Jussi Ekholm

Christian I think the reason why this book has been so popular is the fact that a lot of information could be had in compact package for somewhere around 50-80€'s in this book. I agree that the prices on this book have gotten too high for my taste. I would rather recommend a book that has c. 350 pages and can be bought for less than 100 euros to a someone starting out with books than a set of Nihonto Koza or Yamanaka Newsletters. I think it's written in good format so that it's more easier to grasp "basic" things than reading Yamanaka or Nihonto Koza early on. Connoisseurs book has been great easing between the introductory books and more advanced books as it builds your knowledge up. Of course once your start getting deeper into reading material and acquire more books I think you will use this book less but it's still a great resource. And as it could be ordered from Amazon for a good price it was pretty killer deal.

Jimi as it's attributed to Shimada then 1500's would be much more likely than 1300's.

Kongobyoe is one school that I like. Can't explain exactly why I seem to like it but I do. Here is bit of history of the school from Nihonto Koza. I believe Sword Society of Canada will be publishing a book focused on Kongobyoe smiths.

Tjena Hans! Welcome to the forum. It's very nice to have you here. I got to see some of your work at Scandinavian NBTHK meeting and I must say they were great.

Nice to see the discussion and interest towards the blade. I agree that romantic way of thinking can easily make that being a battle scar and I am not sure about the origin of it. I think the un-romantical explanation Chris gave might be more logical one. This old pic is probably as good closeup as I'm gonna get. I cropped it to show detail.

Awesome article Gabriel, very well written.

I'm putting up for sale this decent mumei wakizashi. I don't like selling stuff I own but this one has to be moved if I'm thinking of improving the quality of my collection. It's in decent condition with multiple minor flaws, but it's well viewable in this condition. I cannot say anything definitive about age or school. Nagasa: 44,5 cm (1 shaku 4 sun 7 bu) Nakago: 13 cm Sori: 0,7 cm Motohaba: 2,7 cm Sakihaba: 2 cm Motogasane: 4,2 mm Moto-shinogi-gasane: 5,7 mm Sakigasane: 3 mm Saki-shinogi-gasane: 4 mm Nakagogasane: 4,6 mm Kissaki: 3,5cm Weight: 342 g Blade is small sized and light. It has some scratches and some amount of pitting. It also has one weird circular dent in the middle of ura side. But in overall sword is in viewable condition as it is. Habaki is probably copper with worn out gold plating, it has split a bit at the seam. Shirasaya is quite nice, it has one small dent that I pictured. Price: 650€, includes worldwide shipping & Paypal fees. Bank wire transfer is also an option for payment but I think most prefer Paypal. I can provide fullsized pics by email.

My copy of the book just arrived and it's damn addicting reading. When you read rest of the paragraph instead just the quote there is an explanation what netaba-awase is. And it's basically "steeling", honing or realigning the edge, whatever term you prefer to use. It's explained in the book that proper netaba-awase would be going through few different whetstones getting into very fine one and then using it to give the final honing, or optionally strop it wih leather or other mediums. Like was said before I think warrior would have had their own stone for sharpening, something small like this (or even half the size of this one), so it's easy to carry with you. As far as performance goes I can't comment much as I'm no swordsman and I haven't cut much. I've cut with various production swords (Japanese style & European) and I've honed and tuned some of their edges, and depending on the cutting medium it can make varying result. However this "fine tuning" does not last very long, partly due to the fact that my cutting mediums are quite abrasive. I haven't yet tried leather stropping but I've used very fine grit sandpaper, fine grit stone as the one in my pic and diamond hones. What I'm doing would be just fine honing the edge to give it tad more sharpness.

Thanks to your heads up Ian, I was able to see it on the weekend. I'm lucky as my cable provider offers NHK World for free, I guess that is quite rare in Finland. But it's very nice that someone went to the trouble of uploading it to Youtube so everyone can see it. Like others have said before me it's an amazing documentary. One "hidden" gem for me was the brief portion of sword auction in Tokyo.

I have also noticed that one some years ago, mostly because I like big swords. However I think this is close to being one of my dream swords at the moment, of course unobtainable dream but at least I can drool over it. http://www.sanmei.com/contents/media/H1 ... PUP_E.html

In Japanese Spears by Knutsen it's called just as you described, fukuro kikuchi yari.

