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Katana with bo-hi


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Steve, everyone is anxious to buy his or her first blade, but this one shouldn't be yours. There's not enough detail to tell much, but, with all the active rust on the tsuba, this wasn't a blade that was cherished.Please invest in a couple of good reference books, & check out the blades for sale on NMB.

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Dear Steve.

 

The images are not good but it's an interesting sugata from what can be seen, note the kissaki.  In the general market $1500 won't get you much and for someone who wants to own a sword and doesn't know a great deal this could be tempting, or it could be that someone has seen some potential and will look to get it polished with that in mind.  

 

All the best.

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I think this is the logic (valid or not)
Everyone wants to find that sleeper that no-one has discovered yet, that may possibly hold a very high end result. Although it is very unlikely...they are still out there and there are a handful still to be found. But once an old sword is discovered, the collector is going to clean it a bit...oil it, remove active rust. And thereafter probably post it on the internet or show his sword buddies. So when you find swords that are clean or already owned by collectors or have been cared for, chances are it has already been checked out and is nothing very special.
HOWEVER....when you come across a sword still dirty and rusted and shows no care at all, that is when you have a tiny....tiny....chance. A real sleeper. Just discovered, maybe left since the war or found in a barn.
The fact that no-one has oiled it or cleaned it and doesn't look like it was taken apart...that is the dream.
Just like this one. Looks like a real sleeper, uncared for and undiscovered.
Again, I make no claims that this is a valid theory or is the case here. But I can guarantee you this is part of why some swords jump in price.

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Almost straight naginata blade does have Kamakura or Nambokucho allure to it. 

This being said, the photographs here are just not informative enough to see what's going on. The widening on kissaki portion can be a very late trait, or can be distortion by the camera. Hard to say without a decent picture of the whole blade.

 

Kirill 

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F.Y.I this sword is currently on an auction site back east in the USA, with the auction running today, most likely over by now, as it is 1pm on the west coast now, with the east coast being 3 hours ahead.

 

Mark

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I live near the auction site and had an opportunity to examine the sword in hand.  The blade details were obscured by gunk, but no visible flaws.  What appears as possible ware in the photos is gunk on the blade. Very nice shape and good length.  But the selling price was a reflection of the fact that astute observers identified this as a probable kamakura nagamaki/naginata blade.  See Brian's post above. There are hints of great age in the auction photos.  The smaller grove evident on the tang is almost gone, polished down, on the blade(shown clearly on one of the photos on the auction site but not reproduced in this post)  and one hole on the tang is clearly not drilled but probably chiseled. The tang also showed great age and was much thicker than the blade indicating a significant number of polishes. The condition of the blade obscured most of the hamon but portions were evident showing what appeared to be a gunome pattern. Impossible to say if the hamon is intact on the entire blade.

 

Still the selling price was more than I was willing to pay due to the cost and uncertainty of restoration/shinsa outcome. I have no knowledge of the identity of the successful bidder and whether that bidder inspected the blade in person,.  There was only one day of viewing prior to the auction \and when I was there only one other person looked at the blades. One lesson to be learned is that NOTHING can replace a personal inspection of a blade.  Auction pictures/descriptions  can be very deceptive making a blade appear much better or worse than it actually is. 

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It's not going to kill the sword if you clean and wipe it afterwards. I think it is just bad manners and unnecessary. I would never do it to someone else's sword. On my own...I avoid it. But when I have done it, I don't feel like going to confession. I just wipe it carefully and try not to do it again. Let's not make a huge deal of it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just a passing observation.  Way back when I was using the Jim Kurrasch memorial power uchiko method of erasing the gunto grey and bringing out the hataraki on a non-rusty but out of polish sword, sometimes the cloth would seize on the blade and my fingers would slip off and directly contact the steel (luckily avoiding the ha, I hate seeing blood, particularly my own).  When I went back to applying and stroking the uchiko, I could feel the area where my bare skin had contacted the blade as the cloth would move faster over the oil slick, which was invisible to the eye.  Sooooo, how many strokes were necessary to remove the contamination?  Note that my fingers were not particularly sweaty or oily to start with, and I was using a lot of uchiko.  Answer: about fifty strokes or more before the slick area was completely erased.  Amazing what the "pores" of apparently smooth steel can retain.  One more observation from the basement.  :P

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