Ilovekatana

here are the rest.

So I decided to take pictures of the boshi on the other side. Apologies for the background as the one I used previously happened to be dirty and this was kind of spontaneous. I suspect this boshi is ko maru with some nie or yaki kuzure. I tried my best to get a picture of the habuchi. These are the best pictures I could get.

here are some additional pictures

I figured I could include some pictures of the hamon and hada from the same session as the first boshi picture attempt. These were taken during golden hour using my phones macro focus. I personally love how the sword looks in this lighting. I also should add the sword seems to be tired.

here is an additional photo

here are the pictures I managed to get. I for the life of me can't get a picture of the habuchi past the hadori from this angle.

Small update on those photos. I tried and failed miserably. taking those type of photos seems to be well above my current photo taking skills. Having no tripod and only a phone camera probably doesn't help either.

sure I'll try to get the pictures during my next day off.

I can try when I have time. I am not very good at taking photos of nihonto and as I have said before I don't have a setup. I also have trouble getting the right angle of light to view the boshi on this side, let alone take a picture of it. I have confirmed its there, but its tricky. Also to clarify, what do you mean by normal picture?

its the hira zukuri wakizashi I bought from yahoo actions Japan from my previous posts. from what I saw while trying to take pictures of the sword it does not run off. I do not have a good photo set up or easy access to a dslr camera. This was taken outside during golden hour with sword in one hand phone in the other. best I can describe it is a ko maru with round tobiyaki that have attached themselves to the ko maru temper line. Here is a picture, from the same session, that sort of shows the buildup to and beginning of the boshi. edit: I've added a rough drawing of what the boshi looks like. sorry for the quality of the drawing I suck at drawing with a mouse.

This is a type of boshi I am not familiar with. It seems as though these sort of circular elements form the actual boshi line. This was the best picture I could take of it.

Thank you for the info Grey.

What is this thing where the temperline frays apart?. Sorry for picture quality, this was done using a phone camera in one hand and the sword in the other.

It seems that yakiba page from the commercial dealers links is partially inactive. Specifically if you enter the website and you try to click on swords you get a 404 error.

Good luck on picking out a sword. Yahoo Auctions Japan is a minefield.

You can request Jauce unblock the auction(you need an account for this). So you don't need an intermediary. They just ask you to agree pay a 20,000 yen fee if you win and for your location for import/customs purposes. I told them the state I'm in, but just mentioning the country your in would probably work just fine.

I checked my jauce account and I did pay for the shipping to jauce and to me. Edit: Also you should treat any claims made by the sellers on yahoo auctions Japan with a grain of salt.

One I know and have used is Jauce. So far I have bought one sword from Yahoo Auctions Japan through them. You just have to agree to pay a 20,000 yen documentation fee and tell them where you are located(I told them the state I'm in, but I'm pretty sure just saying the country you are in should work as well). Though be prepared to pay quite a few fees in addition to the documentation fee. For a sword costing 76,000 yen I ended up paying 36,860 yen in fees, including the documentation fee and shipping.

I agree that its pleasing to look at. I mostly posted this because at least among the numerous "Masamune" on yahoo auctions this one at least has what seems to be juyo paper, albeit an older one. Most either have unverifiable older papers, kicho/tokubestu kicho papers, a "Masamune" signature , or nothing with with seller going "trust me bro".

I regularly look through yahoo auctions Japan for fun to see what's there. I also look up Masamune on there sometimes just to see what swords are being passed off as his work. Recently I found that what appears to be a juyo den Masamune on there. The paper is from 1975(according to google translate). I can't speak to whether the juyo paper is real or not(It looks the same as other juyo papers to me, but that is not my area of expertise). It also costs more money than I will ever be able to afford at a starting bid of 180,000,000 yen. Here is a link for anyone who wants to look https://www.jauce.com/auction/p1136582379 .

Thats good. I kept reading that you not get solvent on the nakago, so I was panicking a bit.

While cleaning and oiling my sword a small bit of isopropyl alcohol got on the tang( it had gotten on the latex glove I was wearing while holding the tang). I immediately wiped the nakago with a dry microfiber cloth to remove it. Am I good?

Interesting. I'll have to take another look at my swords nakago, but that might be what I'm seeing. Thank you.

I just looked closely at the other side the nakago. It doesn't have the the diagonal lines and is in standard kiri. So maybe it is from a previous polish. Edit: Also to add this is the same unpapered "soshu masahiro" from some of my previous posts

That makes sense. Thank you for the help.