Value - how do you determine ?

[markturner]

Hi everyone, I just wanted to start a discussion on the value of Nihonto and how that might be decided. before we start, I would like to make the comment that something is, quite obviously only worth what you can sell it for. However, even this confuses - say you have a piece for sale and want $10,000. lets assume that it would be correctly priced at that sum. If you could find no buyers and had to sell, and settled for half that amount, what does that make the value?

 

I was prompted to actually post about this ( it has been going around in my head for while, as I amass a few pieces as a novice collector and aficionado) by several pieces on E-bay at the moment from various sellers I have favourited ( as you do, idle window shopping...) . I wont link to each ( although I can, if anyone thinks it would help) but to me, they seem pretty similar. all are wakizashi, some have pretty nice if nothing special koshirae, some are papered to Hozon or kitcho,some not. Some are mumei, some not.They all look like nice swords to me, and have interesting hamon, hada etc. Yet they range in price from £600 up to nearly £3000. For example - this sword: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/400279418233? ... _500wt_922, which is way more expensive than this sword : http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251045395144? ... 750wt_1392

 

You see similar things often, with online shops and other e bay sellers. As the variety and number of smiths is so huge and there seems to be no real way of estimating the value of low to middle range swords - they are not like cars where you pretty much establish a book price for any car secondhand. I realise more important smiths and schools do not really enter this discussion for obvious reasons, but why the large variation in cost in the examples I gave?

 

regards, Mark

[paulb]

Mark,

At risk of offering a biased and somewhat Jaundiced view the value of Nihoto is little different to any other antique field. You are absolutely right in that the only thing that determines it's value is what some else is prepared to pay for it.

The things which determine price are (but not necessarily in this order)

 

1. Quality- is it well made a representative of the smith/school.

2. Condition- is it free of faults caused by misuse poor storage or ealrlier poor workmanship

3. rarity- if you lust after a certain smith or school and there only 40-50 known examples of their work you are likely to pay a premium.

4 Provenance- important to some people, who owned it before.

It is almost impossible to put a price range up for swords based on anything other than the above.

I have seen Hozon papered swords range in value from £1500 to £150,000

Juyo blades from £15000 to £250000 (and I am sure many would go higher)

The only governing factor on value is what someone will pay at any given time for what you are selling.

To determine whether what you are buying is good value you need to study the subject, decide what aspects you are interested in and then decide if what you are seeing meets those criteria.

Do not buy swords (or any other antique) as an investment, substitute pension scheme etc. Buy them because you are interested in the subject and like what you see. At the end of it if you are lucky and careful you will get your money back and have had all that fun for free.

Also while starting out seek the advice of others who have been around the subject for longer. Most would be happy to help.

Best Regards

Paul

[kbt]

Mark, I am also new to this, but from what I have gathered so far, it is all just someones opinion when it comes to nihonto.

Nobody alive today witnessed any signatures or saw any old blades constructed so, learned people voice an opinion of a blade and the "possibility" of who made it. Signatures seem to be worthless, and from what I have read so far, Japanese national treasures suspect. Of course I am very new and this is just my opinion, but I don't think there is any way to tell who made a blade so you will have to go by what you are willing to pay for any given nihonto.

Again just one new guy's opinion.

Kim Toth

[cabowen]

I don't think it is quite as bleak as that when it comes to signatures but there are indeed more fakes of famous smiths than bona fide works.....If you put the time in, you will eventually be able to form opinions of your own when you come across obvious fakes. It never hurts to buy only from reputable dealers and to limit oneself to papered examples. But of course many prefer to bottom feed with hopes that they can discover missing treasure....they usually end up with garbage. As has been said many times, good, collectable Japanese swords are not cheap and collecting them is not for those with very limited resources.

 

Nothing wrong with someone who only has $500 to spend and wants a Japanese sword as long as they understand they are going to, in most cases, end up with something most collectors would never give a second look at....

[kbt]

My resources are far from limited, but I am easily talked into things I should avoid, gullible is what we call it. I am a

person and what I say is what I mean and the truth as I see it. But I have come to realize that there are a lot of people out in the world who are less than honest in their business practices and so one should be very cautious.

I have bought and read every book suggested to me , and I am shocked at the amount of forgery that has gone on in nihonto.

I just assumed it was only money that was forged. Then I read the story of Kanesuga ? that heard his signature being forged .

Its gone on from the beginning and they where using chisels and hammers not ball point pens so that also should be taken into account I believe.

I'm sure I'm way off but, I'll get it figured out eventually, at least I hope I do. Haha.

Kim Toth

[kusunokimasahige]

I think you jump to this conclusion too quickly. It is not always in the signature, the beauty of a blade.

 

You should look at the entire package. Of course many famous smiths were faked by putting their signature on blades. Sometimes it was even done to honour a certain smith's work, mostly it was done to fake. But it would be not that useful to state that since names were faked, therefore the blades should/would be out of value....

 

A Gimei on a Nihonto is a fake signature, nothing more. The blade itself can merit a lot of value and even its beauty as well as perfection.

 

KM

[b.hennick]

Hello:

Here is my take on things based on a fair amount of experience. Yes the final price is the price that buyer and seller agree upon. BUT who the buyer is plays a role.

Buyers

1. If the buyer is a dealer, the dealer has to make a profit or he/she will not be inbusiness long. He might have to hold the piece in inventory for a long time. That costs money as the money invested in the piece cannot be used to buy other pieces. Accordingly the price has to be low.

2. If the buyer is a collector who wants the blade for his collection, he should be willing to pay top dollar market value.

3. If the buyer is a collector who wants to study the blade for a while and then sell it at cost or a small profit then he will be willing to pay less than top market vlaue, probably less than market.

