Shugyosha

Hi Steve, I'm pretty much a newbie too so take this with as much salt as necessary. Though I bit unclear for my inexperienced eyes, I would agree that the mei in the picture reads Geishu (no) ju Fujiwara Fuyuhiro. If that is the case then it may or may not be the smith mentioned in John Stuart's post. According to Hawley's, there were a number of smiths of this name working in Aki (Geishu) between 1593 and 1864 but there was only one smith signing using "Fujiwara" as above and he worked in the period 1661 - 1675. This smith gets a ranking of 15 points. If you are able to post pictures of the blade itself you might well get some confirmation or rejection of this view as the sugata for the period around Kanbun when this guy worked is likely to be different from that of Tensho. I hope that this helps but if you hang on you might well get a more educated view in a while. Kind regards, John Johnson

Sorry, I've worked it out now. Duh. John Refers to what I thought was a previous post but which it doesn't look like I actually posted. Please ignore.

Dear All, I have been lurking for a while and hoping to soak up some information whilst avoiding getting roasted for my ignorance and so I guess I should take this opportunity to make an introduction. JP - here is a link to a sword advertised on the aoi art website as suitable for iaido or batto jutsu. I've no idea as to its suitability but I think it might fit your price range: http://www.aoi-art.com/iai/11407.html Kind regards, John M. Johnson