sencho

I would be very surprised if Mike sold anything Chinese without disclosing the fact. I don't believe it.

Mike is a good guy and I have never seen him embellish his listings... he tells it how it is and if someone wants to pay top dollar for things without doing their due diligence, that is their problem... He is in business, plain and simple and his job is to sell stuff; not educate morons who do not read the description and are living in their own fantasy world... Luckily he is one of the more scrupulous nihonto sellers on ebay and a very amiable person to do business with.

I was reading 西三川内 as "In Nishimikawa" but maybe it doesn't make sense. Nishimikawa in Sado is the only place I know with these kanji... Does it make sense that someone from Saga ken would confuse or change 河 for 川 ...??

Moriyama san, I thought it may have connection with Nishimikawa in Sado.

Morita san / Moriyama san, Could this be a Sado brewery/bar?? Yorosiku!

西三川内 from Nishimikawa??? Sado??

Nick, Good and cheaper don't usually go in the same sentence when talking about Nihonto... but you may be able to find something under 4 figures to suit your purpose... The first thing is to understand what you are looking at before you open your wallet, and that means research through the web, books or sword shows (where you can get up close and personal with true nihonto). If you find all the books and research terribly boring and need to cut to the chase (like I did a few years back) use a reputable dealer and prepare to part with some cabbage. Cheers. PS... I wouldn't chop any trees, weeds or anything else with this rubbish... could fracture mid stroke and do something very nasty... best place for this is cut up and thrown in the bin or furnace!!

Not Japanese... chinese crap made to sell on ebay... Not even worth the scrap value, and certainly not worth the time to try to read the horrendous Chinese characters. Hope you didn't buy this... Cheers

Ron, What identifies this dragon as a "male"?? Cheers

Headers and footers?? Sogyo Meiji Nijugonen Watakai [?] no Ozeki... Rikishi wata [ko jo seiihin] ????? shouldn't really piddle around with this stuff... the Imo shochu is talking.... Cheers

You are 26 days late for April fool.... surely you are not serious??? I usually get bored with the 'spurts harping on about people having to read themselves to death before getting near a sword, but in your case I have to agree with them... Brian is right... you should have spotted that this was a fake in half a second in the thumbnail alone... it is complete and utter garbage, as again as Brian says there is nothing at all that looks anyway near genuine with this. Cheers...

Curran's issues sounds maybe more personally serious... Mine does not involve swords, but involves a small man dragging a 120+ year old law out of some dusty old books, thereby preventing billions of $$$ in potential investment and a massive economic impact to certain areas of Japan. However the issue of petty bureaucracy (and utter stupidity) getting in the way of these things is the same... Most of the time we are wasting precious time doing this >>>> Deep breath, sit down, glass of imo shochu (rock dake)...... aaaand relax! Cheers

Bizarre... but just takes one arsehole and they exist all over the world guys... everywhere... I am preparing to possibly fly to Japan to throttle an official in Kobe... or a least give him a f***ing good dressing down anyway.... been banging my head against the wall with this power pissed prick 24/7 for the last 3 weeks... Luckily Japan, Canada, UK, Aussie and the USA are not as bad as many places I could mention. Glad you got it finally, Fred. Cheers

Thanks Piers.... Is that the one nicknamed Crow Castle??? I most likely won't be able to go, but do have some big yachts calling to Uno Port in the next couple of weeks and had planned Korakuen, Kurashiki and the Yoshii Ryokan; but adding this to the mix, should be able to give these guys a real treat!! Cheers.

I think they are types of ordinal numbers used for dates.... But just as tricky as some of our ordninal numbers... "first, second, third, fourth... easy to learn then on for the non-English speaker until they reach 21 with no apparent reason why it has an "st" on the end rather than a "th"!!! and then we start talking about pairs, couples, brace, gross... drives my Japanese friends nuts!.. but I think this is the same in just about every language... and juyokka (14) cheers

Enough shochu and everything is possible! Cheers!

No No.... Fundoshi is perfectly acceptable right?? I have my best ceremonial Fundoshi ready to go... Cheers

As others have said, even in the remote possibility you could find the family, it is 99% sure that they would have no interest in it whatsoever, and would want nothing to do with it. Cheers.

No Eric... Win some, lose some... doesn't matter... once again, it is all part of the game... I have my maximum and if I lose than there will be other auctions.., I am in meetings during the end of the auction when I would put in a last minute bid.... so it makes no difference... the way it benefits me, is that I can conduct real business, while I arse around online!! Cheers

Thanks for the info... I will sign up with justsnipe.com. C. Lewis - I appreciate your good points that I had not considered... As for who it benefits or not, I really don't care... it is all part of the game... But I am eyeing auction that it will certainly benefit me to use it on. Cheers!

Does anyone have any experience of using a sniping site... which one is best?? Cheers

Agreed with Dr. Brian. Has an arsenal mark been removed on "codolo.jpg"?? Or just a blemish on the nakago? Cheers

Hello George, Thanks... yes I was part of that discussion I think... just interested if you knew more. Cheers

Hi George, What do you know about Inaba Kaigunto? I found an Inaba kaigunto in Florida, very similar to your example... did not have the secondary stamp that yours seems to have though... Regards

You can try Atlas for free for 30 days to evaluate how good it is... see Fujitsu website. Not sure how much work you can get through in 30 days!!! Cheers