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cju777

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Everything posted by cju777

  1. There was quite a few pockets of US ground forces in China and SE Asia in WW2. General “Vinegar Joe” Stillwell’s CBI Theater forces that included Merrill’s Marauders—limited—but more than a few when you include the logs tail. Also in China- US Army Engineers and associated logs folks built and maintained airfields once the flying tigers became the CATF and 14th Airforce. Also some advisory groups with both sides (even Mao had a US Army liaison team). Plus the random OSS types active in the region. Marines get all the credit (deserved credit for sure) for the Island campaign but the Army was running around Asia quite a bit back then too! Post war who knows who was running around those days, as you note. Start of the Cold War and all. Side note since you are in Thailand too, Phrae has a cool museum to the Seri Thai units the OSS trained.
  2. Rob type “@“ then without a space immediately after, type the user’s account name, ex “robinalexander” it will search and resolve for that person.
  3. @francois2605 and @Lareon those are fantastic. I’ll try and get something like that setup and extend the exposure—hadn’t thought of that. I’ll send some updates once I do. And the mountings- those are professional looking.
  4. Thanks Stephen. I think natural light works great. Been hard to get the timing and the angles right here, down between all the skyscrapers. Had much better natural light back in Virginia.
  5. Hey all, Just a for fun post. Had some pieces out to re-oil the other night and tried my hand at working on my photo skills with the lighting and black backdrop. Happened to be probably my easiest and hardest examples to capture the activity. The first is soshu style and the activity usually pops, in fact some of my less staged photos even capture the hamon activity better, but here to contrast with… The second. I really tried hard with the suguha blade, it’s an older polish to begin with and looks so much different in hand, this was my best effort yet but still doesn’t quite get it. These have been on the board before and I’ll drop the smiths (first is contested tough) and the activity I see in hand below for those who don’t want to guess. 1. 2.
  6. Thank you for sharing, tragic news and I wish him and his family the best outcome. I'm relatively new here and have spent a great deal of time looking through his articles and keeping an eye out for his posts. Certainly left an imprint on my early collecting.
  7. I think he’s referring to the photo of miniature soldiers in a scene as described, from last month or earlier this month... must have scrolled past it a dozen or so times as people replied to the thread. Now I can’t find it either.
  8. Switched from Ironsight to default and still taking much longer than usual to load. I think even after your cache adjustment. Even in this thread without photos, it took 1-2 min to get the box to type this reply. Safari released an update 10 Nov and depending when iPhones pulled it, could explain the date range if something in that new version is not playing well with forums.
  9. Most noticeable yesterday and today on the iPhone safari browser, usually don't have any problems. Works fine on my laptop right now.
  10. Lots of practice looking at different mei. I’m nowhere near as good as many folks here, but I am a fan of @Grey Doffin’s flash cards to get a good foundation.
  11. Lost status is slightly better than "delivered" but not to you. As Brian said, keep up the emails, online inquires, and pressure on USPS--I had a nihonto in shipment recently with USPS that disappeared for about a week. Once I put some pressure on (maybe they cared because it was insured via USPS) I actually got some decent customer support who located it and got it where it needed to go-- still took another week or so. Anything that has to transit a customs point or exchange with 3rd party vendors, like UPS and DHL, has been a mess the past year. Even routine Amazon shipments worth nothing have disappeared for weeks getting to me. Good luck, and will still keep an eye out on the markets in case somebody did swipe it, but I hope it's just USPS taking its time. (Realize my location says Bangkok, I have access to a USPS mail point and rely on it a lot more than the local mail)
  12. Is “Japanese Spears” an updated version of the older “Japanese Polearms” or is the content different enough that it is is worth getting a hold of both? Thanks.
  13. Like Barry and some others I had set getting shodan in Kendo as the point I would save till to get my first. Life events and such dragged that process out about 10 years so I had plenty of time to save up and learn a bit. My first nihonto was an o-wakizashi signed Dewa Daijo Fujiwara Kunimichi, and assessed to be one of his later works, or the 2nd gen depending on which theory you go by. Have learned a lot more since then, not sure if I'll ever trade it up yet. Most of my other pieces and interests have been much older koto and in my range ones just attributed to broad schools, and it's been nice to have a signed piece and be able to research a smith who has a little bit more of his life documented or written about in various journals. I need to get some of my own photos, this one has been tricky to capture appropriately.
