Alex A

NMB seems to be the Ebay launch platform in a lot of sales. A lot of folk hope to sell here but then add "before i send it off to Ebay" as though its off to the land of doom . Any folk that do ok selling on Ebay are probably selling within a widely accepted price range. Alex

Good evening, happy history hunting! Alex.

Yep, "best offer", is another fee , but not on my new site "NIHONTOMART" . A place where you will find no Chinese fakes, false papers, crazy funny looking tsuba, fuchi necklaces, nihonto hunting knifes, tsuka wrapping services by someone who learned yesterday, no bull descriptions, no repeat descriptions for different swords, no cast metal allowed, gimei must be in big letters on title GIMEI, etc etc LOL, anyone good with websites? Joking :D Alex.

An early sword influenced by the Chinese. As you all know, a number of chinese swordsmiths headed to Japan in ancient times. Ive just had a quick read over this wiki page, interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_swords Alex.

I must watch too many movies, Conan the barbarian springs to mind... Alex

Yep, £2000/$3000 seems to be a roundabout limit of what folk want to spend on Ebay. As the price goes up, obviously, so does the concerns of the buyer. Alex.

This is the only "blue steel", ive seen, apologies Wah, couldnt resist. :D Alex.

A shame Ebay is the way it is, a relentless open gateway for cheap copies, forgeries and bull. There needs to be another place where folk can buy and sell nihonto in piece, and for a fair price. Look at antique/deactivated guns for instance, not allowed on ebay in the uk (not sure about anywhere else), but have there own selling places such as Gunstar, gunmart and millweb. Easy to buy and sell and without all the bull and crap to sift through. Brian, hows about extending your selling capabilities, make a few $ and add a market place to your site, and let us all shop in piece :D, if not, is anyone feeling antreprenorial, a niche market, but still, a market... Alex.

Pictures of the ancient burial mounds.. http://myaukun.wordpress.com/2013/03/11 ... al-mounds/ Alex.

Heres one that would not be amusing, it says on the ebay description "No forging flaws" I emailed the seller, "Are there any flaws whatsoever?", I was interested. He replied " There are a few forging flaws". Why cant some folk just be honest with there original description?, a mystery. Alex.

Shows what reading books achieves, noticed similar tsuba in a Sasano book a few days earlier. Alex.

My inexperienced eye is telling me this tsuba is nothing special, im presuming its late edo. Not cast, but does seem to have quite a bit of use, a copper seki-gane as been added. 82mm x 80mm 4.5mm thickness throughout Is it possible to put a school to this tsuba?, or a more exact date?, just curious. Any comments welcome, please excuse the pics. Alex

Gaudy! jeez, I struggled with that one..... Alex.

"Gordy", the misses came up with that when i asked her what she thought (i was just curious ), I said "old or new?", she replied "new...gordy....you need to get a life" Alex.

Yep, and you still have $6000 in your pocket :D Any chance of a loan? Alex.

Mariusz, the thread as gone off topic and as nothing to do with Aoi art, as you say, but in light of this, it is good for folk, who may not know how difficult it can be to return a sword back to Japan after an inspection period. Alex

Slashing and stabbing crazies , against them, I would need 2 big clunkers!!... :D Alex

A none disappointment philosophy :D Alex.

Now that puts an whole new spin on the inspection period/return policy, ouch.. Alex.

As annoying as it may be, i was just thinking how many sales they may loose by folk dropping out whilst an item is on hold. In Aoi,s defence, it is good of them to put items on hold without taking a deposit, maybe the offer of "fast cash" was just too much to turn away. Alex.

Yagyu, breaking waves design (tatsunami), early Edo. Alex.

So, in reality, for anyone wishing to sell a reasonably high priced sword, Ebay is totally out of the running... Alex.

In light of all the bad publicity that Ebay seems to have acquired as a buyers mine field, bargain hunters galore, I wonder how many of you would actually try and sell higher priced swords there. The higher priced swords ive seen on there, £5000 and up, seem to be on there for an eternity, Ebay as its limits, does it not?. Alex.

Ive been wondering when this would happen, now its happened, not good, maybe they do read NMB :D Interesting that 4 out of the 5 bidders has a bid history with the seller. Alex.

Im in the middle of reading a good little book by Stephen Turnbull, ironically, theres a few snippets of information on the odachi/nodachi/seodachi (back carried tachi). He states that many of the surviving examples where made for presentation, rather than for battle. Apparently they where a great threat to a man on horseback on the Sengoku battlefield, with the horses legs being top of the agenda. Some where not sharpened all the way down the blade, hence they make good clubs too. Id be interested if there was such a book, if anyone knows? Alex.