Removing Gemei

[bullpuppy]

I am fairly new and have read posts where people suggest removing gemie in order to submit to shinsa. I like to know if this is a common practice?. Is this a ethical practice (removing something that should not be there in the first place seems ok to me)?

 

Why don't Shinsa procedures be modified to note gemie but pass the blade under the real smith.

 

How is removing it done? Do you try to remove it and leave the tang in that state or rust it make to make it less noticable?

 

I also like to know the common way the gemei come into being. The ones I have read about are as follows:

 

1) The smith signs the blade with a better known smith. What if the smith ends up making better blades than the known smith.

2) Someone takes an unsigned blade and signs a smith to increase it's value. This one is interesting that they could sign it with a lesser smith than the original. Also this could happen hundreds of years after the blade is made and not detected to hundreds of years later.