rematron

Thanks Darrel. I did see that too in Google but if the sword law was written with ‘shaku’ being the unit of measurement (no centimeters yet) then I’m wondering if whoever wrote that took into account that the shaku of present is shorter than the shaku of past. (Supposedly. I’m still trying to find proof of that as well) The implication is that a 25” sword today would be considered a katana but the same sword might fall in closer to the maximum wakizashi length of the 17th century.

Okay, does anybody please have a copy of that specific part of the text they would be willing to share so that I don’t have to spend $200+ to answer my single question?

Hello all, I read online that the modern shaku is 11.93 inches/30.3 cm but pre-1893 OR pre-1891 it was 13.96 inches/35.45 cm. There was no citation for this information in the article and I've been trying to confirm it somehow. Does anyone here know where I can read about this? Thanks

I see that's another book I need to buy...

Hi all, I'm searching for a direct translation of the original Tokugawa Bakufu sword length law/proclamation. I know I read it somewhere (probably in one of my books) but I can't find it.

Will there be NTHK shinsa at this show?

Are these the ‘apologies’? “It is my bad…” : not an apology. “Pardon the hellish experience.” : not an apology. And now you are accusing me of whining about my money (it’s not the money, it’s being played for 9 weeks) because it’s small change compared to your $70,000 deals? This means you don’t respect me and never did.

You did not apologize. At this rate I’m gonna end up posting our entire conversation.

@NewB, also you’re damn right I waited to post this until I got my money back. How is that back-stabbing? We are not friends. We were in a business arrangement which you fumbled spectacularly.

@NewB Everything I said was factual. I don’t care about your other deals. If you had so many deals you wouldn’t have been desperate to get my $2,075 and take so long to pay it back. I honestly don’t believe a word out of you. I am only posting what happened to me. You have nothing but excuses. It’s funny that you say you did not try to renegotiate. I guess I will post screenshots of our conversation to keep it real.

Hello fellow NMB members. This post is a general plea to all would-be sellers. Please follow through with your agreements. A seller will want to be promptly paid as agreed and the buyer deserves the same respect and to not be left waiting for weeks with the seller holding all the payment without delivery. Please notify the buyer if you are out of the country or away from your residence and will have a delay in mailing your item. Please do this BEFORE you tell the buyer that it is fine to send the final payment. Please, before you post something for sale, be sure that it is yours and yours alone to sell and will not come up as a dispute between you and your partner or spouse. Please be sure you are actually willing to let go of the item for the amount you post. Please do not try to renegotiate the sale price after you have made an agreement and please, absolutely do not attempt to renegotiate after you have received full payment. At that point you are holding the buyer hostage and it is quite dishonorable. Please do not spend the money you received as payment until you have mailed the item that you sold. This is so that if you do change your mind about following through on your business deal, you can return all of the money at once. Please, if you say you are going to do something at a particular time, do it and do not wait to be prompted after the fact by the buyer who is left waiting and wondering. Your personal life is aside from a business deal and the two should not cross or be made to become the buyer’s problem. The seller would not accept this behavior from the buyer. It is a two way street. These are all experiences I endured over the last 9 weeks when attempting to buy a wakizashi from @NewB. He did eventually pay me back in full. However, I absolutely do not consider this a “no harm, no foul” experience. Thanks for reading.

@Bugyotsuji Piers, it reminds my of my own tsuba with the same theme. Two geese representing unity and/or marriage and an oni. In mine case the oni is specifically Tsuno Daishi. This is why I wonder if your cloud and moon oni is on purpose. Sorry again for hijacking the thread.

I'm in a similar situation, Alec. I have a sword roughly the same age as yours that I go back and forth on whether or not I want to have it polished. While I would love to see it polished, I have an internal battle going on. Do I want to spend $2,000+ restoring my katana (which has a hamon type that I'm not super crazy about) or do I want to put that $2.000 towards a different sword that's already in polish and has features that I enjoy?

No. Nihonto is extremely specialized. This isn't an old bowie knife. It's a 400+ year sword made before there was electricity. The geometry of the blade must be maintained and that in itself takes an immense amount of knowledge, skill, time and concentration. Polishing must be done by hand. There are no chemicals or electric grinders involved. Those methods are fast and destructive. There is no such thing as a quick "cleaning of the blade" and one could look at sharpness as a byproduct of the polishing process. Polishing removes material and the angle at which it is removed on both sides will naturally produce an edge. There's no way around it. This is why it is recommended that people read a lot and purchase books before swords. However, people spend more money than "what it's worth" on things all the time. What is it worth to you? Sentimental value is real.

The person who fits this description would be considered an amateur polisher and amateur polishing is largely frowned upon in the nihonto world.

@Bugyotsuji, on your tsuba, I like that the moon behind the clouds also looks like a horned oni. I wonder if that was intentional. Sorry for changing the subject.

Oh! I have that! LOL. Just haven’t started it yet. Duh…

Markus Sesko's Handbook of Sword Fittings Related Terms It's out of print. I posted that I was looking for this in the 'wanted' section but just crickets... hahaha. Must be a great book.

Hi Aaron. Welcome to NMB. The only thing I can say with certainty about your sword is that it is a WAKIZASHI because the blade length is less than 24 inches. In my opinion it looks real and traditionally made. Others will chime in. Edit: I should add that the koshirae looks off to me (especially the saya) but the blade itself looks right so far. Yes, better closeup verticle photos of the blade, tip of blade would help for a more concrete opinion.

I recently purchased and have been reading 'Lethal Elegance' by Joe Earl. It was recommended by a tsuba maker in NMB. It has wonderful large full color photos and has a comprehensive collection of styles and materials. It also covers fuchikashira and menuki. I highly recommend it. Ordered from Amazon. $37.50USD (price on jacket)

That’s so cool!

Yeah, hence my question: “It can’t be as easy as this, can it?” Well, there are a couple things I can think of that are problematic. The first is petty: It’s not kosher to submerge your antique iron tsuba in water. My response to that is: hairdryer. Also, tsuba got plenty wet in Japan throughout history. Just imagine a legion of samurai walking to battle in the rain. “Hey, don’t get your tsuba wet! It’s gonna be worth a lot some day.” The second is: If cast iron is treated after it is cast to become malleable, will that change its weight and will that weight still be lighter than steel or wrought iron? For the answer to that question I will need to consult a metallurgist.

Hi Dan, Well, that's the great part about this, you don't need duplicates of different material at all! Theoretically, you can take any tsuba in of itself and determine what it's made out of. Once you have the measurements of volume and weight as it is, you can do the math (cross multiplication in this case, I believe) to discover how much it would weigh if you had a cubic foot of it. Once you have the weight per cubic foot, you simply look at the chart. And voila! Cheers!

Laugh away if this was well known. I never really had reason to think about it before. haha. So, a few minutes ago I randomly wondered if cast iron weighs differently than steel or other kinds of iron alloys. I guessed that cast iron would be lighter by volume, so I went to the old internet and asked the world. According to this steel company, that is indeed the case. weightspercubicfoot.pdf (coyotesteel.com) I've never been a great fan of doing math but it sure can be useful. So, we can tell what a tsuba is made out of by doing math. Volume can be discovered via liquid displacement and weight by a very accurate scale. Then comes the math. I'm just beginning this thought process so pardon the "thinking outloud". It can't be as easy as this, can it? PS: Can you tell this is an American steel company?

Where's spell-check when you need it, right?