cluckdaddy76

Adam, totally agree. I enjoy using my whetstones to sharpen and do it more frequently than most people might think. I use my knives almost daily and definitely cut more than butter.

Thanks everyone for the insight. I do believe I will not paper the fittings based on most feedback. I would have eight to ten between tsuba, fuchi/kashira, and menuki and does not seem to me that it would be worth the money spent unless I want a certain piece done for personal gratification of some kind.

I realize my title should have been, "How to Preserve and Prevent Further Damage". I will be posting more pics eventually. Thanks for the help so far.

I was curious on the forehead and other's opinions. I thought it looked like oxidization; had a long shot someone would tell me it was a mask. It seems a lot of people like these style tsuba, for some reason I am really attracted to different styles of iron tsuba more than softer metals such as this one, Don't get me wrong, I still think this is a decent piece, thanks for your response.

Thanks everyone, I will continue with cleaning and oil. Jon , not sure if this matters but these pics were done in almost completely dark room with flash. In normal light I have gotten this rust looking darker, but I was actually surprised how red it was when I viewed these pics. Thanks for the help.

And this is why I have finally learned to ask before just doing, only took about 47 years It has a very nice feel in hand and I can see some nice activity under the rust but can't tell much about the hada in current condition. I will upgrade this one and maybe I will make this one my first full restoration piece.

Thanks for these quick responses. I am still playing around with the photography and will be posting much better pics soon. I did not mean a new polish; I just want to not let it get any worse than what I now have. I will update with new photos possibly after this weekend.

This is what was listed as the "project" blade in the collection I now own and was by far in the worst condition out of the blades. Habaki will not come off yet. The only good news is that this is a beefy little wakizashi with some hamon activity and do not see any forging flaws. But it is rusted all over the surface. There is no signature on the nakago. There may be a possibility nakago was shaved down a bit to fit a homemade handle, but not certain about this. To mee one side has better file marks and one side seems smoother and a bit strange. The actual blade is also much thicker than the nakago. My basic question is this, does anyone with knowledge see something where this is worth preserving? I have made rash decisions in the past, so before I have the best garden tool on the street, I am looking for feedback. I will most likely use it as a project piece myself unless I am told differently. Also, aside from the wiping and choji oil, should I do anything else with this blade to help keep it up? It is currently stored in a regular saya, I do not have shirasaya for this one. Thanks for any help.

This is part of the collection I am trying to save; I doubt any of them have had any care for over twenty plus years now. I have a written notebook from the original collector. He would be well over one hundred years if he was still with us. The next couple caretakers were not so good and now I am here. This is what he has listed as the "newer" blade supposedly made around 1950 give or take a decade. The bad news is that this blade was used and played with for some years and not kept up. The middle pic is where I am trying to show the issue, there are some rust spots and some scratching in areas. There is also some light staining in a couple spots. As I am a novice, I do not even know if this is a traditionally forged Japanese sword and just want to make sure. If this is legit, how or what should I do to at least preserve it from getting worse? I have wiped down and have choji oil but have not read that I should really do much else. The shirasaya has been destroyed and all my other blades have that, so I guess I would want to get one made. Any thoughts and help greatly appreciated. I did not bother with signature (this piece is signed) as my focus right now is on saving what I think are some decent pieces in this collection. This blade is probably in the poorest condition of the eight with the exception of one wakizashi, but the person's notes stated that wakizashi was a "project blade" for various practice including sharpening and that one was not hard to pick out.

I am attempting to sort out and save a collection of blades and fittings of which I am now the new owner. I have mostly been reading books on swords as recommended, but I enjoy the fittings as much as the swords. Here is one of the tsuba as an example. I guess first, I would hope someone with knowledge can tell me that this tsuba is not a modern fake. If we get past that part and it is real, is this something that could and should get papered? I am the type of collector who will want only better-quality items, and ideally, I would like to authenticate and paper anything I can, but this is also just a bit of personal preference. If anyone can translate mei, that would be an extra bonus, I appreciate any help I can get. Also. not thrilled with the quality of my pictures, for example in hand the golden dragon's carving looks much more detailed.

I am a very new collector, and I would like to see it stay up. I think it is educational on a few levels...

Not shabby at all for your first piece, enjoy!!!! If it does not have koshaire , you could start on a next project and get a set put together. I am newer here too, my suggestion is to get a few books and start reading. It will save you headaches and lost money down the road.

If this is from seller Shintou13 or something close to that, be very careful. I had some free time at work this week and was able to browse everywhere. I saw this person had a bunch and some of them you could tell the papers did not match the sword just from the ad. Many of the blades looked very suspect too, excellent condition with no starting bid and papers? They also looked just not quite right from the photos in regard to many of the hamons. Hope it works out for you and you don't burned.

Thanks for all the replies, they all make sense. I should have realized that selling a single $1,000 tsuba is nothing to a big auction house these days. Luckily, I did not see any chicken themed fittings so I will not even have to think about buying two or three extra one's that I would need to sell in order to just get the one I want. I am not sure if anyone has looked at what they have coming up, but to me some of the guards even though they are quality work, are not appealing to me as a collector.

I would love to see some pics when you get this one. I was watching this at first as starting price was low and i happened to be within driving distance of auction house. I wish you the best of luck, you took quite a stab with the 28% buyer's premium from Clarke Auction Gallery on top of the selling price. Fittings are what I would love to see close up pics of, can't make out the menuki and the fuchi looks like an animal head of some sort. Hope this one turns out to be a great blade.

I am curious if anyone knows why Bonham's often makes such large groups for their fittings. For example, in an upcoming auction there are seventeen kozuka in one group. Many tsuba are in groups of three or more. My thought is this, wouldn't they actually make more money selling each one individually? I feel it keeps many people away from auctions like this unless your pockets are overflowing. I know as a collector I only like certain pieces and having to buy the sixteen other kozuka's just to get the one you really want is not feasible for the majority of people. Just curious if anyone else thinks along this line or if someone has the answer as to why they do make such large groups.

John, I love that bread knife. I have a decent one that I bought from JCK, but seeing yours makes me want to upgrade....

Over a decade ago I bought a used set of Shun Ken Onion knives and used them during that time. I recently decided to sell them and apparently, they became collectors' items because ten years later I received more than five times what I paid back in the day. I decided to take this money and buy myself some even better knives. Here are a few of my collection, two are made by the smith Takeshi Saji and are my better pieces. Sharing these for their beauty, and if you are into cooking I highly recommend quality knives.

Could I see a closer pic and price of the tsuba in the second picture, second row, second to last one. I believe it is an insect theme. What I am really looking for is chicken themed fittings including tsuba, I would love to see anything along this line if you have anything available. Thanks, Jason

Brian, This was a great post. I just joined not too long ago and signed up for a gold tier membership due to this thread. I am a newer collector, and this is a small price to pay for what is offered here from what I have seen so far. I would think that most of us who can afford to collect can easily afford a small membership fee.

I would also like to mention this blade did not come with this koshirae, it is just stored inside it according to the limited notes I have which came with the collection.

They had nothing else; I am in Massachusetts and over the last few weeks have stopped into a handful of stores asking about swords or sword parts. I had high hopes they also had a blade tucked away somewhere, but this was all they had. I thought it was worth a shot for the money.

Oil from my hands? Or is this overkill?