Karusk

Brian im sorry i felt it relevant cause this sword specifically is modern. Also I decided to have this custom made because the seller of this keeps refusing to let me have it. I really felt it relevant as i was trying to get this at auction and he keeps putting it back up after i win. I was just trying to show how much I thought it would take to make this and the fact that it wont go for more than i could have it made is pointing to it being a fake. No one wants to pay more than 550 because they know its fake and they know they can have it made at high modern quality. When he said it was outrageous and crap i felt the need to share my opinion otherwise. Its not that outrageous to have something modern made. i am sorry i keep stepping on your toes senpai.

So why make a downvote take my reputation away? I just started and all it would take is one guy to come and downvote everything i say and im back to 0 rep here. Seems kinda unbalanced and arbitrary to me. Brian i am sorry about my argument with barry. I felt it unfair and I’m not one to keep silent. In these other posts someone is downvoting i even quite plainly said that his stuff is low quality. That I wouldn’t recommend buying the item i linked. I lost a days worth of activity from my reputation cause someone disliked three different posts where all i said was buyer beware and dont pay full price from anyone. I even specifically said the item i linked wasn’t worth 500 in a pawnshop when it’s listed for 2400 bucks. I was just linking to give an example of a hirazukuri katana and i was quite clear about that. can you really blame me for being a little disappointed? Im just trying to build my rep up a little here, learn, and help answer people when im around and no one else is. If ive broken any rules im sorry. If ive stepped on any toes im sorry. Ive been a silent member of this forum for years. You guys taught me everything i know and are the reason i dont have anything like that cobra abomination in my collection. I have mad respect for you specifically and am sorry i keep drawing your ire. 😞

Let me see you bend your tamahagane like this without ruining it.

What am I supposed to pay some Japanese smith 10000 dollars to make something without modern steel that will be inferior in actual strength? Am I supposed to pay an insane up charge for inferior steel because Japanese law dictates a smith can only make 3 swords a year? No thanks. Obviously i cant afford this one and the shape i want is super hard to find. My respect and love for Japanese sword smiths ends about 120 years ago. Longbo is a master smith who has been forging his entire life. Im not buying a cheap Chinese fake im having a master smith outside of Japan make me a modern custom blade . If you want to take your tamahagane against any one of my L6 tool steel katanas in a stress test or even one of my 1065 high carbon medieval reproductions i guarantee you’re gonna be disappointed in what happens.

Yeah sorry i cant help you in the signature. They will all probably suggest gimei (forgery) due to it being a retemper.

Is the area there in the bottom photo on the flat part rough? Or is it a reflection? Hard to tell.

Someone has been disliking my posts cause i defended a seller they dont like. So any love you can give will be greatly appreciated.

Took a couple with different angles of the light. Good practice anyways. And some better of the design of the saya cover(if someone knows the proper term educate a fool please, sword bag just feels....wrong)

So sorry will do.

High carbon steel reacts to the oils in you skin and creates rust. Quickly. It never fails when i hand someone a blade to look at I tell them not to touch the blade and the first thing they do is take their thumb and run it up the edge. Then we need a bandaid is the second reason 🤪. ITS FREAKING SHARP DONT TEST IT WITH YOUR THUMB. Not yelling at yiu just conveying the emotion i feel when someone does this🥵 If you have blades that dont rust from touching they have a high cromium content. Stainless. These are all considered wall hangers baring some high alloyed tool steels with magnesium and bainite. I have a large collection of high quality medival reproduction and let me tell you they will grab a fingerprint like no ones buisness. I have a rittersteel odachi that has my friends distinct thumbprint on it still. A super mirrored polish is not necessarily the best thing on a Nihonto. A less conservative opinion would be that it had been restored by a Chinese polisher, this is literally called chunese mirror polish and is more common on modern reproductions. I wouldnt let this concern you too much as its on a retemper. That tsuba tells a story definitely. Looking at it with your input id say thats an excellent telling of it. I recommend taking it to the tosogu forum to get a better opinion than mine. I have yet to make my foray into the world of tosogu as its a harder more refined study i dont want to make any mistakes at. Its definitely an attractive design, but there are a whole lot of modern reproductions of attractive designs like this. It does seem to have age to it, with the refitted metals in the hole, but this can be done just to make it look old. Or it could have just been done to make it fit better, with no intent to defraud.

What i mean is the top of the saya cover is like a gun sock. It is sown up instead of open. Its made to be twisted and then fited over itself creating a seal.

