Hello,
I will preface this with the fact that I know basically nothing and have only started to research nihonto over the last 2 weeks or so. Any terms that I use that seem incorrect, probably are.
I am looking to get help with researching a wakizashi that has been in the family for a while. I'm not really looking for an appraisal since we wouldn't sell it, but the last couple of generations of my family didn't really know how to care for it or anything. So I'm looking to find out if it's worth getting restored, or just trying to keep it in as good condition as we can right now, or even if there is someone nearby who could help us know how to properly care for it.
The history that I know about it is limited. I'm pretty sure that it was brought from Japan to Canada before world war 2 and it was described to me as "the family sword" (with a matching katana). The storage and maintenance has been somewhat neglected for a lot of years in the interim. There was apparently a matching katana, but it was "too big to bring" or something.
More recently, it was handed down to my parents. My dad built a glass box to display it (now that I did some research, I now realize, upside down). Since the condition is not amazing and we don't really know what we are doing, none of use are confident enough to remove the handle and see if there are any markings. So my pictures are taken through the glass of the display box. If it looks like there is little black things and the end of the handle and the point of the blade, those are just little plastic hooks holding it up for display. Pictures below.
The blade is about 20.5" long, just under 1" wide, handle is just under 5" long.
So my questions are:
1. Can anyone help push my research in a certain direction based on these images?
2. Is there anything else that you need to see in order to get better information?
3. Does anyone know someone in the greater Vancouver area who could help me with disassembly/repairs?
4. Is it worth restoring?
5. How does one go about getting something like this restored? I'm assuming that the first google search result for "Sword Restoration Near Me" is not it.
I had issues with the images being too big, so I put them all here:
https://imageshack.com/a/89oW7/1
