Pawnstars Sword

[Stephen]

Nice work on PawnStars Mike.

[Jareth]

Why was tsuba replaced & not mentioned on pawnstars sword?

[Brian]

Split the topic so as not to interfere with Tetsugendo's commercial post.

Haven't seen the episode, but read all about it online. Sounds like a nice sword. From what I hear, they have a few in the shop, but nothing very good. Wonder if there are any other places in Vegas to see or buy swords?

 

Brian

[bmoore1322]

Yes, I noticed the Tsuba was replaced...

 

I was wondering the same thing.

 

Brian

[kusunokimasahige]

Original episode with Mike here : http://gorillavid.in/yfcz9um3yne5

 

Since the previous owner is a lawyer and his client left the sword with him and never came back for it (at least that is what was said in the video), has anyone checked this one with the Hawley collection missing swords list ?

 

Though Mike might have done a great job on Pawnstars (apart from the small mistake stating the Tokugawa ruled

Japan from 1596 ), the pawn shop guy though has not learned a thing :

 

Look at the way he handles this sword, look at what he says about the fatal flaw in the tip, and then, a national treasure ?

 

 

KM

 

Here is another gut-wrenching one : Gallery 63 Samurai sword :

 

[peter]

so how much did the Jedi sword get, :?

Peter

[kusunokimasahige]

I think it went for about 300 US$....

 

Auction Kings Season 1, Ep. 13 "Samurai Sword/Steamer Trunk" is the name of the episode.

 

Maybe you can see it on Netflix or somewhere else. The cattle sale style auctioneers are hilarious.

 

KM

 

I really do not understand why these owners dont bring their swords to Bonhams or Sotheby's.....

[Kai-Gunto]

Nice tsuba ,the first one.

[Jussi Ekholm]

Very nice work Mike, it was great that they brought in a real expert on Japanese swords for this episode. You did very well performing on television. The information you shared was very nice, and informative to us collectors as well as the general public. Hopefully they'll get another sword and you again on the show in the future too.

 

I know you probably can't answer to this question but I'm intrested to ask it. Have you done inspections & appraisals to the other Japanese swords they have at Gold & Silver Pawn?

 

I've watched Pawn Stars for years and unfortunately I have understood that it's somewhat of the Antiques Roadshow, people bring only items that have historical / television entertainment value as I think there are application forms and of course they take the most intresting ones to the show. I think there has been only a handful of actual pawning in the 100+ episodes of the show. I'm kinda hooked on American "reality" television series that run on History, Discovery, National Geographic and other networks and I've learned a lot of them (how they are made etc.) during the years I've watched them. I'd say about 60% of these shows is fake and scripted, networks want to make intresting television not 100% real television. I agree some of the people will probably get in the show just to get their television time, and they sell & do things for television entertainment, when the item would be wiser to sell elsewhere.

 

I don't want to get into details about these big television networks and shows, as there is lots of talk on that on other forums and this forum is about swords and related stuff.

 

I've read that Gold & Silver Pawn in Las Vegas is actually a huge tourist spot today. Of course some deals can be had there, but as it's a huge tourist attraction prices are probably sky high, and stuff still sells. But if I'd some day travel to Las Vegas, I might still check it out just to see it.

 

But these "reality" shows that now fill most of the History channel & others are great television entertainment. Sure there are starting to be too many of them now, but I keep watching the good ones in the future too. Hopefully we will see more swords and sword related items on these shows.

[drdata]

Resurrecting an old thread.

 

Curious if anyone in the know caught last night's pawn stars?

 

http://www.history.com/shows/pawn-stars ... ng-chumlee

 

 

A fellow broker/friend brought in what seemed a tachi in shira saya with papers, wanted 20k, too 10 and gave another 8K for a trade against rick's sand rail. Had quite a bit or sori, but seemed boshi may have ran off the top of kisaki. Hard to tell.

 

What caught me as odd is they used one of their less-famous employes to authenticate the sword/papers and assign price. He claimed the smith was well known, but I did not catch a date.

 

 

Cheers

[Gabriel L]

I didn’t see it, but I’m watching it now…

 

Here’s the paper in the meantime:

 

 

Yoshitsugu… looks quite nice.

 

Here’s a very messy photo collage from the footage:

 

[Jussi Ekholm]

Finally found a stream of it that's available to Finland.

 

I really liked the sugata. Unfortunately the resolution of the stream was too bad to see the details.

