Kronos

I think it's safe to say it's a wakizashi (Under 60.6cm measuring from the mune-machi to the tip). better photo'sof second sword including one of the full nakago and one of the bare blade including nakago would be useful. Edit: I see you already posted one of the nakago.

I'd say Moritaka 盛高 for the second one.

Sword 1 is a naval kai gunto made from Stainless steel. They were made from Stainless steel for the Imperial Japanese Navy to resist salt corrosion and has the Naval stamp on the nakago to indicate this. The saya appears to be a relatively high quality one made of rayskin. Sword 2 is an older traditionally made katana that probably dates between 1500-1750, hard to tell an exact age from the photo's. It looks to be in a good state of polish and may be quite good. It is signed by the swordsmith on the nakago and I'll try and translate it now. Sword 3 might be a wakizashi (How long is the blade?) that's mumei (unsigned). It's in fairly low quality mounts and if I were to take a stab at age then it fits the shape of the Kanbun period (circa 1660).

At the end of the day anyone who attempts to polish their own swords or sends them to an amateur is costing themselves a lot of money as no one who knows anything about nihonto is going to ever buy it without a significant price reduction. If you can't afford a proper polish then you're better off selling to someone who can and buying another sword already in polish with the proceeds, rather than turning what would be an unpolished $3000 katana into a badly polished $1000 katana or worse. Take the showato in the OP. That went from something probably worth a few hundred $$$'s to what is now worthless except maybe as a curiosity or to the unsuspecting ebay bidder who might get it on the cheap. The owner has cost themselves a sizeable sum through their own stupidity. It's something that will never warrant the cost of a polish but still has worth in an unpolished state. What the seller has done to it will therefore never be reversed and to me is now worth the koshirae alone which is not much.

http://www.watchseries.ac/link/thevideo.me/7141146 When you click the play button it'll open a popup but that's about it in terms of malware.

I wish I lived in karl's world where every sword was made by a highly rated Hizen smith

備州長船祐定 Bishu Osafune Ju Sukesada maybe. Not 100% on the Sukesada.

I'd disagree to an extent in that sure if you have white or green papers to a Tadahiro or ko-bizen then it's worth less than nothing, but if it papers to a mihara or sue-seki and other less desirable schools/smiths then chances are it's in the right ballpark if not the same as it'd paper these days. Everything has to be put into context and the problem was forgeries from local NBTHK branches so the lesser stuff is almost certainly legit, just a question of how much the knowledge has moved on in the last 40 odd years. For example on a well known site there's a sword by a highly rated smith with green papers for sale at around the going rate for one with Hozon/Toku-Ho that I'm 90% sure is gimei and would fail shinsa these days. Whereas I have a waki with white papers that I'm 99% sure would get the same attribution if not a slight upgrade if I submitted it today. At the end of the day if it's too good to be true it most likely is but if it has some of the attributes that you expect from the school/smith it purports to be and it's not high level it'll be around that. This Tanto for example without seeing it if it has basic characteristics of kiyomitsu then it's safe to assume it'd paper to a muromachi bizen smith/group like kiyomitsu or sukesada. If the white papers said Gorōzaemon Kiyomitsu then I'd call BS.

Stephen was kind enough to take delivery of some microdear cloths for me and forward them on. I only use them for my full Polish blades, one to remove oil another to put oil on but they're far superior to normal microfiber cloths so worth it considering the cost of a full Polish.

Bungo takada?

Many smiths worked in a variety of styles, particularly in the edo period.

The rocks were most likely used in seiges of castles no?

http://www.jssus.org/nkp/japanese_sword_laws.html It should be a formality really and you just need to pay 6,300yen and fill in some forms.

Every 2 years Brian. 70 seems quite a lot at first glance until you take a look at what passed half of which you'd almost expect them to pass on the names alone. Zaimei Hatakeda Moriie for example is only ever going to be less than Tokuju if there's condition issues, then there's Masamune, the awataguchi's etc The only question marks imho would the likes of the Kanemitsu's and so forth that aren't quite at that level but you can only imagine they're the best examples. Woe to me for a while ago I decided Koto Yamashiro, Bizen and Soshu would be my collecting focus before I found out it was everyone elses opinion that they were the best as well. Just one of those swords would be more than enough.

Glad to see the sales going well Grev

Sorry Paul, i could of sworn i thought you mention you were a member of the Northern society.

Someone from the Northern Token society may be able to help http://www.northerntokensociety.org.uk/ I believe PaulB is a member so hopefully will see this and be able to point you in the right direction.

I have an original Torukusho as well for a wak I bought. I think the previous owner bought it in Japan so must of taken it out himself and not declared it.

56300 Yen + postage to and from Japan through Paul Martin for Hozon which is imho the best value of all the agents, plus his service is terrific.

I've just had a window put into a sword that was confusing and now I'm even more confused although the results are good. I'm not going to give the sugata except say it's definitely koto and I'd be interested to know what he experienced collectors here think.

I also went straight for Norishige but didn't get around to taking a serious look or submitting a bid. Props to those that got Dozen/Atari without any hints as it looked a hard one.

It doesn't really bother me unless it's a business such as an antique dealer who probably bought it to make a profit and is using the members of this boards expertise to maximize said profit instead of paying someone like Markus for a translation as they should. I usually do easy translations for altruistic reasons and hard ones to improve my own knowledge.

I find they serve slightly different purposes. I generally use connoisseurs for much broader things then markus' kantei series when looking at specific smiths/to time periods. They're both essential imho

Markus' Easter sale is up again this year so I suggest everyone grabs anything they haven't got yet

Ray got it.