eternal_newbie

I concur with Steve - I'm in Western Australia and have had all manner of nihonto and martial arts equipment come through without any Customs hassle (aside from the GST payment), both from other states and overseas. And the post office is quite happy to hold items for you for up to 5 working days if you're not home to sign for them. I've bought from Aoi a couple of times and shipped via EMS, and have no complaints on that score.

I wonder if it was originally part of a daisho, and the katana was the one with the kozuka?

Some nice koshirae on that one Ray... I like the yanone fuchi/kashira, and it's pretty cool that they worked a yanone onto the rim of the tsuba too.

This applies to Japanese buildings too - the number of times I've heard about this or that building being the oldest of its kind, having stood there for however many centuries, only to find out that this includes being rebuilt exactly to spec every few decades when it was levelled by fire or some other disaster!

There's one up for auction on Aoi-Art now: https://www.aoijapan.com/kikuchi-yari-kikuchi-jyu-koretada Interestingly, it's a shinsakuto yari (made in 2004) which I haven't seen very many of.

Boy, Chinese fakes sure have come a long way since I started collecting... I remember the good old days of wheel-buffed temperlines, engraved signatures and tsukaito that looks like it was made from someone's leftover shoelaces. You kids these days, you don't know how good you have it!

Hard to tell with the low resolution, but the symbol inside the circle looks like it could be related to the 6th one on this list (in the second table): http://quanonline.com/military/military_reference/Japanese/blade_markings.html

Please don't hold this against the owner of that website - he simply posted up the wording I provided, which was essentially the description given to me by the previous owner. He is blameless in the matter and the fault lies entirely with the previous seller (who, surely coincidentally, I can no longer reach) and myself for failing to adequately verify that the description was indeed accurate. That being said, I think it's best if that blade and the description were to be removed; I will contact the website's owner and get it taken down, if for no other reason than to preserve his good name. Edit: and yes, there is a boshi-like hadori line - you can see it (faintly) in this picture. It even has turnback at the top!

Somewhere out there is an actual Nigerian prince who wonders why ladies always make a face and tell him where to go whenever he tries to impress them with his heritage and title...

I was the one who sold this blade to Ben. As it is now on its way back to me, I think it's my place to reveal the bad news. He took it to a professional togishi, who revealed that the oddities are almost certainly the result of a retempering (or fire damage). In addition, much of the hamon is actually fake (by the hadori polish) - enough traces of it remain to give the impression of completeness when held under the right lighting if you aren't sufficiently experienced/eagle-eyed. I'm not sure if the previous buyer was aware of this and chose not to disclose it, but given that I was sufficiently fooled enough to resell it, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. I confess that I couldn't quite make out the details of the hamon in the kissaki, although I assumed that was just due to the polish as I've seen a couple NBTHK-papered blades with boshi that looked similarly indistinct to my eye. At any rate, looks like I need to do a lot more research - if I can't spot a fake hamon, I suspect a Juyo token sword would be wasted on me...

Thank you all for the very helpful advice. While flying over to the US and/or Europe for a show certainly sounds like a grand adventure, my remote location and full-time work commitments mean that it would end up costing me the price of a decent sword, if you factor in accommodation and missed income. Therefore, I have decided to first get in touch with Grey to see what my options are regarding consignment or bulk sale before I make a final decision. Regards, Rohan

Note to other members/moderators - I'm not sure if this is an acceptable thing to be posting here, so feel free to delete this if it's out of line and/or issue me a stern warning In order to focus on my sword collection I'm looking to move my modest collection of Nara fittings, consisting of several sets of fuchi/kashira, kozuka and a couple of tsuba all sharing similar materials, craftsmanship and themes (mostly herons, kingfishers and reeds, although there's a turtle and a couple of bats hidden in there). I'd like some advice on the best way to go about doing this. In particular: Method of selling - Do I try to sell them all as a single collection? Split them into smaller batches? List every single piece individually? Try to get them to an auction? eBay ? Ballpark valuation - Obviously, I know what price I paid for the items, but as I'm not an expert on tosogu I don't really know what I can expect to get for them today, especially with the market being drastically different to the time when I started collecting. I'm not so much concerned with being underpaid as I am about wasting my time and that of potential buyers by setting an unreasonable figure. I am, of course, willing to pay a consignment fee or related costs (e.g. better photography) for assistance in moving these items, especially as I'm living in a fairly remote part of the world as far as this hobby is concerned (Perth, Western Australia). And of course, anything sold via this board will result in a donation to Brian to help keep this wonderful resource and community alive for the benefit of future collectors. I'm still working on getting my photography right as I'm even less experienced with photographing tosogu than I am with collecting/appraising them, but for now I've attached a couple of rough photos below to give an idea of what my collection is like. Thank you for your time, Rohan Postscript: I also have a handful of fittings that don't match the theme of the collection below - those will be listed on NMB separately.

The Mihara school's having a bit of a moment here on the NMB lately! Great sword, TH at that price is a steal. Good luck with your sale!

Hello Barry, I am truly sorry for your loss and indeed the loss to the community as a whole. I have barely glanced at yanone until now - thanks to Laurie (and your touching tribute to him) I will now approach them with fresh eyes, seeking to see what might lie beneath. Regards, Rohan

This blade is now SOLD. Thank you all for your interest and feedback. Brian - a donation will be incoming once the buyer's inspection period has ended.

This blade is now on HOLD pending payment.

