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koto katana?


werner

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Hi,

 

Just wanted to hear what you guys think about this one? I had a seperate post discussing a broken nakago - if you look at the nakago you can see why I was interested in starting the other post...

 

Sori: 16 mm

Cutting edge: 67 cm

Nakago: 20 cm

thickness at habaki: 8mm

thickness at yokoto: 5mm

width at habaki: 32.5mm

width at yokoto: 21 mm

 

Silver foil habaki - 1 small blister

 

I don't know what else would be of interest...please ask

 

Thanks for your opinion.

 

Regards,

 

Jock

 

PS: I posted some pics but will delete some after a while...

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Jock.

 

In the kindest and most encouraging way possible, can I urge you to lift your sights a little? Koto this may be (not entirely sure of it at the moment) and perhaps not as tired as some. It does however have a number of problems quite beyond the nakago damage. For what this would cost plus polishing and assuming there is no nasties waiting to be discovered by a togishi, you can purchase a better undamaged koto blade in a better state of polish. You seem to have a fairly good eye for a blade and that is to be encouraged. Now perhaps is a good time for you to aspire to a better class of blade.

 

Now as for this one; Whilst the damage is possibly romantically attractive and makes of this blade an interesting war artifact, it does nothing to recommend the blade as an example of a koto blade. Quite apart from the war damage thing, this blade has been neglected and that neglect is expensive to rectify. If the boshi is intact then it may be worth a restoration, but its hard to tell from the pictorial evidence we have. Can you supply more photo detail please? :D

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The photos show a sword with virtually no sori this leads us to think more shinto the fact that there is a silver foil habaki also leads one to think shinto-shinshinto

 

All due respect to Mr Kanarek, but this is rather a flimsy argument in the light of what can be seen. It is also inaccurate

 

Bernard.

 

Actually, a silver foiled habaki only indicates that the habaki has been silver foiled! The blade could equally be koto suriage (Evidence the position of the lower mekugi ana and the squared nakago jiri), which would account for the lesser sori and the habaki in that case would be a replacement for the original.

Silver foiling of Habaki dates back to at least the Momoyama period, and is not a very reliable indicator in isolation, of the age of the blade it is mounted upon.

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Jock

 

Like me you live in Australia...... Our world is built upside down...... Oh yeah, and for you at least on the east coast, at the moment your world is predominantly wet. ;)

 

That kissaki doesnt look too bad although the pitting is unfortunate. Do you own this sword?

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Hi Keith,

 

Yeap East Coast - we're lucky our house is on a hill but my wife, who's a nurse, she got flooded in 2x and got stuck in the hospital once for 4 days the other time for 2 days.......one of our neighbours wasn't this lucky and his house didn't only get flooded once but 3 times in the last 1 1/2 years - his big fridge freezer was found 400 meters down the road - you can imagine what this did to the rest of the house.....

 

To answer your question - yes it's one of mine and the pitting looks a lot worse on the pic than it really is....there are no nicks openings hagire etc the only thing is a 1.5mm x 2mm blister.....and the nakago problem....

 

Jock

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This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one, unless your post is really relevant and adds to the topic..

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