JOHN MACK

Thanks john , i will check out it out , i dig the website .john

Thank you James , , so in the reality of things , the blade seems to be of excellent quality non the less and the hardware looks high end , is it recomemded that i have this blade resored and what sort of value does this gi mei sword hold? i appreciate all of the help on this ,john

Thank you for the proper direction , i will check out the ny chapter of shinsa , they have been at the metropolitan museum here in NY , the exibit ends in jan 10 2010 .

From what i am slowly learning as a new collector is that i will need to buy other books. ok so i read that gi- mei is put onto swords of lesser blade smiths and unmarked swords to increase the value ,i do not yet understand why this katana has the expensive hardware , it may very well be as you have suggested that the markings were added to honor this smith , can this be one of his students swords ? the hammon does not look of the edo period , at least to my inexperience eye that is.i am only doing a book comparison to edo hammon styles . again bear with me as i am learning ...

Hello Steve , i would kindly request that that information can be posted on this thread ,your help in highly valued ,john

A fellow member provided me with this site for reference . i did not want to provide any other info as not to mix opinions on the rest of the katana , i figure if we just the the marks we will focus on that only , but i see now that an accurate judgment can only be made using all of the sword . forgive me as i am completly new to Japanese swords and the vast amount of information. i appreciate your time and efforts steve,john