francois2605

Is it possible to see the opposite side of the tsuba ?

My understanding is that the shipping to Europe stopped because of the situation in Ukraine so it normally shouldn't resume before the war ends

Excellent, thank you so much for this information, Piers. I would have never guessed !

Hello gentlemen, Several months ago, I bought a tsuba on Buyee and the box's lid contains long handwritten notes. I was wondering if someone could translate them. Thank you very much for your help For those interested, this is the corresponding tsuba.

Hello William, that's a nice Type 3 you have here. Some minor remarks regarding your description: Shin-gunto refers to a type 94/98 koshirae, yours is a type 3. The sugata is shinogi-zukuri, iori-mune only describes the geometry of the sword's back. The nagasa is too long and cannot be correct, gunto normally have a length between 60 and 65 cm. You probably measured the total sword length which isn't the nagasa.

Your sword is gorgeous, it looks very powerful with its long kissaki. Are you alluding to a kinnoto in your description ? I remembered (from Aoi Arts pictures) that kinnoto had an extra long nakago (among other things) that I can't see on your sword so I checked Markus' encyclopedia of Japanese swords and I don't think your sword qualifies as one: the nagasa should be at least 80 cms and the nakago is too short (once you've seen a kinnoto nakago, you just can't forget it).

Peter hasn't been online since Jan 23rd according to his profile page

Hello Erick and welcome to the board and this hobby Have you already removed the tsuka (handle) ? It would be helpful to see pictures of the nakago (tang) and if there is a mei (signature). At first glance, the hamon looks very nice. I also like the habaki with the 2 different metals (that's a good sign IMO). The tsuba is unusual for a shin-gunto, maybe that is a civil variant ? Others will be able to tell. If you remove the tsuka, you may find matching numbers on the tsuba, seppa (washers) and tang. The color of the sarute tells me it's not original to the koshirae. Edit: Bruce Pennington maintains a very useful reference document Stamps of the Japanese Sword listing the different types of stamps one can find on military swords.

Could this be a typo ? Hard to believe the book sold for that much

Thanks for sharing, this sword is absolutely stunning

There seems to be at least one exception to the "Woody doesn't polish gendaito" rule:

Thanks for those explanations Bruno. I had no idea

Is it possible to receive NBTHK awards without being a properly trained togishi ? Because Massimo reportedly did and I have a hard time squaring this with the fact he's not traditionally trained. Edit: is it possible that you're mistaking Massimo with Pierluigi Ponzio ?

Very nice sword, Volker It ticks a lot of my boxes: nice hada, gunto 3 koshirae and Nagamitsu sword.

Bruce, Nagamitsu = "Ichihara Ichiryushi Nagamitsu" as per http://www.japaneseswordindex.com/naga.htm

Here are the pics converted to JPEG for convenience

Hi Ryan, It would definitely help your sale if you could show some close-ups of the hada, kissaki and hamon. Samurai Shokai's pictures are not the best for that.

Just found the original pictures from this WAF thread (from BenVK): source

Linda, you'll find some pictures for a katana forged by this smith here: You'll also find a section about this swordsmith in this document by Mecox: And finally a close-up showing the hada of the sword from the first link:

Well... the WW2 ended in May 1945 in Europe, not in Asia. Your sword was crafted 3 months before the end of the WW2 which happened on Sept, 2nd in Japan.

Well I didn't because the price was very reasonable, I must be the exception

I love the strokes on the signature, this is beautiful. In case you don't have the Slough:

Yes. From Sesko's excellent encyclopedia of Japanese swords:

Very nice, the difference between your first 2 shots is like night and day !