Is a date worth 1,000,000 JPY?

[Jean]

I got my tachi from Ginza Choshuya, cost at that time was 2 M¥.

[Artorius]

Quick update: I decided to take a step back and purchase a less expensive first blade (online auction) to study it & learn from its characteristics. Attaching some pics as well as my interpretation: 

 

Width at the hamachi: 3.18 cm

Width at the kissaki: 2.06 cm

Sori: 1.91 cm (best as I can tell, the point of most curvature is closer to the center of the blade rather than the lower 1/3).

Length of the blade: 71.43 cm

 

Hamon: hako-midare and notare.

Hada:  I'm really struggling with this one. 

 

Would love to hear what everything thinks as well as if it's worth submitting to NBTHK. I'm thinking a shinto blade? Feels very similar to this Wakizashi, and according to this post, Iga-no-kamni Kinmichi made blades with Hako-midare hamon. 

[Artorius]

Some additional pictures:

[BjornLundin]

Hi Chris,

 

I am probably not the right person, but from the limited knowledge I have, I would not send this word to shinsa or not now. The kissaki is regarded as the face of the blade and I see that it has several issues it can be a turn down for many. Then the polishing, I don't know if it was done by a professional nor if the hamon is real. The nagako looks to have a drilled hole, which probably limits the age of the blade. 

 

With my limited knowledge, I would take my words with a big bag of salt. For me there are several issues, is it fake or real.

 

I started without learning enough and still don’t know if my first blade was good or bad, then one could argue what is the threshold of knowledge you need to have for first purchase and that is probably answered what your end goal is, which is, of course, hard to know in the beginning.