Cola

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.

Modern fittings, vague description; samurai shokai?

Does anyone know what happened to the blade used to assassinate Inejiro Asanuma? A replica Rai Kunitoshi wakizashi, according to wikipedia. Or is that too soon?

Well yes, that's our eternal conundrum; an old, signed, flawless, papered, original length sword in great polish is going to cost more than a car. So you have to make concessions somewhere. Personally I find myself looking more at wakizashi, since there I can tick most boxes within my budget, and the craftmanship is just as impressive. But I can imagine size is more important for other collectors.

From my very limited experience there's a few common problems if you are browsing as a hobby collector; and simply walking away from them is safest. - Green or white papers; these are from an old system that was fraudulated with a lot, so essentially the same as no papers at all. If you can, get something with NBTHK hozon or tokubetsu hozon. - Flaws; look up the fatal flaws like chips, blisters, delaminations etc. in the sword. - Overpolished swords, especially older ones can be polished a lot trough their lifetime, and they lose a bit of surface every time. At some point the course core steel comes through, or the hamon can even be lost, especially in the kissaki. A telltale sign is the hamachi, which becomes smaller with every polishing. It's acceptable among collectors, but you have to decide if it's also acceptable for you. -Koshirae can sometimes be cobbled together, and may not belong to the sword at all. So a sword might be sold with koshirae, but that doesn't mean they properly fit together. -Rust on the blade (especially if it's red); you can't just wipe it off and the sword would need a fresh polishing which is expensive and difficult.

It's fine if you are clear about where your answers come from. If you don't it's fraudlent: you are passing yourself as an expert while you are in fact just echoing the output of a language model. Then people can choose for themselves if they want to give this AI generated drivel any of their time. Also you should know that the content is just not very good. Statements like: "The long signature on the tang matches that date exactly." are just plain stupid, the date on the papers is copied from the tang, so yes obviously they match exactly.

Thanks chatGPT!

The pictures aren't very clear, is there really a hi? Or did someone draw a hi on with a sharpie only for the next DIY enthousiast to try and grind it off? Or did someone mark a hi with a sharpie to indicate where to apply the dremel, only to give up after 5 minutes....?

Someone attemted to polish or grind out some flaw next to the habaki.

I wouldn't want to wreck the family heriloom sword, but if my life depended on it, I would take the risk over using a cheap alternative. In any case I personally feel more concerned with WWII blades having been used in war crimes, just because of the scale and the fact that soldiers were probably less afraid of wrecking an arsenal sword.

Maybe broken in a fight, or maybe because a noble samurai guy tried to whack a dog with the backside of the sword, or perhaps because a young samurai thought it a good idea to test his sword out on a stone garden ornament.

I noticed this in the accounts of Suishinshi Masahide as well, many of the breaking swords were because of hits with the mune. https://www.nihontocraft.com/Suishinshi_Masahide.html#:~:text=1.,7. ie. : 1. Suishinshi was at the house of an Akimoto retainer. There was a thief that night. The retainer used the mune of a blade to strike the thief. The blade broke in the middle and the kissaki was knocked off. As a result, it landed on the rooftop of a neighbor’s house. This was a katana by Mizuta Kunishige with an o-midare ba hamon. 2. A younger friend of the Akimoto retainer used the mune of a wakizashi to hit a dog. The blade broke in the middle and the dog escaped. Of course this can mean a number of things: -Swords are weaker when whacking things with the backside (possibly the stress is higher when whacking rather than cutting?). -People hit a lot harder and/or less carefully when hitting with the mune -People used the blunt side a lot more than the sharp side to hit things, making it more likely for weak swords to break when hitting with the mune. Also curious to see him alluding to the hamon when a sword breaks from hitting with the mune, rather than discussing the type of mune.

Not currently in Japan, and no papers I suppose? If it is koto and looking like this, it should easily be able to get papers, so why would the seller not do that? The third picture looks possibly acid treated to enhance the hada. As a starting collector, I would be very cautious.