Ruben

Hi Dave, 1200 $ is a good price, but are you realy like the work on nihontoantiques page, ...juging from pics ?. :| Tsuka- maki is quit beautyfully done. Regards Ruben

Hi, interesting tsuba. In my opinion these are rats, cause of the tails. Especially the very left one shows a rippled naked tail. greetings Ruben

Dear Gentlemen, I am not well adjucated, but the tsuba looks to me poor made (near to fake) and someone filed the nakago- ana bigger. greetings Ruben

Hi Gentlemen, nice topic, discussion and tsuba. Nothing realy usefull to add, but I think it´s not possible to say if its flower from rose or cherry tree, cause they are from the same family, like pear, apple and other stone fruits. So I think it´s like Marc said, 1 to 3 the Last blossom is ripe and is maybe falling to ground or is already there, (like a elegant worrior that looses his rouged head, sorry for this, it´s just on my mind). sincer regards ruben

Lol, here is the Link i wanted to post mounth ago, sorry : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d2b1PoRjBg Regards Ruben

Hi Gentlemen, again nothing usefull to add, but I am stoked about the hada at kissaki part. It was and still is a very interesting old sword. Greetings! Ruben

Hi Gentlemen, just to answear the question about stamp´s on old sword´s, there are some in my opinion . I saw few nakago with this kind of feature, without nowing anything about there meaning. With stamp you mean a kind of symbol combined with kanji, not just kanji or mon? The things i saw, were maybe chisseld, not 100% shure that the were stamped. If i find some example i will sure post it here . Regards Ruben

Hi Ron, thank you for posting pic´s this wonderfull sword . I like the elegant, strong shape of it. Can´t judge anything els with my knowledge . I noticed that the "Jurokugiko" is pretty deeply chisseld, it seems so for me. Any thoughts on that? Regards Ruben

Hi James, About 130 km from Köln there is "Wiesbaden", were you can visit "Juwelier Strebel" (http://www.juwelier-strebel.de/asien-ku ... atana.html), if iam right :lol: . I have never been there, but it must be very interesting :D. They are friendly. Just you have to call there before. Greetings! Ruben

Whats the right lenth is hard to say, sure it depends on the wight of the sword and the lenth and the user. It was just a idea, cause a short tsuka would be very unusefull (the tsuka of my sword would be to short, also the sword would be....hmmm). For me a ideal tsuka would be 27-28 cm, not more not less. Maybe its just a aesthetic things, I stongly belive this also Greetings

Hi Everyone, I think when a soldier(officer) was wearing a sword, he had to pratice also with it. The sarute would maybe be realy annoying. Also the Gunto- tsuka´s weren´t that long, so it´s easy to come down with the hand when training hard. I can imagine this can cause realy pain when the hand is whipping arrond on that 3 hours in a row. (I got hard skin on my right hand upper side hand, near the first thump joint, it came from the tsuba) When fighting from horseback one handed the sarute with tassel is usefull to catch the own sword before loosing it in a tricky situation. It can be very easily removed with bare hands and also applied again,... so no problem to leave it at home when swinging the sword outside . It´s just my humble opinion, so don´t take it to serious Regards! Ruben

Hi Gentlemen, this is Sekiguchi Komei, said to be the 21. Soke of Muso Jikiden Eshin Ryu. In this Ryu the technics seem to be more realistic and less stylised (as far as I can judge this by learning just this single one), also there is a great attendion payed to chiburi. Regards! Ruben

Hi Toru, few years ago I was in your situation. I finished scool and got some money from my granny . In the meantime I realy felt in love with "art swords", never gave too much attention to tosogu. I allways had the wish to own a katana or tachi as many newcomer. At this time I realy had no expertise. (Still now I´am very newbiesh. ) One day I found a interesting hefty mumei katana on ebay, it was about 2000 dollars or so. I purchased it, shure I was taken in little bit by the seller (cause of pitting on the blade at a small area), but all in all I can say its a very very interesting studypiece and I would never sell it again. Maybe it was just luck in my case, but on the other hand I developed a kind of taste. Only now my eyes slowly learn to observe, cause its a realy difficult piece with very tight hada. Being a member in this lovely forum is allways a good way to go Greetings! Ruben

That would be very nice of you! But at the same time you should show me your swords one day ! Liebe Grüsse! Ruben

I rarely got so much praise David (needed a dictionary) :lol: Thank You. Kind Regards Ruben

lol, you should be blessed It seems to be old (like the nakago/ and patina, mei looking good as well). I´am not an expert, lol,... it´s just taste at this point. Greetings Ruben

Hi, congratulation , I realy like this sword. Thank You! Ruben

Hi Gentlemen, many thank´s for the helpfull explanations on this topic. Also thank you xxlotus8xx for assisting. I gave it a little time to answear, I thought its better like this before thing getting out of round Hmmm never learned english in scool, nihonto seems to be a mulifuntional thing for some people :lol: Regards Ruben

Has anybody an idea how to start my research about wich smith is willing to teach a european deki? I thought maybe to write a mail to the NBTHK, to find out who is where working or so. Need a good hint in the right direction. Greeings!

Hallo David, makes me sad to hear that he is gone. I´am to coward at the moment, but if there is chance I have to capture it. I try to outwit my self, cause I would be scared to do this step, but on the other hand I now it´s the right desire. Ruben

Hi Gentlemen, my hole lifetime I´am obsessed by the idea to bring sth. into being. I now how it feels when falling in a meditativ frame of mind by doing hard work and overcome physical barriers. Unfortunately I didn´t listen to my Inner voice until now. My question is if somebody nows how or where I can get information about getting kaji as european. The fact that I can´t speak Japanese is too bad, but this will be a handicap in anyways. On the other hand I´am shure if someone is willing to do the work and learn, language will be not a big problem at first. Maybe this sounds childish to someone, but I´am very serious about this question. sincere thanks Ruben

Since it happened I wanted to wright somthing, but i couldn´t. My thought are with the people. It makes me sad.

Welcome ! Ruben

Hi Milika, for a quik advice, I wouldn´t go over 3 shaku with the swordlenght, than the noto will be very difficult especialy with a shinken lol. In our ryu we use very long swords, so some movements are little difficult, for example you have to "touch" (hard to describe) the saya when doing kata´s in kneeing position, to prevent it from making noice or get damaged. (we allways "touching" the saya before bringing the left arm up to tsuka, for many reasons (kime)). The other think is when drawing the sword, without saya biki and using the hipps you will never draw a 3 shaku sword. Also the sword is not drawn out of the saya, its more like the saya is pulled back as much as possible. So its up to you, "easy" to handle is a sword with nagasa 70 cm (way to short for me), ideal length is about 85cm in my case. My sensei says: "learn to hanlde big swords, than the short ones will be very easy for you." This is his personal opinion and fits to our ryu and the way we wear the swords (in front, not sideways and tsuba is in one line with the right side of the hip). Best Regards! Ruben

Hi, how come that nobody replays on my post? I think the way I discribed the cleaning process is the only inoffensive, if executed carefully. No need for chemicals in my opinion. cheers! Ruben