Old papers

[Mushin]

Gents,

 

Bought books, read the ones in English, struggled with the ones in Japanes, parsed the forum, took your advice to heart and have bit the bullet and bought my first nihonto. I'll post more about it later -- as soon as I get my digital camera working again. But in the meantime my question now involves the origami. The sword comes with a NBTHK Tokubetsu Kicho certificate. Now I remember reading here in snippets and having had conversations with other collectors about the need to be careful with "old" papers. One post I recall mentioned mei with old papers almost always equals gimei. What are the dangers of old papers? Are there signs to look out for? Rules of thumb? Do old (green) NBTHK papers fall into the "danger Will Robinson" category?

 

Thanks to all.

[nagamaki - Franco]

If memory serves it's the late 70's and early 80's papers which are suspect.

[paulb]

Hi Bobby,

The suggestion tha "Old papers invariably means gimei" is totally wrong. In fact there are many that argue that older Juyo papers were harder to win, and therefore of greater value than newer ones. Certainly swords with Old Juyo papers command equally high prices to recently papered swords

It is true that there was a scandal surrounding the NBTHK in the late 70s and early 80s which resulted in a devaluation of papers from that period and the restructuring of the system in to its current form. But to suggest all or the majority of old NBTHK papers were suspect is nonsense.

 

It is true that swords submitted today may obtain a diffrent attributon to the earlier one but this can be due to many factors, research s ongoing and as people learn more the opinions may change but again this would be the exception rather than the rule.

regards

Paul