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Sounds pretty exciting to me. Not fun or advisable, but exciting nonetheless.

Would you value a blade that was used to execute prisoners during WWII? I sure don't. I can appreciate weapons of war used to wage war, but I don't like tools used for war crimes. Obviously with old swords, you never know, which may be for the better; war crimes weren't invented in the 20th century.

If he was wearing it at the time, my guess would be dead as a doornail. But also the calibre seems very large, a musket ball perhaps?

Thanks for explaining that's been bugging me for a while! Are "noble" and "dignified" just two different translations of the same Japanese term?

For some reason I read "dignified sugata" a lot. Does anyone know what makes a sugata dignified versus the opposite (undignified? not dignified?).

Looks a bit too much like a kitchen knife for my taste.

Looks great, but one question: Did you purposely put the menuki on the wrong end of the tsuka?

That is correct! Spoilers: I think those are the two phrases from the top, as they sort of match what is on the papers and the nakago. No clue what the two phrases in between those and the signature say.

Sure! Is this clear enough to make a guess?

Yes, I read about the fakes, it seems all the examples in this topic all have some differences so it's very hard to tell I think.

Apologies for gravedigging an old topic, but am I correct in reading this as a signature by Kanzan Sato?

I read the Connoisseurs book, and I was wondering, has someone ever made a table to summarize this? Ie. one column for each of the schools and a characteristic (Nie vs nioi, Hamon shape, Hada etc.) in every row.

I don't get the notion that it would be a burden to your loved ones to inherit your collection. I love all the weird things my dad and (great?)grandparents collected, even if I didn't get to know some of them. The idea that they thought it worthwhile to get and preserve those things, and I get to wonder why is the closest connection I have to some of my grandparents. I guess the only problem with nihonto is the maintenance, so I guess accompanying the collection with a letter and some obligatory reading would help. Worst case scenario they pawn everything off and have a party, but then at least I tried.

Interesting philosophical question aside from "what is a good sword?" we now moved to "what is a good collection?". Is it wrong to collect from all over the place? What's wrong with collecting diversity, rather than everything from one area or period? Perhaps most importantly, for whom are you building a collection; are you trying to impress someone, or do you want to sell the lot for a profit? Or do you want something you enjoy yourself?

ah, yeah they didn't specify, just 80K yen in addition to the listed price to get it shipped.

80.000 yen, so 465 euros.

I recently purchased a sword from aoi, and they could not ship to the Netherlands using any other company than OCS. It is really expensive, so I hope it's good.

Why does every topic with a philosophical question end up in a hissyfit? Saving for a sword? Hissyfit! Low end swords? Hissyfit! The future of sword collecting? Hissyfit! Maybe you can just start a hissyfit topic to yell profanities at eachother so the other topics remain civil.

Have they never heard of the principle behind gateway drugs?

Thanks for the great explanation! I can imagine it is hadori, the blade does seem quite freshly polished, so a modern budget polishing job is most likely. I have tried quite hard to find a nioiguchi along the red line, but so far I have not found it (let along managed to capture it in a picture); but I will give it another shot. Any advice on getting the lighting type and angle just right for a nioiguchi is greatly appreciated! Or can the nioiguchi also be smothered by this over-enthusiastic hadori job to the point where it is no longer visible?

Here's some more pictures with some more effort on lighting in such a way that the activities have more contrast.

I think there's two ways of looking at it, I clearly see it happening in this topic. The view of a dealer and the view of a hobbyist. As a dealer you want something that is resellable, preferably gains value over time, and is priced in such a way that you can recoup the shipping and taxes if you sell it on. As a hobbyist, you want something you like, find interesting etc. and the sell-ability is not that important. Should a hobbyist care if they sell it later with a loss of 1K $? If you have a hobby car, you can lose that kind of money every year on maintenance. It's just money spent on your hobby. If I look at these two examples, I think they are interesting; the Nobuie one has an intestesting shape and Hamon, but as others said, it would be better without horimono; The one by Ikeda Ryuken Isshu has a tokuho certificate, but I worry that the boshi runs out of the kissaki; but I'm not 100% sure that is the case based on the pictures. I have no idea about the resellability of either blade, but as a collector perhaps you don't care that much. What you might ask from a collectors perspective is: "can I get something better for my budget?" For that question you should define what "better" means for you. For me the weird horimono and the possible boshi problem would be a pass, but if I had to pick I'd go for Nobuie.

The description of sunagashi shows clear lines and sort of patterns like sweeping sand etc. But in this case it's more like a misty cloud; maybe just not very clear sunagashi?

Hi all, I have been staring at this wakizashi, while reading the encyclopedia and the conaisseurs guide, and it's not easy to match all the terms with what I see in my hands. So I made some pictures and I was curious what the more experienced collectors make of this. So with this wakizashi I see a darker band around the hamon (blue in the annotated pictures) and a more reflective area closer to the ha (red). But I also some detached areas that are also hardened, but still enveloped by the darker zone. My best guess is that darker zone nis the nioi (or nie?) and the detached blob is sort of a tobiyaki (or not, because it is still enveloped in nioi)? Compared to my other examples however, the nioiguchi is much more varied in thickness; Or is this all the result of polishing and am I looking at the wrong things?

I would want to see less talking about the smith and his family, and more details about the sword itself.