eternal_newbie

Immediately brought to mind this thread: https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/56700-tsuba-made-by-a-drunk If you were born into a lineage of this kind of craftsmanship, evidently you started in the family business *very* early. No doubt a combination of innate (inherited?) talent, plus having that talent nurtured from a very young age while growing up alongside others with that talent as mentors and role models.

Agreed, if you can afford it and you'll put it to good use, then go for it. People here may quibble about just how much a non-Japanese blade will actually handle/perform compared to a proper nihonto, but if you're going to be using it to train or do tameshigiri, I think we can all agree that it's better to do it with a Lonquan copy rather than your Masatoshi.

Personally, I agree with @Tan-C - I find it charming in a way, especially given how polished and skillful signed works (or any works that make it out of the workshop, really) usually are. In some ways, just as important and rare as a masterwork from the artist's prime years.

You have it right: Fujiwara Nobuishi 藤原信石 Edit: another possibility is SUKE 右; there was a Bakumatsu-era swordsmith who signed Kashu ju Fujiwara Nobusuke 加州住藤原信右

If anyone's curious about how well-regarded Ono Yoshimitsu is in the world of nihonto, he's the one living smith whose newly-made swords regularly fetch prices higher than the average Juyo. He's considered a shoo-in to be appointed a Living National Treasure, assuming there will ever be any more appointed.

Apprenticeships often started very early in life, this could very well be the equivalent of baby's first drawing that gets stuck on the family fridge.

And also to prevent you from losing a finger... or something even more important!

Looking forward to it! Always nice to see one of these out and about among the common folk.

11. @Lewis B is right, this is a fantastic deal. Many well-done photos, done in settings that emphasize nie and hataraki, even showing through the hadori polish - something that often isn't done on blades of this calibre 16. "Massive" doesn't just mean "long" - the book itself is quite large, and so are the photographs inside Good buys here for folks interested in top-end blades.

I hope to someday find a light source neutral enough that we can photograph the "bluish-purple" steel of Masamune or the "deep blue" of old Bizen. I do see swords with a bluish sheen on some dealer websites but I think this is a function of their lightning temperature since all their listed blades, even shinto and gendaito, appear with the same colouring.

Blame the forum software. Basically, unlike most forum searches, rather than run the search in the background and then give you a token so you can page through the results, the "search" is actually just a query string in the URL: https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/search/?q=hector&quick=1 This means that there's no cached search results to quickly grab and show you, so every single page is indeed its own independent search (i.e. page 1: find me the first 50 posts with "Hector"; page 2: find me posts 51-100 with "Hector"). Most modern forum software is better than this, so hopefully the planned upgrades will make this a thing of the past.

I think it would be more appropriate to call this another koshirae style, as the shira- in shirasaya implies that it is unadorned (which includes lacquer). It's obviously not intended for practical use; perhaps more like a display koshirae for when visitors come to the house (looks more formal/impressive, but doesn't require nearly as much time to assemble/remove as a proper koshirae)? The Katana Hanbai listing itself describes this as 朱漆塗鞘 ("vermillion lacquered saya") rather than 白鞘 (shirasaya).

Thank you for the fix and the prompt response!

I imagine this is a software bug - it should be fairly simple for @Hoshi to fix this by adding a check to ensure that notifications are not sent out for items that were already unavailable at the time the crawler/parser picked them up. Or at least add an opt-in setting to receive notifications for "historical" listings, as there are some Big Data nerds out there who want to know about everything that's ever been on the market. Either way, I doubt this is an intended scenario as the volume of emails I've been seeing are rapidly approaching the "ISP/email provider automatically adds it to the spam folder or blacklist" threshold (of course, this will vary depending on exactly how many alerts and notifications you've set up).

I was thinking either that, or he's a troll bidder who likes denying actual bidders. Those sorts abound on eBay, unfortunately

Thanks for the confirmation/elaboration @Ray Singer and @Gerry! Good to know. I suppose in this case, the sword has enough provenance, historical interest and underlying quality that folks are happy to bid on it knowing the limitations in how far it can advance up the NBTHK's ladder.

I guess perhaps they're continuing to tighten the standards to increase the gap between Hozon and TH - I'm aware this has been increasing in the last few years and this seems as good a confirmation as any.

Failed TH? I'll admit that took me by surprise, unless there's a significant flaw that's either hidden by the photography or my poor eyes (to be fair, I'm not as confident in my knowledge about Shinto swords as I am in Koto). Barring fatal flaws, it seems like it should make it at least to TH on the historical significance alone...

Very interesting, thanks for sharing! I'll be sure to keep an eye out for that book.

Excellent photography! I'm taking notes here...

Hozon just means no (visible) fatal flaws, traditionally made, and condition "good enough" to attribute it with reasonable confidence. Given that this sword seems intact and the polish is in a good enough condition to make out the hamon shape and a little bit of the hada, Hozon seems about right for its current state.

Very nice oshigata work there! And yes, you do see hitatsura in Mino now and then but they're usually tanto or hira-zukuri wakizashi; on a full-sized sword like this it's a rare treat.

As Touken Takarado are a relatively new face in the world of nihonto dealers, I thought I would share my experiences with them in case anyone, particularly in Australia, is on the fence about them or simply curious. Last year, I purchased a nice sword from them through @Nicholas Fu here in the Australian branch. He was very professional and helpful, willing and able to answer any questions I had about the process and any other worries I had. When I eventually decided to go through with the purchase, Touken Takarado were happy to submit it to shinsa on my behalf; indeed, having a Japanese office run by Mr. Uchihara made the process quite seamless while also being able to provide me regular updates on the process. Being in Japan with connections in the sword dealer market means they can, of course, also search for particular swords you might be looking for that aren't in their inventory yet – sometimes before they reach the open market. Through their tireless efforts, the blade has finally made its way back to me for me to enjoy it in person and I was sufficiently impressed by their service that I now have another sword on the way to shinsa through them. For anyone looking for an English-speaking (and I believe Nicholas speaks other languages quite well too!) dealer — especially in the Australia-Pacific region — with an active branch in Japan providing a wide range of opportunities and services (togishi, shirasaya repairs, koshirae, shinsa, even high-quality sword oil and other Japanese products), I can wholeheartedly recommend Touken Takarado to any aficionado of nihonto.

I wish you good luck on your journey; the start is always the most exciting part. Just make sure that if you do get a genuine Japanese blade that you stay far away from your local knife shop and leave any restoration to a trained professional

Their website appears to be down at the moment.