reeder

Listed a katana with bohi on eBay last night. It's a project sword and in need of a fresh polish and some TLC. Started at $.99 with no reserve. I'm a terrible sword photographer but if you would like additional photos let me know and I'll post some more on the forum. Not sure how to post more than 12 pictures on eBay. http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=261939545622&globalID=EBAY-US

Few Nagamitsu pictures where it's a little easier to see the activity.

Thanks for the pointers. I've got tons of lighting on them, but the camera goes dark when I try to take photos. Found where I can edit them and lighten them up a bit. Also found where to increase the f-stop. They're a little better, but I was only able to manage a couple decent ones out of quite a few pictures. Just need more practice and figuring out the camera and set up. Here's 2 more of the Yasunori.

Clean Type 98 officers sword. Nice example and even better that was a gift from your grandfather. I received a knife from my grandfather that started my collecting. Hopefully this gets you going. The last character is "masa". If you want to try and look up the swordsmith yourself, go to this site, http://www.japaneseswordindex.com/oshigata/index.htm, and hit ctrl+F, type "masa" and see if you can't match up the 2nd to last character.

I did not see that. Thanks, Stephen!

THe link below is an example of a scam on eBay. It appears that someone's account was hacked, pictures stolen from Showa22's Yasumitsu that just sold for ~$7000 and an email to end the listing early for a sweet deal of $2000. I thought I would play the game so I emailed the "seller" and the response I got back was the typical jibberish you get from the scammers. They wanted all of my personal information so they could contact the eBay team to make this a smooth, safe, and fast transaction. I have reported the item as fraud. The link is below. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Japanese-WWll-Army-officers-sword-in-mountings-Yasukunito-Yasumitsu-mint/291486287578?_trksid=p5411.c100169.m2942&_trkparms=aid%3D555012%26algo%3DPW.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140131123815%26meid%3Dad748f40f9f84f56ade5125f4cf7b4a9%26pid%3D100169%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D13%26sd%3D301656338263

Picked up a new camera and trying to play with different lighting and angles to capture details. I definitely need more practice, but I'm happy with how some of the photos turned out. It sure beats what my iPhone can produce! I wonder how much picture quality I lost by reducing the image sizes to post here.

Thanks. I have been unable to find anything related to Suzusaki or Suzu. I guess I'll continue the search .

My father picked up a grouping of knives, swords and bayonets for me today and the grouping had a wakizashi in it where the nakago had a single character or stamp. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Went through all of my kanji flash cards and couldn't find anything similar.

My worst purchases have been on knives on blades I thought I could make a little money on to put into swords and ended up taking a loss just so I could get some of the money back. On swords, I've at least been able to get what I paid for them back fortunately so far. My biggest miss was a Type 98 Gunto with a 34" Nagasa by Masayuki w/ mint tassel for $900 I guess I happened to stumble across right when it was listed. I hit the buy now button and it refreshed as being sold. 2 weeks later it was listed by another eBay sword dealer for $7500. I think about that one all the time. Would have loved to have a katana with a 34" cutting edge hanging on my wall! With all the bad buys and misses, I've also had some extraordinary purchases. I bought a Type 3 gunto for next to nothing based on 4 of the crappiest pictures ever. Came in and was one of the cleanest type 3s I've seen with a 26 1/2" Nagasa by Nagamitsu. I also bought a very nice Type 98 that was just beautiful. Seller couldn't get the handle off and didn't want to mess with it. It just spoke to me so I bought it. Got home, removed the tsuka, and it was a Yasukunito by Kajiyama Yasunori.

If you're referring to the stamp in the attached photo, that's a U.S. acceptance stamp.

Does it have much militaria? From the picture I could find online it looks like all new custom knife makers.

Nice fittings! Seki stamped so not traditionally made. Will have to look up signature when I get back home for confirmation , but ? ? Kanesada(?) saku

Mark, thanks for the pictures. Looks like a great show with plenty to look at.

How's the show going? Anyone getting any pictures?

The painted assembly numbers should match the numbers on the fittings.

Mark, were you able to ship it back out? Any problems since then?

It's a standard wartime Type 98 katana. Box was about 42" in length.

A couple of weeks ago I sent a sword off to Hong Kong. I've sent a number of swords to this particular buyer with no problems with US or HK customs. Usually the sword is delivered within 6-7 days. This sword has now been held for over 10 days by US customs for "further inspection." Has anyone else experienced this problem? I filled out the customs declaration form exactly the same as I have in the past... TIA.

I'm enjoying the copy I purchased for $40 +/-. Been interesting so far.

Looks like Oct of 1944 to me. Noshu ju Kane? I'll have to look it up when I get back to the house.

Yes, Kokura arsenal. http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/13623-kokuri-rigun-z%C5%8Dheis%C5%8D/

I think those that deal in Showato will tell you those prices are not the norm, and all would be very happy to get prices comparable to the links provided. As mentioned, very nice kai-Guntos are sometimes the exception. I've recently sold off my showato to fund nicer blades and I got nowhere near those asking prices for my blades that were very nice examples. I see a lot of decent Showato blades struggling to break $1000 and many that don't.

I agree, Brian. I would not have purchased if the pictures or description covered the detail I have provided here. Took a chance on it with limited info and crappy photos.

Took a chance and think I lost on this one. Worse condition than depicted, all just a hodge podge of parts thrown together. Paper filler on tsuba, can't get last seppa or habaki off. One side of the blade looks like someone had a good go at removing some surface rust. I guess you can't win them all.