Cola

I found this one for sale the other day, still scratching my head as to the "why". https://www.samurais....jp/sword/22158.html

In all pictures the swords seem very out of polish, so it's hard to see the beauty or the flaws. Having a sword properly polished is very expensive; possibly more expensive than these swords. I would pass on these.

My guess would be to hide something unsightly.

Yes it's very intriguing! I think the hole left in the saya can possibly be more informative when it comes to the shape of the projectile. One could consider an x-ray or ct-scan as a non-destructive means to get some more info in that regard.

Forensics 80 years after the event are very close to speculation. Maybe he was indeed lucky and did not get a bullet in his leg that day. But maybe he was already KIA when a stray bullet hit his sword. Maybe the sword was captured by US troops and something exploded next to the tent the sword was being kept in.

I'm 35. It may become a black-market kind of hobby at some point. Exciting times ahead! I may just quit my job and make a fortune smuggling swords from Japan to Europe and the US by boat. But for now we can still get them by mail, and we only have to smuggle them across the channel. I hope they don't train sniffer dogs on choji oil.

You can ship them to me and pick them up yourself if you want, but I'm not sure you can get on the eurostar with a sword or if you have to do some actual smuggling....

Ah yes, the 30% fee is pretty steep. This one really caught my eye, but the chip in the kissaki is really unfortunate: https://www.zacke.at...&sd=0&pp=48&pn=4&g=1 But I'm not in a hurry to buy anything.

Estimate prices for the swords seem a bit on the low end, or am I missing something?

I would like a very big "kantei table" with one row for every known school and characteristics in the (many) columns. And maybe examples of how kantei was done for specific blades. For a bonus I would love to see one blade go through multiple independent kantei sessions and see a comparison of the results.

Or get one of those paul chen, dragon king etc. swords mass produced somewhere in asia for playing around with.

Thanks for bringing up the expo, it's in my hometown and I didn't even know about it! I will definitely visit.

I know I'm going to cause great consternation, and deeply insult a lot of people by asking this. I'm asking out of curiosity, but I apologize beforehand nonetheless. Why is oil used to protect swords against rust, instead of more permanent dry coating methods such as wax? I can imagine some advantages of wax coating over oil as it won't get absorbed by wood and is probably more durable.

There are care kits available that contain all the required materials; Nugui paper and an uchiko ball are traditionally used to wipe off old oil without scratching the surface and a spongy oil cloth with a drop of choji oil to apply the oil. I recommend checking some youtube videos of people doing their care routine.

I'm not worried about being ripped off, and I'm also not interested in selling it for a profit or something like that. Let's just say I didn't have to sell a kidney to get it, so I wasn't expecting much, but when it arrived I was very positively surprised about the condition of the blade. I just want to learn about it a bit, and maybe I'll try to have nice koshirae made for it. I figured the signature was a good place to start. But if the smith didn't exist in the time the sword was made, then it's just a fake signature, possibly put on there by the same guy that filled a mekugi hole for some reason?

Sure! Gimei is a possibility, which is why I was also looking for other Moriie works to compare the signatures. Let me know if there are any details you would like me to make pictures of; these are from the seller, who is way better at making pictures of swords.

But usually by judging something to be older than it is, right? At least that's what I assumed, and why I added "(or later)".

The seller says edo period, and given the price and the general state, I don't think it can be much older. But I'd be very happy to stand corrected on that assumption!

This is the signature on a wakizashi that is from the edo period (or later). According to the seller, who is Japanese, the signature reads 守家 Moriie. So I looked up this smith on the index on nihontoclub, but that only shows much older smiths: Are there any other places where I can look to find some more info on this signature?

Wow even boken... Are they going to ban sticks as well?

Are those kirikomi?

Not that much money though. It's a very low price, for two not so great swords. You can put some effort in the fittings to make them look a bit more presentable, maybe also repair the damage to the saya, and then you have some decorative swords to put on display. If you like that, and don't mind that the swords are not perfect, then it's fine, not everyone has the budget to buy masterpieces. But if you want to study Japanese swords a bit more, you can probably find a few of these: https://www.Japanese...rdindex.com/kizu.htm Also beware that the rust is not something you can just scrape away or otherwise fix by yourself.

Well, they do have an area with lots of nihonto on display (and a decent webshop with some interesting swords as well). I understand it can be difficult to date a sword like this, with no signature. The Kinnoto theory seems to fit quite well. Do you guys think it could be possible to tell from the rust on the nakago whether it's 160 or 400 years old if I take it to a local expert?

Interesting! From a quick glance the description seems about right, will read some more about it! Also this topic was about the permit for this sword:

Also the blade seems a bit on the long side, total length of the blade is about 1 meter. Do you measure "blade length" from the top of the habaki, or from the tsuba?