oxbone with what appears to be true nihonto mounted

[jason_mazzy]

Sorry for the ebay post but this one had me quite intrigued. I usually only see these pieces in the "kitchen steel" touristy crap blades. This on the other hand seems to be nihonto.

 

2 questions then:

 

1 what ,where, when, and why? (since this seems to usually only be for tourist pieces)

2 if you owned this how could you remove the blade to check the nakago?

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... :MEBIDX:IT

[sanjuro]

Jason.

 

What makes you think this is a nihonto blade? The carving on the saya and tsuka appear to be Chinese not Japanese. There is no apparent way of removing the tsuka although there should be. Some of the fakes have wedged-in blades instead of a mekugi secured blade. The blade details are indistinct so there is no way of knowing if this is a nihonto. From the pictures there appears to be no yokote. Chances are its a Chinese rip off. At $350 starting price obviously the seller doesnt think its worth a great deal. Why chance it? There are no important cultural properties lurking in ox bone mounts, I guarantee it!

If you bought this blade you would be taking a risk. Your money...... your risk.

[jason_mazzy]

This isn't for me. I was posting it as a discussion piece because I have never seen an oxbone with what appears to be a properly shaped blade mounted before. All the ones I had seen were that kitchen steel non sharpened garbage. I had heard of nihonto ox bone mounts and when I saw an actually shaped blade with polish and burnishing I was intrigued. I was curious if others had seen bone mounts with legit nihonto in them? If so why in bone mounts? And was it at all common?

 

This was posted meely as an oddity for me to ask a uestionabout

[b.hennick]

Hello:

I have had my dentist X-ray a tsuka that could not be removed. The blade was hidden in a fan. It turned out to have one hole and a reasonable shape. So if you can get access to an X-ray machine that is the way to go.

[jason_mazzy]

I guess my main question is, why would anyone mount a real blade (not saying this is real) in an oxbone koshirae that was unremovable. and how do they mount it that way as to be permanent.

[Jamie]

Carving isn't good.

There is a thread her about Ivory and Bone mounts. You should look for that thread. Good blades are usually in good mounts-as I know you're aware. But If Bone and Ivory mounts interest you-you should definitely search for that thread. there are many very nice examples. The difference between the carving in them, and the carving on this one is easily evident.

[Brian]

Hmm...

The blade has a decent chance of being real imho. Hamon looks ok, as does the shape. Carving isn't great, but not the worst.

What you find is that during the Meiji period when they were churning out touristy pieces, anything would go. They would make new and trashy blades, or take older blades and chuck them in new "flashy" mounts that the tourists bought. I have a nice Nobuyoshi tanto with one mekugi ana that was stuck into brass "aoi mon" mounts with no place for a mekugi. They used pine resin.

So no matter what this one is, you can find any number of different qualities in mounts like this. One has to judge the blade, and not the mounts.

 

Brian