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According to WAF the sword was up for sale for "between $ 1000 and 2000", so even if Gimei not much is to be lost, for that it doesn't seem to be this heavily abused. Looking forward to the additional pictures! Will be very interesting to see in greater detail. Thanks also for the clarification as to who owns it.

I'm a bit confused. Here you post with location New York. On WAF the location is Indiana. Are you the owner of the sword or the same person as who had posted it on WAF? Or something else?

Just a short follow up, I agreed with Samurai Museum Berlin to display the blade for two more years (until June 2028) in there so that you all have the chance to see it .

With the recent rule by the Supreme Court it became actually even more complicated. Because it allowed certain tariffs, and others not. Especially the ones for steel were mostly "approved". And for some items the steel value is already something you'd have to pay an additional charge that is added to potential other tariffs. And speaking of Tsuba, it is mostly steel (as is a blade). On the other hand, there are possible exempts for antiques and pieces of art .. so depends on which customs tariff number you may use. To put into other words: a nightmare. With tariffs changing on weekly basis (apparently currently not, but who knows..) I fully understand why some simply give up doing this until there are clear rules.

It is not Mr Haynes who forbid on them to be shipped to the US, it is due to tariffs imposed by the president of the US. As a result to this there are hardly any shipping companies which are willing to ship items like this to the US. Especially if an item such as Tsuba is made of steel and there are special additional tariffs for those too, and it depends on where it was made, etc. Too late now anyway, but you could always go there, pick up in person and fly home with it. And someone can easily take a bunch more of those into luggage, if it is being organized. Anyway, did someone win something in this auction?

Thank you. In the meantime I managed to get ahold of better tang pictures. While you already did the translation, I thought I should nevertheless also post them.

I'd highly appreciate assistance in translating the attached signature. The blade itself is rather tired and rust pitted and I was wondering whether it may be worth restoring it. Thanks!

Simply wonderful. Would love to see more of them.

Did they also wanted to look at the tang to see the signature? Or just to see if it is a sword and then done? What do you mean with "Test the metal"?

Welcome to what basically whole Europe had to face all the time anyway, lol. I usually try to get items declared as antiques of more than 100 years of age when shipping, because there is a reduced tax applied to those. I even do this with firearms, even though there is a specific tariff code for them. Never had an issue with this and always saved 10% (because antiques are 10% whereas firearms otherwise would be 20%). Second possibility for you btw could be if you win in this auction then to take a holiday in Italy, pick up the items in person and fly home with them .

Curious, how exactly did you have to show them the blade? Did they allow you to handle the blade in front of them, or did they handle it themselves? And if they handled it themselves, how professional/non-professional was the handling?

Then I'm not surprised they sent back the payment, because it simply was too little.

Did you send them the € 50 payment or a lower payment? According to the website the catalogue is € 15 for Italy € 30 for European Union, USA and Canada and € 50 for Rest of the World

The Italian auction company Czerny's has the Tsuba collection of R. E. Haynes up for an online auction that ends 18th March 2026. Auction catalogue with apparently a total of 267 lots up here: https://www.czernys.com/asta-158/?c=321

No feedback at all. If your blade already is in Japan for Polish anyway and if you can afford it, then submit it (shipping over just for Juyo shinsa is something I personally wouldn't consider). Not much additional hassle, just submission fee and time needed, but at least no extra shipping. At worst it failed, at best it gets papers.