Surfson

By the way, Fred Weissberg has a very attractive Ono on his site now. It's 77mm https://www.nihonto.com/1-4-20/

Good to hear from you Steve, and thanks for the useful information. Shoami is the school that baffles me most. It is so heterogenous. I did think that this one was quite old as well. It's a little rustic too, as the vertical stanchion on the top seems to be slightly askew.

Here's another.

Just picked this one up on Yahoo, so it's not in hand yet. Whatever pattern recognition cells that I have in my brain were telling me that it might be an Ono school guard. What I really like about it is its size (a whopping 93mm and 5.5mm thick) and it's apparent age. The cross braces seem a little thin for Ono (although they are probably thicker than they appear since the tsuba is so large), so another school (if you call it that) might be the so called Kirishitan tsuba, or Christian, due to having what appears to be a cross. I would love to hear any and all thoughts about attribution and age for this tsuba. Sorry but the screen shot photos are large so I have to spread them out.

Nice work Pietro, I see why you like him. Several seem to have a Choshu or Bushu influence. What school does he come from?

The dimensions are 88mm diameter and 2mm thickness. It's my understanding that the older ones are thinner. I am curious how old it really is. The NBTHK left out "Ko" on the kantei, so what is the dividing line in date between Ko Katchushi and Katchushi?

The files are huge. Also, oddly, there are only images of the front.

You are amazing Steve, thank you! I am always pleased when there is some sort of qualitative comment, like rare, or elegant design, or classical theme.... I suspect that maybe there is something like this in this one. Can you further translate line 5? I put your translation into Google Translate and was unsure of the meaning. Bazza, yes, I will, glad you asked!

This is a new acquisition, and I believe that it has a Torigoe hakogaki that was made during one of his trips (thus the flying bird stamp). My translating skills have slightly improved, but are still dreadful. Any help with this hakogaki would be greatly appreciated. Still struggling with writing it in kanji.

Thanks for the heroic efforts Steve!

Literally means "Southern Barbarian Steel". LOL

I doubt that this one has stumped the field - any suggestions?

Sorry to revive the thread, but I just missed out on this beauty with a bid far out of the money. It ties in to the theme of the thread. This one is more of a classical/traditional Hirado design I think. It went for ¥211,000 and has TH papers.

Hi All. The last character of this mei appears to be "shi" to me, but I can't make out the rest. Just in case any of you can read it off the top of your head, I thought I would post it. Otherwise, it will be going brute force through the kanji books. Cheers, Bob

The other thread discussed whether these common Tadatsugu tsuba are from the Umetada school, yet the discussion wasn't conclusive. To continue with Robert's question, are these ubiquitous Tadatsugu tsuba considered Umetada?

Tadatsugu are very common (I think I have at least one), though I'm not sure what school they might be placed in. I agree with Jean's comments and think that Tadatsugu are neither Tosho or Katchushi.

Some years ago, there was a Chinese student in Chicago that had a brisk business of buying swords from collectors and at the Chicago sword show and exporting them to China. He bought and imported a range of quality and cost. For the low end swords, he had "polishers" there that worked very inexpensively and I believe that he turned a nice profit. One problem is that I believe that they are illegal to import into China. I recall that his solution for this was to export them from the US to Hong Kong. Once there, he would move them into mainland China by truck or car.

That is fantastic Jussi!!

Hi Nick. I imagine if you put it in an online auction, at an auction house or ebay, with better pictures and some measurements, it would probably sell for between $500-$1500. This is just a guess, as one never knows in auctions. If there is only one person interested, it could go for less, if there are two that are very interested, it could go for more. I agree with nearly all of the feedback that you got. Steve mentioned that it is probably not worth the investment to restore, and I agree with him. It hinges on whether it has flaws, whether the tang truly has been stripped and whether the sword has been modified a bit (the signature goes high up, so it may not be machiokuri, which is a lengthening of the tang and shortening of the cutting edge. As mentioned, it has modest fittings. None of us can tell if there are any important flaws in the steel of the blade, which would definitely make it unworthy of restoring, at least from a financial view. On the bright side, if study of the signature suggests that it is a genuine sword made by Munehira, and there is a Hizento collector that really wants one, and the tang is not too bad, AND it is in restorable condition, it could also go for a little more. That is a lot of ifs.... I assume that it didn't cost you too much and hopefully you can buy a good rare book with the proceeds.

I see, so they are just residue from the combustion of the natural gas then. Interesting.

Is there a link?

Jean, does the color reflect (pun intended) the degree of oxygenation of the iron or are there more complex structures?

You did well not to name names Chris. Good message to all sellers.

Jean, I gather since you are drawing attention to it that you are being facetious. Are there any Iaito practitioners that use tanto? If so, this one might be a good choice!

I agree with Kirill, and imagine that it would paper if submitted again. There are nearly 200 makers that signed Bishu osafune Sukesada though, and there doesn't appear to be anything remarkable about this one. You could probably narrow it down to 25-50 of them based on a estimate of its age. Is that a reserve price? I have had and sold a handful of Sukesada blades and think that Kirill's estimate of the range of market value is pretty good as well. I still have a couple, by the way, and sometimes they can be quite good. The hada on this one doesn't look particularly inviting though.