Koshirae question

[Spunjer]

Hello all,
this might sound stupid but, how does one add a koshirae to a blade that came with a shirasaya? do you have it custom made? what about the fittings that go with it? is there like a theme that you built? i saw a few at the Aoi Japan website, but how do you know they fit? i know, lots of question...

[PNSSHOGUN]

As each Koshirae is custom made for a blade it will be difficult to find one that will be a good fit. Also if the blade is a nice polish the last thing you want to do is stick it in an old Saya full of old oil, dirt etc etc.

[Grey Doffin]

Hi Ron,

What John said and: your shirasaya is the best protection for the blade so you want to keep it there, which means that you can go ahead and buy an older koshirae that you can display next to your blade in shirasaya but never try to put the blade in the koshirae. This is far less expensive than having koshirae built to fit your blade, which means you can get better quality koshirae than you would have been able to afford had you built the koshirae to fit.

Grey

[Bugyotsuji]

Assume that no (old) koshiraé will fit. Various knotty problems arise when considering adapting one that looks close.

As mentioned above, if you have the cash, then have one made. You can’t buy age though, if that’s an important factor.

For your next purchase you might consider the opposite approach, i.e. first buying a complete blade/koshiraé package, and then having a shirasaya made for it.