NBTHK Online Sword Directory

[MassiveMoonHeh]

Does anyone know if NBTHK have ever suggested they would put their sword directory online? I know I would pay to get an annual membership to that. I suspect majority/ everyone here would. 

 

A NBTHK Juyo & Tokubetsu Juyo Shinsa book costs around 20,000 yen each. That is 60,000 yen every two years for two Juyo and one TB books or 30,000 yen a year on average. But I am not sure how many of these books they print or sell annually and therefore do not actually know how much they make from this exercise.

 

Current Japanese NBTHK membership costs 12,000 yen and foreign membership costs 19,200 yen - I believe this use to cost more because they sent mail internationally but I am also advised that all of this is now online since covid? So I am not sure how many members they have -  a few I suspect but not as many as are members registered with clubs and forums such as NMB.

 

If they provided the NBTHK sword database to members I suspect they could probably ask 25,000 or 2,500/month (Price of a Netflix subscription) across the board and negate the need for local and international snail mail.

 

As this is a subscription to an educational service subscribers could probably also get a tax deduction for this in most countries.

 

I think this could really take off if they did a deal where sword clubs and forums are allowed to apply for association status, so that the club can get subscriptions to the NBTHK at a discount rate (20% less perhaps) that would allow the club or forum to fund their activities through the difference between the subscription and the discount. 

 

It would bring in some much needed revenue for the clubs and forums, that currently struggle, it would bring in more money to NBTHK and the data access would be super helpful for the community. A win, win for everyone really. There is also opportunity for the NBTHK to license their images and sell them if people wanted to use them outside of the NBTHK database. They could also charge the retailers more (like 100,000 a year) to allow them to use the NBTHK data, images & certificates in their sales advertising. It just makes economic and commercial sense. I am not sure they get anything from the retailers who scan in and currently use the NBTHK certificates on their websites?

 

Does  anyone know more about this? Surely something like this must have been discussed in the higher circles of the NBTHK in the past? But I am very aware of how reluctant the Japanese are to online usage especially in the Nihonto space where the average age is not exactly young. The Japanese also appear to love paper work, snail mail and red tape - in a way these last 30 years or the "lost" 30 years have seen a lot of Japan left in the 90s. So I am aware this is not a small exercise and would involve a significant amount of work, infrastructure and mental realignment to set this up but I am also sure that I am not the only one who wants this - the Nihonto community is desperate for high resolution images. It would be so good to have a single source for this information - the benefit analysis & growth of this space would be absolutely enormous. 

 

If the NBTHK are not willing to do this due to the size or uncertainty of the project then perhaps there is an opportunity for a private institution to exclusively license this data from the NBTHK and on sell it themselves to the community? Of course if there was a really rich benefactor who would be willing to fund this and make this incredible data available for free, then I will also not object.

 

Morning thoughts.

[Toryu2020]

Great thoughts Brett - 

I think you should propose this to the NBTHK/AB, I am not sure the Japan office has thought on these, they really should. I will point out that one of your proposals is already a reality. The Northern California Japanese Sword Club and the Metropolitan New York Club both have reciprocal relationships via the NBTHK/AB we pay one fee for membership in both clubs. Also we still get the NBTHK magazines in the mail, it is the NCJSC that went digital and now produces its newsletter only electronically...

-t

[Jussi Ekholm]

I do think all international members still get the physical magazine, to be honest that is pretty much my only reason for my NBTHK membership, as crazy as it sounds. I think I've been a member for 15 years now, and the most important thing for me is the monthly magazine. 

 

The book print runs are pretty small amounts, I was very surprised when years ago Darcy told me about the numbers. As I cannot remember the actual number he told me I cannot say exact number but it was very small in my opinion. The Financial report in magazine 8/2025 has membership numbers and lot other information. I am not sure if it would be ethical to share that on open forum as it is in member exclusive magazine. I can just state generally that number is smaller than perhaps most would think. As I have all the magazines it is easy to see the evolution and just to be curious I checked 2005 magazine to see how things were 20 years ago...

 

I would love to have access to view all of the items that have passed Hozon & Tokubetsu Hozon as these are the unknown items that are still under radar. The problem in this is that I believe there are something like 250,000+ items in this range. I have heard that some collectors do not want to send an item to Jūyō as they want to keep it private. I can also understand that view, however for research purchases I think open share of information is extremely important. There are some "hidden" items in Japan, and I always feel excited when I find a new interesting item, however they might still be well known among Japanese circles just flying below radar.

 

As an idea that is superb and I do feel the organization should really look into something like this.