Wickstrom

Happy (early) birthday Brian!, Thanks again for giving us all the opportunity to congregate here on your amazing site. Cheers to you on your special day,

Personally i use an uchiko from the Bob Benson and a couple of Outer's Gun patches. Seems to work just fine.

Last picture i have of the blade.

As far as value of the blade, i am more concerned about paying to much for it then looking at it as an investment. The man selling this piece bought it at an estate auction and has an email from the polisher, possibly one of those old soldiers brought back from ww2 polished before the soldier died for an estimate on the value? its only in about 40% polish as of right now. Itame-hada combined with mokume and sporadic nagare-hada. Hamon is a merging of three patterns first Choji and then halfway up at the monouchi Gunome (with tobiyaki) starts and then all becomes Ko-Suguba fot the last 4 inches of the blade to the tip on one side. The other side is Midare (with points) becoming Ko-gunome then again suguba for the last 8 inches the other side. Boshi appears to be in ko-maru but it looks like yaki-tsume. High shinogi. Full hiraniku. I am not sure if the hamon is Nie or Nioi deki but it looks to have some chikae and other activities.

This blade is supposedly a mumei Bizen Kamakura although I'm a bit skeptical about it. Look at the nakago, the blade hardly curves at all compared to others from this period. Although the Hamon looks Bizen i do have my doubts about this blade..

Perhaps this is a silly question, but would a flaw like this ruin the value of any blade or just greatly lower it depending on the period and maker?

Sword Arrived today guys, turned out to be in a lot better condition then expected. no major flaws all those black spots were just very light pitting. I think it looks to be rather promising once i get a new polish for it. still haven't made a conclusion on what gassan this is apparently many signed with 2 characters...

Hello, The only places in the U.S I've heard them having a Shinsa at have been Miami,San Francisco, and Minneapolis. Although i really don't know if they do have more cities as options, they tend to go where there is a greater congregate of collectors. I believe Minneapolis has no real significant number of collectors, but its in the center where all the collectors scattered across the Midwest and New England can all gather without too much traveling so thats probably your best bet. Yoroshiku,

I envy all of you greatly, i was going to try to attend Shinsa but i had to attend to some family matters I'm afraid I have been studying nihonto for almost a year now and been collecting for about 3 months, now that i have accumulated a few blades i will most likely be attending the shinsa next year as its about a 20 minute car ride from my location versus a 4 hour plane ride to California. I wanted to ask some of the senior members here who have attended shinsa a few times, what is it like? is the attendance in the hundreds or the thousands? Is it like a hectic convention or more of a formally executed event? I am very eager to get introduced to the world of collectors out there as i think i am a bit geographically deprived from the larger community of sword enthusiasts. Yoroshiku,

I am a bit of a each, torn between art and artifact. Although i admire everything i collect as art i believe it is our duty to preserve them to the best of our ability. A sword should never be separated from its koshirae specifically for this reason. When it comes to this we must forget about money because is it really worth it? in 20 years will it have been worth it to rip part of the blade's story out of history in exchange for a small monetary gain? Although there is no shortage of gunto mounts, we can't deny that every one of them is unique. They are all made the same way, but every one has been carried to a different place, Housed a different blade, fought in a different battle, and eventually laid down on the table in front of a different commander. Like every sword, every koshirae is unique.

LOL , Jedi samurai with light-saber katanas, that just might be the most epic thing I've ever pictured in my head. :lol:

I thought cloisonne would have been some kind of special tsuba design. :lol: What would be the point of even having a glass tsuba...so much for a sword-guard.

Found this one on e-bay today. Not sure if its real or not, I don't really know much about tsuba. Although it does look pretty if anyone is interested. http://cgi.ebay.com/Japanese-katana-swo ... 45f2fab22c Yoroshiku,

Thanks Steven and Lotus, Looks like its Maeda then, I'll post some pics of the armor when/if i get it Yoroshiku,

Hello All, Having some trouble finding what family this mon belongs to. I got it off a showa dou that im looking to purchase. I did a rough sketch of it (my drawing isn't the best but you can at least get the idea of what it looks like), cherry blosom? Possibly a lotus? Any help would be appreciated. Yoroshiku,

Yeah, it comes with a shirasaya that looks almost brand new to me. Only downside is the 3 weeks shipping from Japan ill lost a picture of the blade down here vv

It was going at an extremely low price so i had to snag it. Blade comes with a new shira-saya and got it for well under $500.00 so its not setting me back too far even if it turns out to be asleep..

Thank you all for your replies ^^ It may just be the picture, but if the black specs are openings in the steel, I would steer well clear of this as this blade would be effectively asleep (worse than just tired IMHO). As Mark said, plenty of fish in the sea. Thanks for the tip, ill stay clear of this sword.

Anyone else want to throw in their .2 cents? It would be most appreciated. Hoping to make this my newest acquisition :D Arigato,

http://nihontoclub.com/smiths/YOS1086 ^^?

He probably does not list his name for a measure of security....I can't imagine what a reasonable price for a Heian blade that is actually intact would be...

Also just a tip: stay away from ebay, about 85% of the 'Genuine Nihonto' are fakes. If you are looking to get a nice study piece for a reasonable price i would suggest nihontocraft...where i got my first waki

Maybe that Native American got it from a British trader coming to America. Or possibly bought it from a white officer (American,French?) coming back from Japan when they were helping Japan westernize their armies? It might seem a bit far fetched but how else does during this time period, something from one end of the world end up in the other part?

I always love these old hand-colored photos. There are a couple of those firefighter's helmets similar to the ones in this picture for sale on ebay at the moment for a relatively low price if anyone is interested. Yoroshiku,

Sure, Minor pitting and maybe some grain openings? I'm still learning. I think its in great shape for being almost Nanbo.