 

I believe NTHK paper says 長享 Chokyo (1487-1489).

[Gabriel L]

I should have also posted this (cropped) closeup of the paper.

 

 

FWIW Harry, I don’t think the boshi runs off. It’s hard to see but it looks good to my eyes (for example, look at figure H in my collage).

 

Here’s a question: they look like old NTHK papers yet they seem to be dated from August 20, 2010 judging by the last column. What’s going on here? It’s too bad we can’t see the other side of the papers.

 

Working on the transcription:

 

Column 1: 第　|　一. 五九二 号　|　種別　|　刀

Serial: item #592 – classification: katana

 

Column 2: 銘文　|　吉次

Mei inscription: Yoshitsugu

 

Column 3: 寸法　|　長さ 弐尺 五寸 四分

Dimensions: length 2 shaku, 5 sun, 4 bu (77.0 cm, 30.3”)

 

Column 4: 特徴 (Features):

Right sub-column: 鍛 板目…柾まじり　刃文 湾れ (…Can anyone help with this part?)

Kitae: itame mixed with masame, hamon notare (…)

Left sub-column: 鋩子 小丸　中心　壱　勝手下がり

Boshi komaru; nakago ichi(?) katte sagari

 

Column 5: 備考　|　長享頃　平成二十二年八月二十日???

Remarks: approximately Chōkyō (1487–1489); August 20, 2010 [something]

[J Reid]

I was under the impression that shinteisho were white papers with an oshigata rubbing whereas kanteisho or higher are brown paper with a high res photo.

[Gabriel L]

I was under the impression that shinteisho were white papers with an oshigata rubbing whereas kanteisho or higher are brown paper with a high res photo.

 

Josh, is this a reply to my question about what’s odd with the paper? I was pointing out that there seem to be too few columns to be a “new” NTHK paper. I’m not sure that you are entirely correct that it is an issue of shinteisho vs kanteisho, given that there appear to be white-paper kanteisho with origami on this page and this page too. But I am very far from expert on the variations of NTHK papers…

 

EDIT: so I noticed that in the overall paper shot, you could just barely see some characters on the reverse peeking through. So I flipped the page, de-angled it, and boosted the contrast, yielding this image:

 

 

It’s hard to see, but there’s definitely a line “shinteisho” (審定書), as well as what looks suspiciously like Kishū 紀州 (Kii) or Hishū 肥州 (Hizen/Higo) in the left column. So you were right about it being shinteisho!

 

Unfortunately I can’t quite match up anything that the left column (___shū???) might say to records of 吉次 smiths around the late 1400s…

[J Reid]

Gabriel,

 

Yes sorry this was a response to your question about the odd paper..

With Newer NTHK origami, only low scoring swords (60-69pts) receive a shinteisho (white paper with an oshigata). New Kanteisho get brown paper with a high res photo of the nakago and yushu papers have a high res photo of the whole blade!

 

P.s. Nice detective work.. I always enjoy reading your posts.

[Brian]

Gabriel,

Think we have a new forum detective :D

Great work.

 

Brian

[Gabriel L]

Thanks guys. Anyone want to guess / deduce what province they are listing? The left column seems to say ___ shū Yoshitsugu (_州吉次), so you would figure that along with the putative date of 1487 it should be easy. But I’m not seeing a very good match.

 

 

I admit I am slightly surprised it “only” got shinteisho. At a distance (i.e. through the low-res TV footage) it looked fairly nice – long (30.3" / 77 cm) with a nice sugata, in fresh polish, apparently healthy. But of course we don’t have any truly good photos (including of the boshi etc.) so obviously we have to rely on the paper in this case.

 

I guess the logical next question would be did Rick get burned by valuing a shinteisho-level sword at $10k? :lol:

[John A Stuart]

I tlooks like Kishu (Kii), but, should be Bishu, yes? John

[J Reid]

Hard to say whether he got burned or not.. based on those pictures.. I can see that the boshi is healthy, but the hada displays poor workmanship IMO.. (slag welds and whatnot).. I think he may have gotten burned as this sword will more than likely never receive higher papers. Rick doesn't seem to know very much about Japanese swords.

[drdata]

Wow, some real detective work to be sure. Thanks all for the discussion and comments.

 

I thought it odd that rice cracker did not do the appraisal. Perhaps behind the scenes. Employee rated at 15-20K.

