AlekseyG

Brain, Hello, I'm in Atlanta. I absolutely will be up for meeting with reputable dealers, members or attending a specialized sword show. Brian, I apologize, I'm not familiar with the term "shinsa", could you please let me know what and where it is? Thank you again, Aleksey

Robert (Bob), OK thank you for your response, strangly though, this whole thread was started and commented on while the sword was offered for sale? If you guys dont mind I and someone is willing to still help me with some information, like on sword dress and fititngs I would really apreciate it. I will leave it to the admininstrators of this forum to close or allow the continuation of the discussion. PLease let me know guys, Thank you, Aleksey P.S> Lee, thank you for your advice, I wasnt planing on asking that dealer for evaluation, i dont know the guy but my friend trusts (trusted) him, so I included his name maybe someone else is familiar with him or his practices since both myself and my friend thought this sword was completely cosher, but it seems to have a lot of questionable aspects.

Guys, Hello, I will retake some photos tomorrow or first thing monday and post them hopefully it will clear up some issues that maybe were caused by my poor photo skills. Robert S., Hello, sword has not been sold yet, I pulled it off ebay early because I had some many questions, messages and offers to sell it for an amount in/out of ebay. I wanted to make sure I know what I have and what I should accept for it. Robert, you seem to have a very strong opinion on the sword, could you please outline for me some issues that you see with it, It wight help me take pictures better and help address the things one way or the other. Thank you, Aleksey. By the way if you read my earlier post, dealer who sold my friend and a fellow collector this sword was a gent by the name of David Brown, supposedly a serious collector and dealer of Japanese swords and other arms& militaria antiques. Kevin, thank you for the color temp advice I will mess with my camera tomorrow and set it to the cold color temp and try to take some more pics without the sun to capture all the detail in the blade and the tang. Also guys, I really wanted to ask about the fittings: how can they be clasiffied and what age approximatly are they? Thru some worn spots in the bottom fittings of the scabbard underneath the guilding I can see eother copper or iron its a little hard to tell. Thank you in advance for any assistance. Aleksey

Guys, Hello, thank you for your opinions. I think part of the speculation are my pictures and angle I took them at. I will attempt to retake the pictures and possbily post them here. I looked at the sword again last night and looked at the tang, inlay looks to be a true inlay thick and deep. It also looks to be some surface red rust generation over the black rust underneath. maybe its what created that color and the slightly porous look that generated speculation. After wiping the tang with the dry cloth, I could see the edges of the inlay better. Looking at the cutting part of the blade I could see some nice hamon lines and also beautiful forging patterns, I will attempt to capture those as well. Micko, with respect, I will hold out of a slightly better offer. I apreciate your opinion though.

Guys, Hello, my name is Aleksey. Im the seller of this sword on Ebay (alex4u14) Friend of mine said that I should also list the sword on this forum because this is where all the Japanese sword action is. I looked at the forum and found this thread about my sword. Guys, a little about me. Im actually a collector of long blades from all over the World, I dont specialize in katanas (japanses swords), I collect from all over. Recently I realized that Its hard to feed your hobby when its from all over the place, not enought finances, so I decided to focus on my favorite type of sword - shamshir. Turkish, persian, arab. So since Im getting out of "All over the place collecting" Im passing on some of my other pieces from differenct regions... hence the listing. I got this sword from another serious collector some time ago (about 1.5 years ago), as he told me he purchased it from a dealer he trusts, and the sword belonged to a Japanese collector who placed it on consignment with that dealer. Guys as I mentioned Im not an expert in Japanese at all, turkish-persian-arab shamshirs I know decent about, but katanas not as much. Sorry for the crappy pictures on ebay guys, I can provide someone who is interested with really good high resolution ones. I had one of my friends look over the sword and here is the idea he issued: Blade on the sword is very old...hence the two low punched holes in the tang, at some point later, maybe 18th century? tang was cut down to fit the fashion of the time and possibly blade was body tested at that time, or maybe gold was filled in over the regularly cut older signature. If the gold was filled in later or the blade ewas cut tested later on in its life, tang possbily was cleaned at that time to apply or gold fill the signature. Sword was dressed in its present fittings somewhere in the late 18th? or somewhere 19th? century hence the drilled 3rd hole in the top. Guys again this is how it was explained to me...so please take this with a grain of salt. I read that some of you guys think gold inlay can be a thin sheet...i dont think so because signature slightly overlaps one of the holes and I can see the deep gold inlay there. On the price guys: Ive seen cutting test blades go for a lot of money, but since I dont know that much about this market I just desided to pass the sword on for slightly over what I paid for it and covering all the ppal and ebay fees (I also was expecting some lower offers). If someone is interested in it please let me know and I can pass it on to you guys for what I paid for it. Aleksey (Alex)