Brian

Both genuine, and both look worth preserving and researching. Both appear to be older than WW2, and values maybe a bit higher than the entry levels that Bruce mentioned. Do we have anyone out that way that can take a look?

His classic sugata, and one of my Grails. Lovely sword.

Looks great. Having a full workshop here with lathe and knife belt grinder etc, I'd make short work of that. But you did awesome and it looks great.

Wow, that's bad. REALLY badly signed by someone who doesn't know Japanese. As mentioned, the shape is a write off and the whole tang looks to have been modified to deceive....even the extra mekugi ana in weird places. This is one to stay far away from. Is this from an online dealer? I'm guessing it's this one? https://aukro.cz/japonsko-rarita-originalni-rucne-kovana-katana-znacena-mistr-kunisuke-7113242336 Ugh...no. I think it may have been a genuine sword, but has been messed with so much that the value is minimal now.

Whilst way above your budget, this is a steal for what you are getting.

Welcome, and glad to have you on board. Feel free to share some of your other interests in the Izakaya. We have lots of members interested in your other hobbies too.

Good work! Very interesting. Put it into a pdf and send to me and I'll add it as an article with the appropriate credit

Likely post war kids swordfighting. No reason for them to have been done deliberately or during real action. This is from messing around. Luckily they aren't fatal, but certainly don't add anything.

Appears to be a Showato...not traditionally made. Wartime sword, I expect with the tassel you're looking at $1200 or around there. If paying much more than that, I would think twice.

Some remarkable deals here. A Nihonto in Gunto mounts, papered...for the price of a Showato?

No, I think Ed is being very open and legit here. Katana is strictly speaking 60.6cm. But yes...it does make a difference and only adds to the value that it's that close. Nice package.

Good deal! Papered mounted waki in polish with shirasaya? Beats the heck out of rusty project blades. Where are the novices looking for their first sword?

Yeah, performance is pretty low down on the list of what collectors are interested in, most of us don't regard that as a factor. We are collecting art here. They are all mostly functional.

Nick is well regarded. Plus he's one of the on-board dealers here, so they usually are highly regarded and approachable.

Well done Bruce. I feel that is all due to you guys.

Awesome write up. Thank you for sharing with the members

Email @Ed at the address in his signature.

Back to the drawing board. For me it's faster, but if you are experiencing that then there is still something up. I know the server was down for a bit while they rebooted, but will wait to hear from others to see if they still experience issues. If anyone does, please post the time and your timezone, so that we can check the server logs at that time. Thanks.

I have had the hosts increase the CPU useage and paid to upgrade the RAM. Please post here and let me know if you see increased speed or performance or if there are still issues. Thanks.

I would really be asking the seller if they guarantee it would pass shinsa. If they say yes, you are (more) safe. It's a gorgeous piece even if gimei.

If it's considered genuine, and the seller seems to imply that it is...you know the end price is going to be 10-20X what the current price is, right? Condition doesn't worry me, pieces at that leave were often not made to be mounted or used, they were high class even back then. I haven't seen modern fakes of this sort of work, but that doesn't imply that they don't exist. Someone could ask the seller if they guarantee it would paper.

I was actually testing an alternative setting. I'll change it back tomorrow. This one has the advantage of listing all the latest posts and on the rhs you can filter out dealers you want to see. But it was just a trial and tbh, I forgot to change it back

The updated file is now in the original post. May upload it to the downloads section over the weekend. Thanks!

Welcome Ed, and glad to have you here. We wish you success.

Provenance (Marius) can't be faulted either, whatever comes through his hands was carefully selected.