason why I might suggest "reasonably" priced sword as a first purchase for someone is the fact that something like 3000$'s is a lot of money to be investing on a sword in the first place. And most likely they wont be able to sell it onwards for 5000$ but when the time for selling it comes 2000-2500$'s will be a reasonable estimate if you can't manage to get your own investment back. I can say that I have never got my full investment back on any of the swords I've sold so far but I think I have gotten a reasonable amount of it back everytime. I might have gotten closer to my investment if I would have taken more time to sell them so it's always decisions decisions. I agree with your statement that it is better to wait and study more before buying but there is a big but. People want to have samurai swords. I know I had to get one when I started even though I didn't have enough knowledge to know what I was buying. You have to start somewhere. Valuation of a sword is a tricky thing. I know I value both of my tachi way higher what I paid for them. Very few would probably pay the price I would value them at. Similarily I see some items that are in my opinion way overpriced for what they are. And if an item doesn't sell in multiple years it probably is, and it's hard to find a buyer for it at that asking price. Of course there is also the other side of things when an item is priced so low that the right buyer comes within few hours. If you have the swords you currently want it's great. You can enjoy them and slowly save up money in case you someday find something you want.

I think you are quite correct Grev. Here is my novice translation 鍔 tsuba 輪宝透 Rinpo sukashi 無銘 Mumei 山銅地 Yamagane ji 極 kyoku 古金工 ko Kinko 時代 Jidai 桃山 Momoyama Then you have the measurements followed by comments. Forgive the errors in comments section, more experienced ones will hopefully correct them. Hon saku yamagane ji wo mochii = This was made in yamagane Ju ni ma no rinpo wo sukashi shite iru = In between 12 rinpo sukashi Kaku kan no sukashi shiga hizumi de aji ga aru = In sukashi there is distortion/warping? Jidai wo kanji sasera waru = Feeling of age (something)? Then there is line which I believe says I would appraise as so, followed by date and then NTK.

I checked with Wayback machine and it was listed for 850,000 yen when it was on hold.

Just my personal opinion but I think Lanes Armoury is sometimes quite optimistic with their descriptions. I have made no dealings with them (other than asked if they might be interested in buying an old sword of mine - for the reason I stated on the left I tried to be optimistic). They have a lot of marketing speech on their selling descriptions instead of listing important information about the current item. Funny how they said Edo period to you, yet they list it as Koto circa 1500 on their site. It's quite hard to say anything on some of the pics they have provided on items. I would rather save up that 1500£'s. Or at least ask for better pictures and accurate information about the item.

Perhaps hinting something? But I agree with that.

I have not seen that before. Funny enough none of my terminology bibles seem to have that term, or I am looking from the wrong places as I don't know the correct term. Could this be called mune bori?

Udenuki ana, there would be a cord through the holes that would allow you to put you hand through and around your wrist. I think udenuki was used mostly pre-Edo period in battles. I'm not a tsuba guy so I can't even begin to guess the age of that tsuba.

Congrats guys.

I can't help with dating help but if you can get Uchigatana-goshirae book by Tokyo National Museum it's a gold mine of information for old koshirae. I can probably dig a few general tips from that book tomorrow.

I think your column 3 reads: 板目柾流れ交じり - which I believe would mean mix up of itame and masame-nagare. So you should be able to see both itame forging pattern and "running masame" on the blade.

Dang I'm a noob as I can't make a spoiler tag... Column 4 正真 Shoshin (genuine) 長さNagasa (length) Column 3 your blanks are the smith 近江守継平 Omi no Kami Tsuguhira. Sandai means 3rd generation. You can find him from Seskos Swordsmith index for example. I'm at my parents so I can't give you the detailed information of the smith. It's great that you have tried translating the origami by yourself, it's always a good learning experience. Now you know how this side of the paper usually reads out and where to look for the attribution.

In the brackets it reads (Kuni Fumei Jidai Muromachi Makki) Province unknown period end of the Muromachi. I think you did well with this purchase as it was well priced and papered. I think that is a good affordable addition to your collection, it was priced so nicely I almost went for it few times. :D

I must confess I am horrible in understanding the art in tsuba, and I often don't understand the designs. Here are few tsuba that I think have moon in them. This moon & sun is actually pretty nice: http://yushindou.com/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%88%E5%9B%B3%E3%80%80%E9%89%84%E5%9C%B0%E3%80%80%E6%92%AB%E8%A7%92%E5%BD%A2/ I think this has large moon (not my taste in design): http://www.e-sword.jp/tsuba/1510-6002.htm I think this one has small moon: http://yushindou.com/%E5%8D%81%E6%89%8B%E5%9B%B3%E3%80%80%E9%89%84%E5%9C%B0%E3%80%80%E6%9C%A8%E7%93%9C%E5%BD%A2/

Very nice one James. I have to confess I used much more than 2 hours on this kantei guess. These online kantei quizzes are always very fun to try out. Maybe we could have an ongoing thread for Aoi Arts kantei quizzes? I've been trying to guess them when I have free time but doing them in group would be more fun than doing them alone.

Welcome Henry, I think you'll enjoy this forum too.

I'm going to go with Period: Late Kamakura - Early Nanbokucho School: Yamato - Tegai Smith: Kane X (not skilled enough to differentiate smiths)