4. If the buyer is a person who is in love with the sword, fairly new to collecting he would be willing to pay over market value as he does not know the market only the love of the sword. (been there done that for #2, 3 and 4)

Sellers

1. Ebay - know your vendors, know your blades before buying - what is the return policy? There are some good pieces on ebay many poor pieces. It is easy to get burned.

2. Nihontomessageboard - there are known sellers, who should know what they have and what it is worth. Having said that I have seen overpriced and underpriced blades for sale. I have also seen well priced blades being sold by a collector who wanted to upgrade his collection.

3. Dealer web-sites - I check some every day. Good dealers buy right and so can sell ata reasonable price. If you have a relationship with one you can often get a better deal. They love repeat business. Know who has a good reputation and values it.

4. Sword Shows - great places to see blades of all levels of quality. Often shows are confusing to new collectors - too much too see and too little knowledge to decide. I suggest asking for help. Some swords never make it to the show room as they are sold before the show. Some blades stay under the table to be shown only to friends or "qualified buyers". (Do you want your $20k sword damaged by a new collector?)

5. Gun shows. Some people selling blades do not know what they have. Some think that they have a national treasure when they have a Chinese copy. Some sell stories rather than blades. Again if you know what you are looking at and what it is worth you can sometimes make a good buy at a gun show.

6. J.S.S.U.S.Newsletter - members can post ads for free. One can find good deals occasionally. Some post adds looking for special blades.

 

Factors to consider when detemining value include:

shape, who made the blade (is the signature genuine), when was the blade made, condition (does it need restoration (expensive, time consuming and perhaps in the end no increase in value as kizu may appear)), papers (current? level?), provenance, mounts/shirasaya (quality, signed (genuine), complete (needs a kozuka), hada (love good hada), hataraki (love good activity), hamon (love...), balance in hand (does it feel right), and so on.

Often the best prices are from collectors who bought a long time ago (lower price) and now want to sell in order to buy something expensive. (I have been in the position of having to sell to buy.)

 

Do not be afraid to ask for advice from peers or senior collectors. I do.

[markturner]

Hi Paul & all, all very true and I appreciate the advice. I was more interested in not so much knowing whether there was a specific value in something but more as a comment on the huge variation in what you can pay , for what looked like, at least to my beginners eyes, essentially very similar swords... For example, you say, buy what you like you see - taking those swords and the other 2 that made up the group of 4 I was comparing, they were all pretty much similar swords, yet up to 4 times difference in cost. It makes you wonder how dealers like those guys on E-bay arrive at the prices they decide to charge. Such huge variation of course raises the question in a potential buyers head "Am I paying the right price?" Then it makes you think, why is the cheap one of the 4 so cheap?

 

I think it all gets somewhat esoteric after you establish that a sword is genuine, healthy, in good polish, nice shirasaya or koshirae, nice hamon and activity, good nio-guchi- perhaps papered. This would apply to many thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands of swords and I think if a sword you buy fulfills those criteria, then you are doing OK. However - say you buy a sword as above, Now - I am studying my books and looking at as many write ups of quality swords as I can see, yet, I find it impossible to so far to see the difference in some of the good swords and many of the excellent or priceless ones in basic physical characteristics. In fact, most of the swords I own, look every bit as nice as many of these Juyo and above swords I see in the books, so it gets very difficult to make judgements of value over and above that the sword fulfills the basic criteria for being a quality sword. From there it all comes down to the smith - who, when and where to determine the value I guess.

 

It must make being a dealer in swords a very tricky way to make a living! After all, that depends somewhat on there being 2 price bands..trade price and retail price doesn't it?

 

Regards, Mark

[John A Stuart]

Many things that make a sword more precious have been mentioned and they become more understood as you cut your teeth and mature in your knowledge and taste. However, there are the intangibles which make one sword shine above others for collectors and sparks the obsessive acquisitiveness we have from time to time. This is almost impossible to describe. The closest I can come is 'a chair'. You are in a room, there are 5 chairs of relatively equal dimensions, etc., but, there is one to which you gravitate above all others. No logical reason, it just is that way. You would pay more to preserve that chair if allowed to save only one from the dustbin. Collectors aren't terribly sane, are we? John

[runagmc]

Hey Mark, In the 2 swords you linked to, I think the price difference is somewhat understandable. The one signed Yasumitsu is shobu zukuri, has full koshirae of half decent quality, it's signed, it has a visually interesting mokume hada, and mabey overall has a little more unique look.

 

Although it's not papered and the other is, the things I point out might have something to do with the price difference. Also since the 2 sellers obviously weren't pricing the blades in comparison with each other you could expect some variance in the prices they come to. Even if they were pricing the same sword it would come down to what they felt they could get, which would probably be different 99/100 times, just due to any number of factors like personal experience and knowledge and blah blah blah

 

Anyway, I'm sure even the most experienced in the field can sympathize with you. I look at swords for sale all the time and think, "How in the world did they come up with that price tag". And then it sells and I'm left wondering why people pay the prices they pay sometimes...

 

Also, I would point out that a lot of times the differences in quality can't be seen well in pictures...

[chrstphr]

I think part of the price difference in the two ebay swords you linked to is

 

first one is in Koshirae, is koto era and is signed (even if sig turned out to be gimei)

 

the second one is in shirasaya, is mumei and edo period. Also being unsigned in the edo period would raise a flag with me. Most swords from Shinto onward are all signed. why not this one?

 

I would expect the latter to be much cheaper than the first one even with the hozon paperwork as its not as old, and is unsigned from a late era that should have had a mei.

 

 

 

Chris