Then its been retempered. Dont panic. They are a fact of existence for nihonto blades. It was probably damaged in a house fire. It does speak to the age of the blade and the quality the repairing smith perceived in the work of the nakago and hada. They did not wish to just melt down the existing work and labored to repair it. This definitely means its nihonto as well. No one is wasting time retempering something Chinese or modern. Id say you have a decent starter blade with some good talking points and history. From the shape and pattern of the patina id say pre 1800. The fact that its retempered is a decent talking point IMO. It was damaged in a fire, all these paper and wooden buildings they used to have would catch fire and ruin any blades inside. One such fire destroyed so many blades it caused the emperor at the time to commission a smith to repair what he could at the time, and several of them are in the private collections of various families. It does however prevent it from being papered, and reduces the value greatly. Theres no telling when it was originally damaged could have been 200 years ago could have been 20. The only ones documented are the higher quality/ranking smiths that were all done by the mentioned commissioned smith. I do hope you didn’t spend a whole lot on it. if you wanted me to guess a value, if you walked into a few pawnshops with it you might find one that will give you around 1000$ Alot of people here would frown at me saying that because your just passing it off to someone who isn’t informed. Caveat emptor IMO. I dont think anyone here would give you that much. The tsuba itself may be worth more than the blade due to the unique design, but someone better at tosogu may disagree with me there. I really cant speak for the value of your kozuka. Id keep it as a study tool. The next time you go for one youll take a good look at where the hamon ends.

Im not referring to the pitting. Where does the hamon end? Picture of the other side might help. Does it go straight into the edge above the end of the edge?

Not the pitting, but the lack of a hamon under it and into the nakago. It looks like it goes into the edge, above where the edge ends. When a blade gets hot the hamon dissapears ruining the temper and edge retaining capacity. As utilitarian as the existing hamon is id call this a retemper. Im pretty sure this would prevent it from recieving a paper. It doesn’t mean it’s not worth collecting, but it does detract from the value. If you can see the hamon better in your hand going into the nakago then i just cant see and am jumping to conclusions. Retempers are part of the rich history of nihonto and IMO a fair talking point about the blade, even if it does devalue it a little. These were done to make a ruined blade serviceable again and not to defraud someone in the modern market. The reason it disappears there is because they wet wrap the nakago to prevent destroying the patina of the nakago.

That bottom photo is a little concerning, it looks like heat damage. Does the hamon disappear there?

The sori/sugata says shinto to me(post 1600) note how the curve is centered and gentle along the whole blade.

I cant speak for the age if the kozuka handles themselves these are much harder and beyond my skill. They are quite good looking though. I like the patina and pattern on the kogai. I think most people will assume the blades aren’t original to the handles. They look to be meiji at the oldest. I most likely am wrong my experience is more with katana. I think you’re right about the fittings though the handles and fittings of the koshirae are all a separate labor and craftsman.

Their all gonna tell you so ill beat em to it. Get a dark cloth and take the blade completely out of its koshirae. Using a flashlight experiment taking pictures with the light in different positions. Make sure you get one of the whole naked blade they want to see the sugata. (Shape/curvature) The yasurime (file marks) and patina look good for a shinto/shinshinto age guess. The tsuba is probably meiji maybe a little older, but it does appear to have been fitted to a couple different blades as evidenced by the two different metals used to change the shape of the hole. we are all gonna want to see that kozuka and the seppa too.

Showing off/practicing taking photos. Would love any information on the extended genealogy of this smith. Thought the saya cover was worth linking too. I had never seen one with the cap like this. Has modern NBTHK. I cant read the signature i was told it says masastugu at the end. Theres a couple light pitting marks near the tip that will hardly show up on photos. Id like to know why he signed with different names if anyone could source that. Not for sale, will be left to a close friend in the event of my death. Any opinions and information will be just for my own learning and showing off of the blade.

Here, i think i got a handle on making it show up. I appreciate the interest

I have been posting several of my katana im still getting around to redoing this one. Ill get some better hada photos soon.

Lol sometimes the truth offends people. ROFL. Now your just being petty. Grow up.

Yeah they are definitely not super informed either. I always offer him lowball and he has always accepted. Caveat emptor. Im in no way saying hes a great seller. Hes just a seller and like everyone else on this spinning rock just trying to eat and live comfortably. If youre out there not trying to save a dollar by offering less than asking your just throwing away money in the first place. You really cant fault someone for trying to get as much as possible on a turnaround.

I do agree that its over priced don’t get me wrong. Im not saying buy it🤣. I bet if I offered him 1000 hed let me have it though, or try to get 1500. Everyones trying to make a dollar. If you walked into a pawnshop with it you might get offered 500 bucks. You might move it at a gunshow for 1k. I never pay full price from anyone. My wife makes sure of that😑. Just figured it was relevant to this thread.

The old white paper As far as i can tell its intact and unaltered. The mei is also transcribed where I highlighted. Is the number on the top right mean this was the 67759ty judgement done by the person, or the whole orginization? Or a specific branch?