Bruno

I forgot to add that if the sword was made in 1943 and has no stamp it is probably a traditional gendaito, so yes a hand made one. Once again I could be completly wrong, I hope better conoisseurs will help soon. Regards

Probably hand made or at least hand finished as a hamon can be seen. If the smith really made medium to high class swords, I guess it should be hand made.If he was well skilled it could be impossible to determine if it is tamahagane or non tamahagane sword, unless the tang has a stamp and/or a mark, et encore. Is there any stamp or mark on the nakago? Just my humble opinion Regards

Hi! Not sure is it wot u are looking for, maybe this: http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~t-ohmura/gunto_081.htm

Hi Jimmy, Just need to Google his name: http://www.japanesesword.com/Images/Swo ... 06KAT4.htm Not a lot of infos....but it is a start!

Is the shirasaya new too? I mean has it been made at the time than the fresh polish?

Yep I agree with Stephen. Maybe I nice pic of the blade will be helpfull.

Very well done too!

Nice work! The habaki has been changed?

100% agree with you Stephen, thanks.

Thanks James. To be honest I did not make researsh on the kanji, the bad "hand-writing" itself makes me think it is gimei. Regards

Hi gentlemen! http://cgi.ebay.fr/WWII-Japanese-Shin-G ... 19b7d26384 I am wondering if this sword I found on Ebay is gimei or not. I do not want to buy it, but since I read last posts on the gimei KOTETSU topic and that 80% of old blades could be gimei, I am try to identify gimei. I think the signature on the nakago BIZEN KUNI NORIMUNE is not very well done so is it gimei again? I would say....yes. But since the price have rised importantly in short time, I think that I could be completly wrong. I'll be glad to have your wise opinion(Jean, Stephen, Klaus, John, Steve and all the others friendly persons of the NMB) about that. Best regards

I remember having reading in a book that when showato were traditonnaly polished, in certain cases it was almost impossible to define if they were tradionnaly or non traditional made, even by finest experts. We should maybe remember that 60 years ago, once showato were forged they were most of the time quickly polished(war time polished), so it was easy to determine that they were non traditionaly made. Nowadays, some of these stamped showato(maybe the KANEFUSA is one of them...) are sent to be traditionaly polished by their new owners, that could be an explanation why some of them have passed shinsa(here NTHK). Me to, I have read that some showato with stamp removed has passed shinsa, NTHK and NBTHK. Maybe NBTHK is a little bit more snub than NTHK and refuse every swords with stamped because for them: stamped blade= non traditionaly made (even if it is a fine work), so no paper delivered non stamped blade= traditionaly made, so could be papered Maybe in the KANEFUSA case, NTHK judged more the quality than the authenticity(tamahagane) whereas NBTHK would have focus only on tamahagane swords and wants to reject every non tamahagane ones. Once again it is only my thoughts. Regards

Hello John, I have been told that tiny stamps(when they are not SEKI/SHOWA ones) on showato's nakago might be stamps of the smith's province. You could try to find out in what province Kinmichi/Kanemichi used to work, then find a table of Japanese'provinces stamps to identify yours. Just a thought maybe not relevant. Regards

Any exemples of stamped (removed or not) blades papered by NBTHK instead of NTHK? By reading the previous posts it seems that NTHK may be quite fussy, maybe stamped blades could pass sometine NTHK but not NBTHK? I do not know, just asking....

Is the NTHK paper authentic? If not, it could explain why a Seki stamped sword passed shinsa... From the pics it is difficult to say if it is a showato or a gendaito. The seller says about KANEFUSA:"He forged both traditionally made gendaito and nontraditionally made showato using mill steel, thus each blade must be judged on its own merits." For those who have the John SLOUGH's Oshigata book, it would be nice to check if KANEFUSA used to forge low, medium or high class gendaito or/and showato. Unless he forged high class gendaito I do not see any reason that this sword really did pass Shinsa. It is just a newbie's thought, so maybe not relevant at all. Regards

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/J267-Japanese-Sa ... 255725fd0b So fake NBTHK paper means fake Kotetsu sword. Nice blade anyway.

Jean, Will read this article carefully but did not read yet your post about COMPTON collection. Thanks

So how this Kotetsu can be a fake with NBTHK paper? Just wondering.... http://cgi.ebay.com.au/J267-Japanese-Sa ... 255725fd0b

Gentlemen, I have a simple question to ask about that, on the previous Ebay link we saw a Koketsu sword with NBTHK papers for cheap price of 10k$. Jean was suggesting with sens of humor that it could be a "fake"and he is probably right. I am not surprised that auction houses whatever famous they are sell sometime fake items, but I am very surprised that the Koketsu seems to be a fake with NBTHK papers. How is that possible http://cgi.ebay.com.au/J267-Japanese-Sa ... 255725fd0b Best regards

The tang is suspicious to.

a very end of war tsuba maybe? that could explain its poor quality.

Thank you Jean, glad to have your wise advice!

I forgot the link, here it is: http://cgi.ebay.fr/Japanese-Sword-Hamon ... 3ca72f12cd I'll be glad to have knowladgeable people'opinion. Regards

I found this one on Ebay....with hamon and no signature. Is it correct one? Regards

Hi Brian, Thanks a lot for this quick and detailed answers. So they can be both tamahagane and:or plain steel. Is it more judicious to buy a mumei kogatana instead of a signed one, as you said that most of them are gimei? A friendly person on the NMB already told me that most of the kogatana mei were more honorific, is it quite close from what you said. Regards