There has been a lot of good discussion of the subject. I cannot add any of my own thoughts as pretty much all my information regarding utsuri comes from sources already mentioned here. However the following part which discusses Bizen double yakiba (which I have understood as utsuri, but I might be wrong) is to my knowledge translated from Kokon Kaji Biko which was published in 1829 and this part was originally contributed by Kawabe Masahide. This 25 page Appendix 3 of the Sword and Same is focused on sword making and there are lots of informative gems in that part.

Very nice displays guys. I like those acrylic stands as well as more traditional ones.

Added tags so you can try it yourself.

The name Chikushi naginata has it's roots in the area where naginata of this type were historically most popular. As you can see from the skecthes there are multiple variations of this naginata type. Unfortunately I have quite little information of this type in my books. You can see relevance to some European polearms such as bardiche or voulge. Which have similar socketed build as Chikushi naginata. It's also fun to note how historically both Chikushi naginata and bardiche seemed to be bit concentrated on certain area while rest of surrounding area used the more popular style of polearm.

Don't worry about your explanation, your English is perfectly fine. I understood what you meant and it was my wording that could have used tweaking... What I meant that based on the comments you posted I got a very elitist vibe from that Chinese forum. As I read those comments meaning in bit negative feeling towards your new sword, which in my eyes would be a nice sword. And on the opposite end on some production sword forums even tired and rusty genuine Japanese swords get a lot of praises just because they are Japanese swords. That was kinda the scenario I tried to word out regarding different levels of collecting.

Like I said on another forum I think it's a good sword Zhang. If and when you decide to use it for tameshigiri I believe it will perform well. You can see that on different forums people see things differently. Here at NMB pretty much all Japanese swords and related things are usually met with proper attitude in my mind. Of course very high level stuff gets more praising than low level stuff but that's understandable. Then you have the production sword forums where 100$ Chinese made replica might get praises and that is not a bad thing either. Heck I've given some credit to those myself. But they are usually not the platform I'd take on more serious nihonto discussion. Of course there are also people that only focus on the really high end stuff. The great thing about NMB and all the collectors I've met is the fact that they appreciate pieces of various quality. You can see here very experienced collectors giving comments and insight on items of varying quality. Don't be discouraged about your purchase. I would be happy to own a modern sword like that Kanehide. Of course the most important thing is that you like it.

Big thanks to Barry and other updaters. I was able to get a "free" shipping to Finland due to that 20% discount.

This will be an awesome thread. I guess for me it is my Kuninobu tachi. What makes it special for me is the fact that it was my first tachi and that I was able to buy a Nambokucho tachi within Finland. I still remember the feeling as I held it in my hand first time. Of course it has got it's flaws but it is great for me.

Ron I have not heard from this program before but you can run programs in program compatibility mode in newer windows versions. Just right-click -> properties -> compatibility mode and choose anything upwards from Windows 95. Hopefully this will work on that program.

Thanks for the pics Junichi it looks like a great event.

Welcome to the world of collecting nihonto Marc. I think you made a very nice flea market find, I wish I will be that lucky someday. This next pic is of a sword by Kozuke no Daijo Sukesada, who is regarded as the best Shinto Sukesada smith. While mostly my books have only images and descriptions of the famous smiths, some parts of the descriptions can be used for lesser known ones too. Some things to look on your sword, I think it's easier to explain these with the above pic as reference. Does your sword have a yakidashi? Yakidashi is a straight portion of the hamon shown at the base of the sword. Sugu-yakidashi is common feature in Shinto Sukesada blades while Koto period blades do not have this. Another important feature to look is boshi, the tempering at the tip. Sue-Bizen Sukesada smiths often applied complex midare-komi style boshi, so the hamon continues to be irregular and turns back. Shinto Sukesada smiths also used midare-komi variation but also suguha with small round turn back, as you can see in the pic.

Do you have more pics of the 38 inch sword? Unfortunately I think the hamon is just etched on with vinegar (or something similar). I am not sure if it will be tempered properly, so use caution if you plan to use it. How were these swords sold, bare blades, shirasaya, koshirae?

Awesome video, I enjoyed it.

Thanks for sharing that information Ian, it's great to hear about the background of that piece.