Bare Blades

[Jwrussell]

So, Ray's post about his new blades brought this to mind. I've seen a couple of sales recently of bare blades. No koshirae, no shirasaya. Or maybe just a saya. What's the storage situation with something like this. It seems the obvious solution is having shirasaya made, but how were these likely stored previously?

[TETSUGENDO]

When a sword is not in service it is traditionally stored in shirasaya.

 

-S-

[ChrisW]

Steven, I think he means they are sold without either koshirae or shirasaya and he is curious as to why.

 

My opinion on some of them on eBay seems super spurious, especially when there is no habaki present. That to me is a huge red flag. But its fairly common for a blade to be without either... as long as it has its habaki, its more credible in my book.

 

My theory is that many that lack either are just stacked somewhere in a shop's backroom because the original was too damaged to be saved and was discarded.

[PNSSHOGUN]

The one one ebay from a certain seller without Koshirae or Shirasaya are quality fakes made in china.

[Dave R]

 I have seen a fair few stripped blades on dealers tables here in the UK, and bought them as well.

 

Why do they get stripped? Sometimes the mounts are so shattered that they are dumped... sometimes so good that they get transferred to a "better" blade to make a more saleable package. Or just sold separately if the blade is considered dubious in some way.

 

Sometimes the fuchi/kashira are considered more saleable on their own, and the same for menuki. Once they are gone from the koshira, and the ito cut off, it soon falls apart.

 

 In other words, they get stripped and orphaned to facilitate dealers making  a quick sale, or a better profit. More common in the past than now, but possibly still goes on.

[Ray Singer]

Sometimes blades are stored in newspaper saya as a temporary, protective measure until a shirasaya can be made or until their koshirae can be cleaned & repaired. Likewise, if someone is trying to remove corrosion non-invasively with oil, bone, ivory, etc it would not necessarily make sense to the return the blade to its old saya that may contain rust or abrasive debris, and a paper saya may be the best short-term solution. I do this myself when finding nice blades in poor condition gunto koshirae. As soon as possible though, a shirasaya will be made and a tsunagi for the koshirae. Blades are not really kept by collectors as truly bare with no protection at all.

[Mortis]

I would be very interested in gleaning methods of constructing a paper saya.  I'm sure that much of Ray's free time is being consumed with this new collection intake.  If anyone else has done this and would be able to show examples or post a brief tutorial and or explanation it would be extremely appreciated.

[16k]

The one one ebay from a certain seller without Koshirae or Shirasaya are quality fakes made in china.

I’m sure they are gimei, not so sure about them being made in China. Too different from Chinese blades I’ve seen.

[SAS]

They are getting pretty good in China, they have had a lot of practice. It is getting harder to tell the fakes from new nihonto.

[ChrisW]

^  What Steve says, I've seen some sellers who are clearly from China with blades that are modern high-quality reproductions/fakes. eBay can be a real shark's cove when it comes to deceiving a buyer, the old adage "buyer beware" has never been more true!

[16k]

I know what you mean, but as a backyard cutter, I tend to buy very good Chinese repro, and trust me, I own one of this Komonjo blades and no Chinese blade I have comes close to it. I think they are real unpapered and unofficial blades made by second tier smiths that are produced to sweeten the pot and smuggled in bundles out of Japan... unless they are by a Japanese guy/former apprentice to a Japanese settled in another country, but the method is too different from Chinese blades.

 

And if they are indeed Chinese, they are really, really good. For the price I paid, none of my other blades is that well made and sharp.

[Blazeaglory]

The one one ebay from a certain seller without Koshirae or Shirasaya are quality fakes made in china.

I think I know who you're talking about. It took me a few minutes to actually realize they were fakes. Very good but the rust is uniform on each different blade and stops in exact spot.

 

But the amount of detail is pretty impressive. Guy has all kinds of different styles claiming to be kamakura etc...

 

I'd stay away just on sheer principle frm that one but legit bare blades are o.k. but usually thrashed. I can't recall seeing many decent bare blades for sale. A few but that's it

[raynor]

Chinese fakes are one thing, but dont forget the Chinese have been making swords for millennia. Good ones. The Chinese high end sword market is however tiny outside of mainland China, except I believe some bleed into wealthy Russian collectors.

 

The market is hard to get into for us foreigners as they are seemingly not as exposed, accessible nor as willing to open it as the Japanese.

 

Nihonto and samurai stuff being immensely more well known in the west then Chinese culture counts towards this too I am sure.

 

They have master smiths in China who almost exclusively produce for the Chinese market and museums swords that rival nihonto in workmanship, but have neither the fame or the marketability outside China. I would not be surprised if some lower end smiths are more commonly now branching out by making the higher quality fakes popping up. The top Chinese smiths would off course not be caught making cheap copies of Japanese blades

 

I've seen some jians and even dadaos that sell on Chinese market for the equivalent to thousands of dollars that look like humans could hardly made them, what with the Chinese fittings being quite a bit more elaborate then the elegant simplicity found in Nihonto, which I prefer.

[Ganko]

I don't know where these bare blades are coming from but there is one seller on Ebay that frequently puts them up for sale. They appear to be fairly good looking gendaito. They typically have signatures of good gendai sword smiths which are cut pretty well also. They all seem to be cut by the same hand but do not  hold up when compared with real signatures in references. I am quite sure they are all gimei. As Dwain mentioned, the rust on the nakago's is identical on them all and no doubt recently applied. If you want to cut mats they are fine. Don't consider them collection worthy.

[Blazeaglory]

I've been searching but cannot seem to find that seller now. I did see that the last few ratings/feedback were extremely negative. So maybe he/ she is banned? Or maybe I blocked them and forgot.

 

Anyways, whoever they were got the rust technique down fairly good but made it the EXACT same on every blade. Even the different styles of blades were good.

 

It would seem, lately, there are some pretty good "Nihonto" forgereries. If it's a bare blade and is listed as over 300 years old (or antique) with rusted tang that looks a little too uniform with a very nice blade with no defects, it's more than likely fake. But as another member said above, there are new forged Chinese blades in the Japanese Nihonto image, not to be confused with "forgeries". But if it is "real"(ie; not a forgery and not a newly made Chinese), I would post pics of it here fist and ask for some advice from the pros before purchasing. Just in case

 

A sword without a koshirae/shirasaya is bound to end up with some ouchies. Unless the koshirae was sold separately or just tossed out but who knows