Veli

I believe you translated the mei correctly! Good work!

Well, I am not in a position to say if the mei is valid or not. I found a reference mei in here (scroll down). The mei in this oshigata looks very different from the mei in your post.

Maybe: 阿波守藤原康綱 I'll leave the rest of the translation to you, you were going into the right direction, but check your translation of the first kanji

Thanks to all for your kind comments! I am not going to pretend I know more about habaki making than any of you. I just would like to say that silver is a very nice metal to work with, and not as expensive as you may think. Secondly, lack of skill can partially be compensated by working more slowly.

I have a koshirae project going on, where I plan to build a low-cost koshirae for a blade with a hagiri, so that I can have a nice display piece with little value that I can use in lectures, and let also less experienced people handle it. Well, I realised that I did not have a habaki for the blade - probably lost it somewhere. Anyway, the original habaki was a battered plain copper one, so no big loss. Being on holiday, I decided to give it a try and make one myself, although I had serious doubts about succeeding. So I bought some 2 mm thick silver plate, special brazing materials, a torch, watched a couple of youtube videos and started. I want to emphasize that I would not do this on a valuable blade; hammering a silver plate around the nakago is a little scary business. Why I decided to use 925 silver instead of copper? Well, it is more ductile, looks better, and the material cost me only 45 Euros. The first brazing trial was a total failure, but then I tried Bergeon 5337 brazing rods with flux core and then things started to go smoothly. I finished the project today, pics attached. Well, it is not perfect but does the job. Actually, I was rather happy with the result, since this project was more a learning experience than anything else.

...and IYE398, Joshu ju Minamoto Ietsugu... Strongly agree with Chris, forget about the shogun. I would assume, however, that the blade was signed before the time of Tokugawa Ietsugu - who died at the early age of six, by the way. Furtehrmore, the Shogun's name was written 家継 and not 家次. BR, Veli

Aesthetically pleasing! Reminds me of some Bushu school tsuba... BR, Veli

Hi Dan! Would you be so kind and upload a couple of pics of the blade. The nakago (tang) looks, well, somewhat suspicious to me... I hope I am wrong... BR, Veli

Thank you all, and special thanks to Darcy for excellent additional pics and enlightening explanation of nijuba. Should you wish, I can later provide a full set of photos of the blade as well as the NBTHK attribution, but I need to wait until the latter half of January before I can publish the pictures. BR, Veli

I encountered a blade with bright, long kinsuji running outside of the hamon. I thought I'd share a picture, since this was something I hadn't seen before. Kinsuji inside the hamon, yes, but so clearly outside... no. Any educational comments? BR, Veli

EMS out of Japan is ok as long as there is a direct flight to the destination country, operated by a carrier that happens to have a freight contract with EMS on that specific route - as I bitterly learned... BR, Veli

Czech Republic + Sweden case: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=20674 Veli

Dear friends, There has been a lot of alarming news lately about problems with shipping swords via Fedex and EMS. Thus I propose this topic for sharing information about shipping failures as well as successful cases, but since this trouble seemed to escalate in late October 2014, let us discuss only recent issues, i.e. November 2014 and later. Real cases only, please, no hearsay... My own case: I Bought a katana at DTI on November 1st. I told the dealer that I never had any issues with EMS shipments from Tokyo to Helsinki, so he tried to ship the blade via EMS. But they told him they cannot ship because there is no direct flight connection between Tokyo and Helsinki. First I thought this was just a mistake because both JAL and Finnair fly directly from Tokyo to Helsinki. But unfortunately EMS Japan has a contract with SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) only for shipments to Finland, and SAS flies via Stockholm. So EMS Japan cannot use JAL or Finnair on Helsinki route, although they have contracts with JAL on other routes. Then our backup plan, Fedex, backfired too because they categorically refuse to transport weapons... Luckily one of the Finnish collectors is in Japan and will bring the katana for me as checked luggage. So, no nihonto shipping between Japan and Finland any more, except as checked luggage, which seems to work without problems on Finnair and JAL flights. Veli

Mumei, attributed by NTHK as Den Koudai Tsunahiro. In full polish. Hitatsura hamon, Itame/masame hada. A few minor lamellae openings typical for masame hada construction. Rare and aesthetically pleasing shape for a wakizashi: kanmuri otoshi with naginata hi. I have had this blade for a long time. Owning it has been a great pleasure. Its beauty is hard to catch in photos. I am selling it to fund a major nihonto investment. The blade is in a new shirasaya. Asking price 2500 USD/2000€ + shipping (reasonable offers welcome). A lot for a mumei wakizashi, a bargain for a Soshu den hitatsura blade with a rare shape. A donation to NMB will be made if sold here. More information about the blade: http://nihontofinland.com/7 BR, Veli

高田住行長 You can have fun and do the translation by yourself :D BR, Veli