Brian

Signs of sudareba, and a decent looking mei. Looks good to me.

No. As mentioned previously, these are almost always (never seen a single case of anything different) put there to mark the blade and identify it, likely for fittings purposes. If you send out a number of blades for fittings or work, you are going to want to mark them in such a way that you can identify what goes with what later.

IMHO, oil quenched.

He did state set....not matching set. Yes, they are a set of fittings. Matching set would have been something else entirely.

Give them a double edged ken, then see whether the natural instinct is to rest the blade on the hand

Look at self-publishing. In today's world, it really isn't that difficult, even if you want a high class product. There are lots of resources and print on demand. We're way past the point of just Lulu now

Confusing matters by posting 2 different swords in this thread. The original sword is a repro. The second one looks to be a decent one. Swords with bonji and horimono on them, even if shortened until they are in the nakago, should be looked at more closely for quality, as it could be a decent sword.

What a joke. You think museums know anything?? Unless they have experts like Markus on board, you can assume they would show a dustbin lid if someone told them it was an ancient Chinese battle shield. C'mon...pull the other one.

Yes, but I think we are both wondering who is the modern smith making it?

Eek. No....just no. Gives off all sorts of "wrong" vibes.

I don't value shinsakuto any less than older swords, rather judge them on their quality. There are some amazing modern pieces and to have one made to your specs is really a dedicated act of support. If that's what you want to do, go for it!

Thanks all.

Hi all. This is (printed?) on a jinbaori and is repeated in a few places making me think it’s part of the design. But was wondering what it says? Thanks.

Sho stamp. Definitely Showato

Just scanning through the Bushido articles , I'm amazed at some of the valuable info therein. But one passage stood out for me. Bear in mind, this was way back in 1980, and in an interview with John Yumoto, John had this to say: How prophetic was that... I still believe physical books have a strong place in this field of study, and know many prefer them. Nothing like having a book open in front of you while you study a sword. We need to actively support sellers like Grey and others, and many references are still only in hard copy format. But he was right about the world changing, and how info would be disseminated.