Rivkin

Precisely! Somewhere along the way the item gets in queue to be shipped using airline X which does not allow the shipment, and that's the end of the line. Kirill R.

I think the greatest question is what is being compared. Solid construction to a hallowed arc with no weight consideration - solid material will always be stiffer. With weight given a consideration it will be the other way around, but the question then becomes does it make sense to actually leave the weight savings as is. A while ago I did a large table of weights including swords with and without bohi - and for the same period they were basically on top of each other. So instead of securing the weight savings, the sword would likely be proportionally scaled along some other dimensions - producing stronger weapon for the same given weight. Overall the weight often tends to be rather narrowly fixed to a certain range for each weapon and each length. You don't often see a koto katana with 70cm or so nagasa that goes beyond 800 gram by itself, and they tend to be around 670-750 gram on average. Shinshinto will be somewhat heavier on average. 1.1kg seems to be the absolute maximum weight that a truly mass-adopted blade would take, and for some reason in Asia those were universally popular specifically in the 14th century. Kirill R.

Discovered a very troublesome development. Airlines placing their own restrictions on all luggage and cargo shipments they carry which explicitly prohibit weapons, including all manner of swords and knives. And the shipped item basically travels back to you snail mail because somewhere along the way it was supposed to get on the airline which bans these items - and was rejected. So you get it with airlines label "rejected - sword inside" and the note that it is your responsibility to insure that airlines are allowed to carry the items you shipped. So far I encountered it twice, the last time with Bratislava Airlines. Fedex still flies their own planes, so it should not be an issue - except they don't insure/declare value on antiques above 1000$, and obviously exactly 10 times more expensive than EMS/airmail and such. Kirill R.

Very erroneous and personal take. But I've seen the tanto in hand. I very personally believe its a late Muromachi item. The hada is very rough, and it has typical Muromachi itame-nagare/o-mokume/masame sandwich. Yes you find it in Hasebe, for example, as well, but not in this rough-wide manner. In Rai you would hope for tight itame (or what they correctly call o-mokume). In some Yamato influenced pieces you would have less mokume and more masame, things like nijuba in the hamon. And most Yamashiro schools post Nambokucho are Yamato influenced - Nobukuni, Ryokai etc. This one is neither - to me its just such a typical Muromachi jigane. Regarding the ha, its neither Yamato, nor really Rai, as there are some togari or gunome peaks close to the nakago, kind of what you see on some Mino-Muramasa in suguha. Yet patchy blackish-utsuri jigane and mitsumune to me suggest Uda. Which can be miles away from the correct answer. But I am yet to receive an identical shinsa judgement for a Sengaku jidai mumei piece. So they have big problems sorting them out as well. The signature can be real here, as there period Kunimitsu's. Kirill R.

I would say late Muromachi... At this point the schools mixed up among each other quite a bit, but I would guess Mino... Or even Uda. Actually on second thought, Uda is more likely. Kirill R.

I would throw out something like what are peoples' most favorite swords. My triad I guess is: 1. Probably Fushimi Sadamune. 2. Cetainly Shintogo Kunimitsu TJ tanto. 3. Probably Heshikiri Hasebe. Kirill R.

A very impressive collection, specializing on cutting test items I presume! Much obliged to see them. Kirill R.

Steven, there are probably very many ways to collect these things. At least judging by what kind of blades people prefer. I will hijack the discussion probably, or just troll it a little, but I think the question of what would you want your first sword to be is actually quite deep. Say if I were to go back years and choose for myself the first sword and lets just say limiting myself to what touken komachi sells, that would personally be something like: https://www.toukenkomachi.com/index_en_tachi&katana_A090618.html or https://www.toukenkomachi.com/index_en_tachi&katana_A010519.html and in daito class, let's just put some readers into great distress: https://www.toukenkomachi.com/index_en_tachi&katana_A070718.html yes, crazy signature, but looks like a good Uda to me. but actually the best choice for me would be (salivating! but that's all just a fantasy now) https://www.toukenkomachi.com/index_en_tachi&katana_A030519.html or https://www.toukenkomachi.com/index_en_tachi&katana_A030817.html Each of these swords offers to someone like me a great wealth of "stuff" to study. But since others choose very different swords as their first, I assume they are guided by very different approach in terms of what they want to collect. Kirill R.

Does not look to be showato though with such hamon could have been there. Sugu boshi - probably shinto. So basically a run of the mill shinto mino. Without looking into books regarding the signed name - out of laziness. Erroneous and personal opinion. Kirill R.

Ook, even though I am looking on the phone, there is some fumbari here and maybe a tint of koshizori, at least the upper portion is more straight. 1380-1400 or so now looks promising. I.e. - its worth money! Kirill R.

Paul, my comment on o-kissaki was with respect to late Nambokucho, with regards to Oei yes you are right - there were thin suguha blades, thank you for the correction, though I personally would be more comfortable with a slightly earlier date this being the case, but that's all highly secondary in nature. My main concern here is that lets say there is no signature. Lets say one just looks at the overall shape. Does Oei or late Nambokucho come to mind? To me what comes to mind is a classic late Muromachi profile. A great fit for the period. If its Nambokucho to Oei - there are questions. For Oei - Its not koshizori, it has absolutely NO fumbari. And so on. Yes, late Nambokucho short tachi is a possibility here, Mr. Ekholm did great work digging out the numbers. Do I personally like the shape for it? Not particularly. Maybe some of it is due to photography angle. Kirill R.

