RichardP

Wow—the notion that steels from different regions produce swords with their own color hues seems really plausible, looking at the raw material...

What’s going on here? Seems to appear on the other side of the blade as well...

Thanks Piers. (I was imagining the handle unscrewing from the head, which doesn’t make any sense.)

These are so beautiful. Piers, could you—or someone—please clue me in as to what makes an internal screw a useful feature on a mekugi nuki?

Thanks Mr. Hallam—off it goes to Mr. Benson for submission in the January kodogu shinsa. Will post results!

Mr. Weissberg’s site, nihonto.com, shows a kodogu set with very similar dragons: https://www.nihonto.com/11-6-19/

3.55” high x 2.95” wide 0.40” at rim 159 gr. I’m just... awestruck. This beauty’s going to shinsa for sure! (I think it was the whisker-holes on the dragons’ muzzles—and the way the nanako bends around the mimi—that finally broke my brain...) While this may be gimei, I keep thinking of Darcy’s article on Ichijo’s unreal ability to work in hyper-miniature. There a few tiny areas of blunt-force damage to the nanako, but the condition otherwise seems fantastic. There is heavy grime visible within the centers of the coiled dragons that I’m not about to mess with. Would love to have you all’s input, and particularly Mr. Ford’s: Is there any reason NOT to immediately pursue shinsa? I was thinking that the expense of any restoration work should be delayed until I get positive shinsa results—or would my odds at shinsa be improved by having it restored first? Thanks guys, off to go breathe into a paper bag...

Whoa—thanks all, I’ll post more pics when it arrives...

Sorry for the strained necks, guys, images corrected...

Sorry, this is the only other photo I have from seller:

The nanako caught my eye; does this look to be shakudo? Is the signature of any help? Thanks!!

Very handsome! What’s the motif on the kozuka? (Looks like bag of money and false beard?)

I see that blade features the optional bottle opener...

“Today, across this country, our youngest and most vulnerable shoulder the burden of paperless, mumei shinto waks. Here, at Katanas for Kids, we believe that all children...” <cue Sarah McLachlan>

Is the mune’s geometry off, or am I seeing things?

I’ve never seen a tsuba that immediately made me start humming the theme to “Super Mario Bros”... Impressive!

Does the extent of the yasurime—over what seems to be the entirety of the nakago—lend any weight to the theory that this is ubu? (That is to say, as a sword is shortened, is it common for “new” yasurime to be added as the nakago moves up the sword?)

Ford Hallam discussed this bad binocular mamma-jamma on his channel. Behold, the Leica A60: https://www.leica-microsystems.com/products/stereo-microscopes-macroscopes/p/leica-a60-f/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kPsFoudYVSg (A clip from one of my favorite guilty pleasures, the 1995 film The Hunted.)