After many years of collecting, I'm now aiming for my first Juyo piece and as such, it's time to start moving some of my old blades to their next custodians. On offer here is a Yamato nambokucho blade with fantastic jigane that I bought from Chris Osborne on this board about 7 or 8 years ago. Seeing as he is far more knowledgeable than myself, I'll quote his original description here and use his original photos (for which he has very kindly given me permission): Photos can be viewed here: http://nihonto.com.au/html/mumei_koto_katana1.html It has been maintained in a smoking-free and uchiko-free environment using microfibre and isopropyl in between oiling, and the condition of the blade and shirasaya remains unchanged since I bought it. A standard purple sword bag is included. I'm asking for US$5000 and will cover the cost of overseas shipping for NMB buyers. If you want a specific courier (e.g. FedEx), you may need to cover the difference over the standard Australia Post cost. I am located in Western Australia (GMT +8:00) so keep in mind the timezone difference as it may take me a while to respond to any PMs. As is customary, if sold to an NMB member I will make a donation to the board. Cheers, Rohan

I see this point made often in martial arts (particularly the more obscure ones at risk of becoming extinct) and it holds true here as well. Furthermore, if possible, we should use the gaps in our knowledge/expertise and the mistakes we've made during our own journey to help the next generation become even better than us. After all, if each generation is only as good as the previous one, then the art will stagnate - and if each generation is worse, then the art will decay and ultimately fall to ruin. Not an easy task, especially with the rather... unique challenges facing Nihonto enthusiasts in the Internet age, but if the Nihonto world survived the Haitorei Edict and the conclusion of World War II then surely it can survive eBay, Facebook and globalization.

While the "do it my way and a rap across the knuckles if you stray" approach does often work, it's important to note that not everybody learns the same way. The job of a teacher is to figure out the best way to get a genuinely promising student to learn, not to dismiss anyone who won't learn and perform exactly the way they did (it might seem that way in a dojo, but those with a trained eye will notice subtle differences in how the best sensei teach individual students). After all, in order for any art, science or profession to flourish requires that each generation of students be better than their teachers, otherwise the entire field will eventually stagnate or worse, degrade; and often, students who outshine their teachers are those who learn, work or think differently than their teachers did. Imagine if Masamune, Norishige, Sukehiro or Kiyomaro only produced works of exactly the same style and quality as their teachers, and their teachers' teachers... There is, of course, a place for brutal honesty and a genuine need to weed out those who are clearly not interested in learning or are otherwise engaged in nefarious uses of our time and knowledge, but to dismiss anyone who won't, or can't, follow the One True Path of Nihonto Enlightenment exactly step-for-step is a road that leads to the extinction of our beloved hobby. That, I think, would be a great loss for our descendants and society as a whole. I think the "internet factor" has to be taken into account here - I personally know people lecturing in English and mathematics who, when presented with a keyboard or smartphone and a Twitter account, turn into gibbering, hateful idiots who seem unable to perform basic arithmetic or produce a single meaningful sentence if their lives depended upon it.

Not necessarily - not everyone who's in the know is a dealer out for profit or interested in Hizen blades - and those that are might already own better examples. Given the inspection period and offer to take it back if it is not to your satisfaction, it's likely the source didn't notice any fatal flaws. I'm no expert but I agree with Brian - based on the fittings alone, you did well on this one.

I wonder, if there were a (more or less) universally recognised system for 'papering' Picassos, Van Goghs and the like, would we see a similar difference start to emerge between an officially attributed work complete with documentation, and one that looks exactly like the work of that artist and time period but lacking any official papers? And now back to the original post... A better phrasing would be "a case of just needing to know whom to ask." Even assuming any two collectors/dealers know everything there is to know about nihonto, you may still receive completely different answers depending on their personal tastes. Many people might agree that a Yoshioka Ichimonji tachi with brilliant utsuri and hamon like dancing flames is worthy of Juyo status, but if the person you are asking prefers conservative, tranquil Yamashiro workmanship and dislikes flamboyance in a sword? I suspect you may receive a different opinion unless the sword is of truly peerless quality or historical significance. To this end it might be worthwhile following the example of movie buffs and finding an expert(s) whose tastes seem to match up with your own and take notes on their own recommendations or personal collection.

While we're on the topic of eBay search software, FatFingers (and Eaby for Android users) is also useful for finding misspellings that might otherwise go unfound in a typical search (e.g. "samauri sword" or "kattana").

From a purely tech support perspective, based on a cursory glance at the registration form (I registered with them a while ago but didn't have any problems): Check your email spam box to make sure they didn't actually register you but just failed to display the confirmation. Check the inputs you are entering to ensure that they are all within the restrictions (less than x characters, more than x characters etc). Try changing the userID you are trying to register with as it may already be in use. Make sure you are only using digits in the phone number field. Make sure you're not using an invalid date (e.g. 31st September). If you're using any special characters in your password, try replacing them with numbers and/or letters (some sites only allow alphanumeric passwords). Only do this if nothing else works as it makes your account less secure! Also, the most widely accepted password lengths online seems to be between 6 and 12 characters, so if yours is longer or shorter you could try adjusting it. Edit: just thought of another one - try a different internet browser. P.S. And if you do figure it out (or someone else provides the answer), the etiquette for asking for technical help online is to make sure you post the result here so that a) nobody else spends time trying to help out and b) anyone searching for the problem in the future knows how to fix it.

Well, at least the account name of the seller is accurate - the "premium" part of it, anyway :lol:

A sad day indeed. His career has been one of the more interesting among the modern smiths. There is a good write-up about him and his son (now also Mukansa) in The New Generation of Japanese Swordsmiths.