Lewis B

No apology needed. Its the best way to appreciate each piece. btw Do you remember the maker of the blade in the last photo? The info sheet is too blurred to make out the attribution.

Actually you would have a great opportunity to get an informal Shinsa assessment at the upcoming Japan Art Expo in Utrecht in June. Several experts will be on hand to give their opinions. This will be the first time such an opportunity has been offered at the Show. The 3 day event is also a great way for anyone, both new and experienced, to gain more knowledge about Nihonto and Katchu. Even the dealers have brought their personal blades to the event to have Daisuke Hataya give an opinion. Alternatively there are ways to get your blade to Japan without the usual shipping and import/export hassles by using an EU based intermediary. PM me if you want more info.

You might have a point. The blade should go to Shinsa. I wouldn't be surprised if it papered earlier.

Not sure if anyone answered but the white appliqué are otoliths... fish inner ear bones.

Thats pretty brazen. Either the seller is listing the same item on 2 different accounts or Treasure have 'stolen' the listing. I would contact DAIMYO and let them know another account is using their photos and description.

The quality of horimono carving is really good and nice to have it on both sides.

What exactly do you want to know? An invoice confirms nothing. Does it have official papers from a body like the NBTHK or NTHK to provide an attribution? If you want us to comment on the blade itself we need to see high res closeup photos of the jihada, hamon, kissaki and nagaso. The fukure mentioned in the auction listing is a concern. Sometimes these can be fatal for the blade depending the location, depth and extent. Can you post an image of that?

They are called Bonji and usually have a Buddhist religious significance. The script is Sanskrit.

Anyone living the EU should make the effort to visit the annual Japan Art Expo in June in Utrecht. Its one of the best venues available to us to study high quality swords and fittings from most eras, in hand. The education is invaluable.

Seriously, the only absurdity is the inability to grasp why a Google search would be useful when the authenticity of a forum member is being questioned. Is this Kindergarten? Luckily for you Chandler spelled it out.

Directed so that the light isn't reflected off the blade itself. I have found the cheap Ikea LED Jansjo lamps to be great. Think I paid 20 euro for 4 off Ebay. These are widely recommended for anyone doing Macro work. For highligting activity in the hamon a high intensity 250W halogen lamp is my go to. With its dimmer feature I can optimise the light intensity. You can see some of the images I've captured when experimenting with light sources, camera angles etc here https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19Lr1Ec-xuqVvj-eZWYtgSKfamVWFUlsO?dmr=1&ec=wgc-drive-globalnav-goto This for example was shot with the halogen lamp approx 18 inches away from the blade and 90deg wrt the camera angle.

Trial and error I'm afraid. Every blade is different. Thats the beauty of digital image capture, you can snap away to hearts content. Just remember to have the light source off axis and not reflecting on the blade.

Papers are from 1973 so the Tsuba could have been altered for a fitting within the last 50 years.

One of the biggest problems is Nicholas's use of the iPad camera to take pics. More manual control of aperture and focus is preferable. A macro lens works wonders but in lieu of that perhaps the use of a camera app that emulates a macro function.

Pablo Kuntz (Unique Japan) has an office in Tokyo and provides proxy services.

Part of your problem is that the images are very low rez. Can you get high rez images and then zoom in to reduce the file size. Or upload to Google Drive without compression/pixelation issues which are evident here. It kills the fine detail.

Unfortunately not. Try taking some pics perpendicular to the curvature of the kissaki. I took this image of my first blade with a Fujifilm XT2 and standard kit zoom lens. Zero experience back then (hence the dust particles) so if I can do it anyone can.

This is one of the best images you've taken so far. Interesting activity in the hamon. The midare utsuri is really nice to see. Sometimes the clearest pics are taken with the light source off to side. Move the camera around so the feature you want to capture is highlighted. This is most useful for the boshi. So far the kissaki images are devoid of anything noteworthy. Alternatively you could draw a picture of the kissaki in pencil as you would find on an oshigata, shading in what you see with the naked eye.

That was my thought too looking at the hamon and the angle it approaches the yokote. Can we get some clearer images of the kissaki and boshi?

But in this instance its a genuine gmail account. Just Google it and you will see posts with the same email address dating back years. Same email structure too.

Not to mention the 19-20% minimum import tax if buying from the EU.

So starting bid was 8.5mil Yen?

Only a couple of bids posted for the cheaper blades so far. The Kake seem to be doing very well though.

Were the bids cancelled? The auction listing states it ended without any bids.

I wasn't aware we had that option. Much better experience on the 'dark' side.