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Prices For Gassan Sadatoshi Tanto


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Dear Members,

 

I recently saw a very nice tanto for sale by Gassan Sadatoshi. I know that he's a well known smith and I really appreciate this blade, though it is hard for me to state a price for such a blade. What do you think is a reasonable price for such a piece?

 

Thank you very much,

Marco

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$40k for a tanto? Sorry, but no. A daito from a mukansa Smith is in the ballpark of $30k. With horimono, $40k-$50k and that’s commissioned, not second hand. The second hand market drops like a stone. For a gorgeous tanto - and it is excellent! - $10k to maybe (and this would be a HUGE stretch) $15k or there abouts and it would likely go only to a die hard Gassan collector. Otherwise it’ll sit for months/years at that price.

 

Look at Yoshindo, Shoji, and Ono Sensei for comparison sakes.

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Hamish is probably not far off the mark.

A friend of mine looked at a bare blade daisho with no horimono and was given a preliminary quote of US$50,000.

That was five years ago.

Daisho, with the shoto being tanto or Wakizashi? Either way that had a daito and the market has soured on second hand shinsakuto in the last 5 years. Did your friend buy at $50k? I’m guessing not, since you said it was a quote. A seller can ask whatever they want for a sword(s) but that doesn’t mean they’ll sell at that price.

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thanks for that Joe,  (IMHO, guys for those who don't know Joe is a Gendai sword God, .... ok maybe demi-god hahahhahahha) 

 

i had never thought of second hand sale in this case, I was only going on what I had seen in the last DTI.  (can only guess they were new and low miles hahah)

I knew shinsakuto dropped in price, BBBUTT not  that much, for a master smith like him is sad, a real shame but also a great chance to save money.

 

thanks for setting me straight

 

regards H

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Daisho, with the shoto being tanto or Wakizashi? Either way that had a daito and the market has soured on second hand shinsakuto in the last 5 years. Did your friend buy at $50k? I’m guessing not, since you said it was a quote. A seller can ask whatever they want for a sword(s) but that doesn’t mean they’ll sell at that price.

Shoto being wakizashi.

No polish, no horimono, no habaki, just rough blades.

I wasn't clear in my original post but the 'seller' was Sadatoshi, ie. that was the price quoted to make a daisho.

But no, the commission didn't go through so maybe his prices have lowered.

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Masamine sells at a very high premium as compared to the smiths I listed. Ssdatoshi would be roughly in the same ballpark as the Yoshihara’s and Ono Sensei. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure why. His blades are phenomenal - but I don’t see such a radical difference in his stuff than other top-of-the-top-of the heap shinsakuto.

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thanks for that Joe, (IMHO, guys for those who don't know Joe is a Gendai sword God, .... ok maybe demi-god hahahhahahha)

 

Thanks Hamfish, but no where near correct. I know a very small bit more about a very small segments of swords than a very small set of collectors. Take me out of my sandbox and I’m a moron. For the show this weekend, I have to setup a yoroi... I have no idea where to start. The helmet goes on top right?

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The aoijapan Tachi example is priced at ~$270 per cm of nagasa. Therefore, the tanto in the OP is worth about $6-7k assuming it’s around 25cm or so.

Alan, katana & tanto, both in similar (near-perfect) condition, will sell at a similar price in many cases. You can't calculate value on a per-inch basis.

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I'm not a Gassan officianado, but I do have a Sadakazu tanto and katana, both gorgeous.  Dealers can ask huge prices for beautiful Gassan blades - for example this Sadaichi:

http://www.ricecracker.com/japanese_swords/wakizashi/sw10.htm

 

A Sadakazu tanto in full polish with ayasugi hada, signed Teishitsu Gigein (i.e. with his equivalent of living national treasure) would be in the range of $8-12K or so, in my opinion, as an asking/retail price.  A katana, with horimono,  with papers and full polish, would be in the range of $15K, give or take.   My guess on this tanto, in the resale market, would be in the $10-15K range.  Just my two bits worth.

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Really interesting sword! I wonder what John wound up taking for it. I bet it was quite a ways from $40k. Even though this was a gassaku work and Sadatoshi collaborated on it, there two very important differences is that the tanto in question is not a gassaku work with Nidai Sadakazu who is a smith in his own realm, and it’s a tanto not Wakizashi.

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not to be difficult but this is priced over 20K

 

or would I be uneducated to say that the gassen tanto is by far the better, or is that just my bias

http://www.tsuruginoya.com/mn1_3/f00258.html

It has TH papers which jumps the price DRASTICALLY. Right or wrong, I loosely equate TH for gendaito as the equivalent to Juyo for older blades since they are SUPER RARE and gendaito is not eligible for Juyo yet. This is why, when I paper a sword, I just do the dual Hozon/TH shinsa even though the odds of hitting that “jackpot” is next to nill.

 

The catch here is that I don’t think many people do this because they don’t think it has a chance, so there is a lot of blades out there that would get TH if submitted, but go unsubmitted.

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Interesting that TH has discriminatory power for Gendaito, unlike earlier work. Even in ShinShinto, great smiths get automatically TH unless something is wrong. It genuinely seems that there is within-smith variation for TH in great Gendaito smiths. It's more of a contest, a la juyo. 

 

If anything it's not very coherent. 

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