pcfarrar

It looks to be a modern cast fake sorry....

Yes I'm in

I will take a copy.

Of relevance to this thread, Bill Tagg is planning to list a mint condition shinbu-to for sale on his website Liverpool militaria. These are like mantetsu and designed for cold climates but much rarer (only 2000-3000 made). I checked out Bill's today and it was a very interesting blade far nicer than any mantetsu. It has a visible hada and could easily be mistaken for a gendaito. It will be well worth checking out for anyone interested in these swords. ohmura has an article on them: http://ohmura-study.net/207.html Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the blade but here is the signature.

I recently came into possession of this sword and found this thread by random chance from a Google search of nobukuni. It's an interesting katana well made with suguha hamon and some decent activity going on above the hamon. At first glance it looks very much like a hizen-to and has a nice ko-itame hada. I was unable to find any examples of this signature in books but the workmanship in the blade seems consistent for the Chikuzen Nobukuni school....

It's lost all the gold unfortunately so there isn't much you can do for it. It's very hard to attribute Jakushi school work to a generation with just a niji mei. It's most likely later work, the early ones depict trees differently and have more detailed figures.

Yes it's Jakushi, quite poor condition unfortunately.

Is the mizukage the only reason you think the blade is saiha (retempered) ? Did it fail shinsa etc.

I received my prize last week and was very pleased with it.

Yes I think late muromachi seki, the shape, length, short stubby original size nakago all point that way. But as you say will be impossible to pin to a smith.

Updated nakago image and a photo showing the sori. The original yasurimei are really hard to see and it looks like possibly higaki or takahona. Plenty of tsuba wear on the nakago so its definitely seen some use. I've also added a photo of the gunto koshirae for Dave.

Sorry I was planning to put up better photos but didn't get chance yet. Hopefully tonight.

I recently acquired a wakizashi signed Kanemori. It has a 23" nagasa and an active mino style gunome midare hamon. I can't figure out which smith it could be. There are loads in Seki around the muromachi period, a Bungo smith and a smith in Musashi that worked around 1670s. The fact that the sword is slightly machi okuri, giving an original size in the classic uchigatana length does suggest to me late muromachi. Anyone have any thoughts? It's mounted in WW2 gunto koshirae. Thanks, Peter

Nice matching set of Jakushi school fittings.

Donation sent.

Sorry I can't remember exactly what happened to it, I think it barely survived the polish, was very tired and not much hamon left.

I need a couple too but not willing to pay $100....

I shipped a sword to Germany from the UK recently and it went via Fedex. Arrived in 24 hours. Although it was technically by accident (I used Parcelforce Global Express which I didn't know at the time is sub-contracted to Fedex). There is nothing in UK law that prevents them from shipping swords. The Royal Mail and Parcelforce in the UK will still ship them.

Could be worth giving out some flyers to the dealers at Birmingham fair next month.

Here's one I owned about 10 years ago...

If your quick sending it to Tony, Paul Martin is in the UK in a few weeks and he can take it back to Japan for you for shinsa. Gunto mounts are no problem at all in Japan. There are also gunto koshirae with papers from the NTHK-NPO now.

Paul Martin always includes full translations of the papers if you use his service.

This recent video by Turkish Airlines about Paul Martin is well worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofwJu80ts_g&feature=youtu.be

My Kanenobu unfortunately needs a polish too, but you can see most of the activity sunagashi, nie etc. still.

Thanks Guys I always try to offer the best service I can to anyone who buys from me. Peter