Bruno

Is it the photo or the hot stamp deformed the bottom of the nakago? Your sword can be hand made/finished but made with western steel and/or oil quenched, thus has a stamp.

This could be an alternative : showa fittings, uchigatana, and era appropriate. http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~t-ohmura/gunto_037.htm

By reading the letter, it seems the NBTHK member does not know that star stamped nakago means traditionnal gendaito. I understand for him it is just a stamped nakago so it is a showato thus cannot be accepted in Japan. I wonder if NBTHK guys in Japan know gendaito as well as they know older swords. I doubt it.

Maybe seller can say that but Thomas has good arguments to defend himself also. Furthermore if Thomas has a copy of buyer's message saying the parcel was not damaged when he opened it, it can help Ebay to beleive the dagger has been damaged after the parcel was opened. Not saying it is easy but with the photos and copies of buyer's messages, I think Thomas has a chance. At least it worths to try. If Thomas can show to Ebay that buyer ask a refund superior to what the final price was, it can also show Ebay how dishonest he is. This can help also.

Well, so Ebay must have a copy of your auction showing no missing pommel and good condition dagger (I hope they did not cancel everything once the auction ends). So if you can show to Ebay that the buyer stated in his message nobody except him opened the parcel, and also the photos he sent you with missing part and damaged dagger, I see no reason why Ebay would not beleive you say the truth and him a lie.

Thomas, Did he say clearly in his messages, that the parcel was not opened before he did? This is very important.

Hello Thomas, Did you sell it via Ebay or something like that? Regards

Hi I have been told that Miyaguchi Yasuhiro contracted with another smith to make several hundred blades from western steel. Yasuhiro then signed these with the Kunimori mei. It was a patriotic enterprise. They are not traditional swords.

Hi Jacques, Yes I saw it is a recent paper, I wanted to say that in general, one should not always blindly trust these papers as they in some cases have mistakes.

Nice job Dave. Something has been done for the nakago?

I think without being sure that Chris said in the past, that in special occasions, if the showato was important for his Japanese owner then the shinsa team might be nice with him and issues the papers. It was something like that in my memory.... Also papers issued in the 70/80ies were dubious, don't know if these ones are of this period.

We need Mr Bowen on this case! It looks like a Seki stamp from what I can see, not the first time a showato received papers. As for the well done yasurime, Mantetsuto have also good ones and they are showato.

Thanks for the comments. I know a blade is porous but I've never read or heard someone tells 60%-90% alcohols had ever damaged his sword. What are the visible damages we are supposed to see if using these not pure isopropyls (long/short terms)? Are they internal or external to the blade? Also togishi put a lot of water on their blades so those ones might bear short water cleaning treatments as long as you dry them after. Not asserting anything just querying the board.

I do not see the problem of not being able to use 100% isopropyl alcohol, 60% or 90% sopropyl alcohols are just diluted with water. If you dry well the blade after then what is the matter

Naughty boy

Obscure but he might have been a good smith if his teacher was Kato Kanekuni?

I think Kevin Jones (Ryujinswords.com) published an nice article on his website about Mantetsu-to.

Hi David, Rikungun jumei tosho means star stamped nakago. Please show us a close up of your two stamps you have.

Very interesting Chris and George, really enjoying your gendaito knowledge. Thank you so much!

Ko-to maybe It'd be better Chris answers.

Ha machi looks weak, it seems the blade is tired and there seems to be a big kizu on photo 4. My very 2 cents! :D

Hi Tobias, Yes I know it is not a lot of Yen....These infos were given to me, I hope my friend can confirm or someonelse who has the book. I guess Yen at that time was much stronger than today.

Thanks Mark and Tobias. Yes I wanted also to expend the topic to shin-to and ko-to but don't know if it is possible to have reliable informations. It seems that the Japanese Yen was introduced in 1871, that is why I did not mention older swords than shinshin-to.

Hello gentlemen, I was wondering what were the original prices of gendai-to when they were sold to their first owners in 1930/1940. A good friend told me that according to the book "The Yasukuni Swords" by Tom Kishida (Kodansha), on page 58 is a list of prices for Yasukunito by Yasuoki in 1942. The prices are varying depending on the quality of the forging (in Shinsa panel)...90Y, 105Y, 120Y, 130Y. Of course this was the official price set by the smith and the Army, but because these were so popular they also went to maybe 250Y "behind closed doors". Also, in 1930-1940s a good shinshinto blade was maybe 25Y says John Yumoto in "The Samurai Sword". I checked website Oanda and found today rate between USD and Yen is : 1 USD = 82 Y. If anybody has these original prices for some RJT, Yasukuni, Minatogawa smiths or even shinhin-to smiths, and if someone knows what was the value of the Japanese Yen in these years 1930/1940, we will be able to compare these original prices with today market prices. I think it would be very interesting to measure their real increase of value for the last 67 years. Thanks