The curvature is very uniform, which is sort of weird for Oei swords, and also not too common in late Nambokucho, especially as there is no o-kissaki. And the length is unusually small for the early swords. Both however do fit Sengaku. At the same time the ha is thin suguha. Again, not something that was done in Oei period (very wide), there were some earlier examples like that, but it was done now and then in Sengaku. A personal and erroneous guess. Kirill R.

The problem is tha the lens has quite some distortion, so identifying the center of curvature is difficult if sword is photographed from a side. The only solution I would see is to place the camera right above the blade and right in the middle of it. Otherwise prominent fumbari in waki size usually points closer to kambun, but its hard to guess by such pictures alone. Kirill R.

Very personal and erroneous - black jigane (uda, houju, hoki etc.) is the only color which significantly stands out, and it also tends to be non-uniform so some part of a sword is darker, and the contrast is quite visible in the areas with ji nie against the blackish background. Bluish and greyish tint is much harder to catch, and in photography it will likely be dominated by color balance... And it almost never definitively sways kantei. Kirill R.,

Signed, ubu, really old, with as few kizu as possible... Sounds like the top priced Bizen swords. Maybe Yamashiro once in a while. Almost eveything else pre-Muromachi will be multiple kizu, tired in places, and likely unsigned. I am very open to admitting a "shameful" fact that I own two unsigned and non-ubu shinshinto swords, both with considerable blemishes. Will be selling both, but simply because I decided to concentrate elsewhere. If we are to talk about money, 25 years ago there were plenty of tokujus on the market for 400-500k usd. Today you see them offered retail for 200. Very seldom, but you do see them auctioned off in dealer's auctions for 10 million yen. I am not going to pretend to be very knowledgable of the market in this price range (above my pay grade), but from where I am standing that's the price dynamics. And knowing people with money in Japan - it does not come as a surprise. I bought some books from Dmitry to be used as gifts, and then basically stopped as it was just a waste. Kirill R.

Its signed and papered, but the work is rough, inconsistent and unabmitious. The seller has a few good pieces though. Kirill R.

There is nothing wrong with Japanese dragons having three toes. But it can as easily have five, with no significance attached to it. A somewhat later drawing or template being copied, possibly Meiji - sure, one can suspect that. I obviously can be misinformed on this one. But I never encountered any mentioning of criminal liability for having more than 3 toes in Japan. Not so in China, though late examples can be ambiguous on this one as well. Maybe I am overestimating the number of five toed dragons in Japanese art - sure. Experienced too many late paintings. Yes, in the very beginning the Asian dragons are three toed. Kirill R.

Afaik, in China unless you are talking about Taipin rebellion times when everything was in chaos, 5 toes is generally reserved for the Emperor, and even 4 toes is significant. 3 toes are non-government affiliated dragons. In Japan 5 toes is normal. Kirill R.

Problematic horimono, one of the most commonly faked signatures. Kirill R.

Modern smiths are not that different from shinshinto in their technique. I saw Naotane's attempts at Yamashiro - not entirely interesting. So they opt for Bizen and sometimes Soshu. Mino is just a mediocre school to begin with. Kirill R.

Sengaku generation Bizen Morimitsu (another option - Kaga Morimitsu, but this one looks a little bit more Bizen to me personally) in polish unless its drop dead gorgeous - maybe 3-5k usd. Basically the price of polish. If your concern is money, I would sell it as it is. Even investing in brining it to Japan is quite high compared to what you are going to get, but maybe you'll get lucky and it papers to the Oei generation... There are shinsas in the US, but I don't think in AU. It looks authentic enough, so someone interested in Sengaku swords might buy it. Kirill R.

Ok, that looks a little bit later, maybe as late as Eisho (1560). Just a guess. If habaki is stuck, so be it. Kirill R.

Tony, at the first glance with sori shifted towards nakago, with longish kissaki, with relatively somewhat short, wide and beefy nakago (even if its suriage) a guess can be this is something from Onin period or closeby. An erroneous guess by a non-expert. To pin it down it would be great to have 3 photographs - naked blade with nothing on it, full length. Nakago, with nothing on it (habaki etc.), full length. The most active and visible 10 inches of hamon. Kirill R.

Its hard for me to estimate sori by photographs which are taken slightly off-center with uncorrected lens, but it appears to me quite shallow - no earlier than Keian. There is pronounced fumbari, which for most schools I think did not start to appear in any reasonable quantity before Meireki or maybe Joo. Can be later than Kanbun, and there I personally don't know where to put the latest possible boundary. Thick very straight suguha - a few options, most attractive is probably Hizen. Kirill R. Erroneous and personal opinion.

I am sure few or none members here will share my puzzlement, but here it is. Kaga smiths from the period tend to have very distinctive ending to their nakago, which is not here. There was Bungo Yukimitsu who did Bizen Ichimonji style, but he started with sugu yakidashi and had suguha in boshi - as almost every respected Bizen enthusiast of the early Edo. I think the possibility of late Edo or gendai blade in Ichimonji style being strengthened with the mei alluding to Oei Yukimitsu, while strange, cannot be completely discarded. Kirill R. Probably erroneous and certainly personal opinion.