 

I like how they made it seem the menugi was holding the blade in the saya. Got to see them remove it twice, the latter to expose nakago. At least no story about it cutting light particles or machine guns.

 

 

Cheers all.

[drdata]

Looks like history is re-airing the episode tonight for any that did not catch it, and who may be interested.

 

 

Upcoming Airings:

 

December 16, 2013 - 08:00-08:30PM ET

December 17, 2013 - 12:01-12:31AM ET

December 26, 2013 - 09:00-09:30PM ET

December 27, 2013 - 01:01-01:31AM ET

[bluboxer]

cutting light particles

Oh, the famous koshigiri (with fingerprints)

[peter]

Happy Holidays to all,

Does anyone know if this episode will be aired in the UK as i can't seem to view it on the links provided,

Peter

[drdata]

Adding that a member pmed me with this link. Does seem to be teh same sword. Small world and folks with strong memory here:

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20100708225 ... htsug.html

 

 

Interesting to note the 12K price.

 

"This sword was taken from a Shrine by a WWII G.I. - It was fully mounted with Bat and Moon tsuba, Fuchi-Gashira and Menuki. It was sold at the largest Flea market in this country on the east coast to a very large dealer. That dealer sold it to another man, who cut the mountings apart and sold all pieces separately at a sword show.

My friend bought the sword blade in it's present condition of full polish, very good Shira-saya with good Gold Covered Habaki and NTHK paper. There are some open Hada areas on one side."

[Gabriel L]

Absolutely the same sword (identical length, sugata, mei, patina, habaki, paper details etc.). Originally $15.5k, reduced to $12k. Would’ve been nice to have seen all these answers laid out so nicely earlier. Interestingly, the Pawn Stars four-seal paper is Aug/20/2010 shinteisho, which is at least partly explained by “open areas of hada.” Yet the Yoshikawa paper listed on sho-shin (I don’t see a photo) is Sep/8/2002 kanteisho with five seals? The plot thickens.

 

Confirmed Chōkyō nengō and Kishū province, which is a little weird? I don’t see any Yoshitsugu smiths in Kii (the Chōkyō smith is listed as Kawachi in Sesko & Hawley alike).

 

Too bad about it being pieced out; that’s a shame in my book. Also I like bat theme kodogu.

[Jussi Ekholm]

This is CSI-level stuff right here in this thread.

 

Now after seeing the full length shot, I really like the sugata.

 

I just rewatched the episode. As Rick told he paid 18k for sand buggy (I remember that was featured in one episode a long time ago) initially and 4k for rebuilding transmission = 22k (that is assuming he didn't add any own profit to his estimates). So as the deal was sword + 8k, the sword was valued at 14k. Then of course Rick will have to add his own profit margin to the sword when he lists it for sale in his shop. So it will be most likely with much above the 14k price tag now.

[raiden]

Just for fun , and so there is no misunderstanding that happens at times, here are some facts about the Yasutsugu episode that I did for Pawn Stars. The blade is in my opinion a genuine 5 th generation Yasutsugu. It was in need of a professional polish. I had a slot coming up with our very own Shigekazu (Jimmy ) Hayashi and used it for this blade. As you all should well know, Jimmy is a genuine Uchi deshi polisher trained in Japan and he always does an excellent job. The tsuka was in need of a complete re wrap, and it was also sent out to another friend of mine for a rewrap as close as possible to what was the original tsukaito. We were on a bit of a deadline as I was just about to go to Japan for a slight length of time, so it all had to be done in a very tightly coordinated fashion. Now , as far as the tsuba went, the tsuba that was originally on the blade was NOT the original one, it was probably changed a long time ago, as it was basically swimming in between the 2 seppa. It was replaced with a Signed Kishu Teimei tsuba that was genuine. The new owner of the blade also received the old tsuba as well. The seppa however, were of good quality and most likely original as they fit the nakago perfectly. The habaki was severely damaged, and had to be replaced, as well as the old saya. After polish I decided it was better to have a new scabbard made to keep the polish in good condition. I do consulting work for them for quite a few years now, our episode wasn’t scripted (Im not an actor and I definitely cannot remember lines) so we kept it simple. The goal for me was to show and educate the uneducated in regards to Japanese Swords. I cannot spend time to answer any questions (Not to be stuck up, but my son is ill and I am taking care of him), so I hope I brought some light to any previous questions. Happy Holidays.

[raiden]

Tang shot

[raiden]

Old Tsuba (not that great in quality - late piece.)