  14. There was this: and I’m thinking of another one I’m trying to find a well. Had a bunch of replies, really old blade that was polished.
  15. Update on the sayagaki, thanks to the translations forum: 備後國古三原 Bingo kuni Ko-Mihara Ko-Mihara of Bingo 大磨上無銘也 Ō-suriage mumei nari Cut shortened, without signature, this blade 白氣映ノ立ツ板目ノ肌合ニ匂口ノ締マル小沸出来ノ直刃ヲ焼キ細カ ニ ホッレ ガ絡ミ Shirakeutsuri-no-tatsu itame no hada-ai ni nioiguchi no shimaru ko-nie-deki no suguha wo yaki komaka ni hotsure ga karami hada of standing/straight itame of white haze?, straight hamon of narrow small nie deki of nioi-guchi, small spots entwined throughout 帽子ガ丸ク掃掛ケテ稍深ク返ルナド Boshi ga maruku hakikakete yaya fukaku kaeru nado Boshi round, broom swept portions, somewhat deep turnback 南北朝期ノ同派ノ特色ヲ示ス優品也 Nanbokuchō-ki no dōha no tokushoku o shimesu yuhin nari Nanbokucho era features of this group, shows superior/well-made, this blade 長さ弐尺壱寸九分弱 Nagasa 2 shaku 1 sun 9 bu jaku Length 2 shaku 1 sun 9 bu 時(时)在己亥暦霜月 Jizai Kigai Shimotsuki Dated 2019 November
  16. Steve, That's awesome, thank you so much. Makes a lot more sense now when I look up the characters. It's like when I used to have to go from modern to classical Chinese... almost a whole other language at times. I'll need to work on the finer strokes, this will help flag those for me for sure. Cheers, Chris
  17. That's why I'm glad Ray took the first crack at it and narrowed down for me areas to focus on, haha. It does look great when I have it out on the stand.
  18. A bit hectic lately and have not been on NMB much... trying to get back into things so taking a shot at a Tanobe sayagaki translated on one of my swords. @Ray Singer has done much of the initial grunt work and I’ve added in a few parts. Red sections are where I am not sure I for it correct. I have Chinese language, so that helps to recognize the characters and radicals, but reads like gibberish to me, and I know one stroke or radical can throw the whole character off. Would be interested if the formal writing has any “read between the lines” context but can also save that for a post in the Nihonto section. Let me know if I am off to a good start with the right characters at least to dive into the deeper meaning, if any, when I get some time. As always many thanks to the help from the board! Any yes... I know I need to get cracking with my set of flashcards I got off @Grey Doffin and finally learn some more. *I know the common terms we use among ourselves, itame, maru, suguha, hakikake, etc... left them for the most part when I wrote the English parts out. 備後國古三原 Bingo kuni Ko-Mihara Ko-Mihara of Bingo 大磨上無銘也 Ō-suriage mumei nari Cut shortened, without signature 白氣映ノ立ッ板目ノ肌合ニ匂口ノ渧マル小沸来ノ直刃ヲ焼キ沺カニホッレガ洛彡 shirake no tatsu o itame no hada-ai ni nioiguchi no tei maru ko-nie-deki no suguha o yaki qiang kanihorrega raku ga marami ??? hada of itame, nioguchi, and suguha of small nie deki ??? ??? straight blade? 帽子ガ丸ノ掃掛クテ稍深ク 返ルナド boshi ga maru no hakikake ku te yahukaku ku kaeru nado Boshi ga?-maru of hakikake ??? deep ??? 南北朝期ノ同派ノ特色ヲ示ス優品也 Nanbokuchō-ki no dōkō no tokushoku o shimesu yuhin nari Nanbokucho characteristics and workmanship are shown 長さ弐尺壱寸九分弱 Nagasa 2 shaku 1 sun 9 bu jaku Length 2 shaku 1 sun 9 bu 寸在己亥厝霜月 Jizai Kigai Shimotsuki [jizai? assume signed/dated] November 2019 (Yeah... took me awhile to realize it was the Sexagenarian calendar) End with his signature and Kao.
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