Adrian

Nice purchase Anthony, congrats :D I'm wondering if the guy who bid 3400 is also a member here. The seller gave up after the $3.053,99 bid (100% bid activity :lol: )

Thank you, a very interesting read. So basically out of 8 re-tempered blades one failed miserably and the other 7 performed very well in test cutting. Not a bad ratio at all, but these were all very good swords.

You seem certain that I have more chances to win the lottery :D Which is wrong, because I never play :lol: Anyway, if I dig up something you'll be the first to know.

Denis, I'm not sure you understand very well the way wars were fought during the Middle Ages. Hand to hand combat results in a lot of damage to the weapons used and this is why each army was followed by a number of smiths, as Jean already mentioned a few posts ago. So, unless a battle turned into a rout at it's very early stages (and therefore taking a minimum toll on the equipment), even the winning side would always have a lot of work to do to get the weaponry in usable condition. After a hard fought battle the situation was far worse, of course. This is one of the reasons why scavenging the battlefield was a lucrative thing to do. Any weapon found in good (or at least usable) condition would immediately fetch a good price.

I wanted to ask this question for quite a while now, and this seems to be a good topic to do it: which one is correct, kozuka or ko-tsuka? Or maybe both? To me the logical choice seems to be ko-tsuka, but I see many very experienced collectors using kozuka, so...

I thought that was obvious: to gain more knowledge on the subject The discussion resulted in very clear explanations about the process of re-tempering nihonto, sure this cannot be a bad thing. For this I thank everyone who took the time to bring something new to the table, so to speak As for the rest, I will try to dig trough the material available in the historiography on the Sengoku period. I'd expect that, considering the size of the armies that clashed on the various battlefields of this period, the demand would have exceeded supply by far and the subject of sword repair may be at least touched in some historical documents.

Yes, if I got it right this can still be seen on blades that only had very few polishes since they were made. I fully understand your argument but I'm not sure if it applies on all swords and circumstances. For example a relatively wide sword that has a not so wide ha (I've seens quite a few even with my limited experience) would not lose so much material in the process. That's a solid argument indeed. But does it apply to repairs made in ancient times? When the number of combatants were smaller, the numbers of smiths were far larger and the sword was the primary weapon of many fighters? I think the historical context was totally different. Not to mention the social and military ones. Anyway, you obviously know much more then me on the manufacturing or repairing process of nihonto so I hope you're not taking offense in this debate (as I've seen with others on other topics). My idea is based more on historical and logical considerations but may (of course) be proved wrong by strictly technical arguments like the one you presented. I'm wondering if there are any sources about the techniques used for blade repair in war time by the smiths of ancient Japan?

Chris, are you saying that re-tempering a sword in order to make another hamon due to a broken kissaki requires removing the entire ha up to the former hamon ? If yes, then you are correct, I didn't got it . If not, then you probably were a bit too fast to tell me that . Here there is a clear contradiction. In times of war and trouble no-one will go for anything but the simpler and less time-consuming solution. If re-tempering a sword in order to fix a broken kissaki was done in times of war, I'd say it definitely proves that such repair makes sense from an economic point of view (and is also probably efficient when it comes to the time and labor involved). I think at this point this discussion requires a bit more historic research and maybe access to some Japanese sources that aren't nihonto-related.

No, I haven't But tbh, from what I read about the whole process of making nihonto, I think your argument applies more to a sword that has a deep chip interrupting the hamon somewhere on the ha. Indeed such flaw would probably require so much work to fix that it wouldn't be economically viable and the resulting sword would be, as you very well put it "a shadow of its former self". At this point we would probably need the opinion of someone trained in the art of nihonto making, as someone with this kind of knowledge could easily figure out if re-tempering a sword with a broken kissaki would make sense from an economic point of view. Not sure if any of today's licensed smiths is a member here tho (I'm far from finishing reading all the useful material on this forum at this point - but I'm on my way, this is how I found this topic ). But judging from kunitaro's message, re-tempering the blade wasn't a rare choice:

Chris and Mariusz, I don't doubt that "The criteria that drives collectors of Japanese swords is based largely on traditional beliefs and values handed down from the past." Makes perfect sense. However I don't see (from a logical point of view) why a re-tempered blade wouldn't have made sense for a poor samurai. Either as a repair of his own broken sword or as a purchase. So, if this was the case, I don't think that a sword with broken kissaki up to boshi would have been seen as junk back in the day. More likely it would have been either repaired by the owner (because of lack of funds for a new purchase) or purchased at very low prices by smiths who repaired and subsequently sold it at a bargain price. Of course this is just from a logical point of view .

Thank you guys, some very interesting info here . However I feel that my initial question got somehow lost in translation, so to speak . To rephrase it a bit: did (at a certain point in Japanese history) the poorer samurai ceased to buy re-tempered blades due to low demand and relativelly steady offer? Or this didn't occured at all and the "broken kissaki up to boshi = junk" is purelly a collector's agreement? I'm thinking that it was much cheaper to re-temper a blade with missing tip rather then to forge a new one.

I know it Jean . The question is about the timeline, so to speak, I was wondering when this perception appeared.

While reading this very informative thread, one question pops up: when exactly did a nihonto with a broken tip started to be regarded as junk? (maybe a too harsh word, but..) Is this strictly a collector's view or maybe the samurai of the later periods started to be more picky as there was no big conflit in sight? (therefore the supply of really good swords being probably higher then the demand)

Apparently someone tried real hard to ruin this guy's auction. The individual who raised 30 times his bid until he managed to outbid the 6666$ bid was obviously trying just to figure out that maximum bid, not to get the item. And was doing this after his $1,250.00 bid was beaten. Tbh I doubt that the 6666$ bid was legit either.

Alex, you're wrong, the tsuba doesn't move one bit (but again I didn't tried really hard to move it) However, I was somehow expecting that all the individual pieces have a very close fit (something like the bang-on fit you described on your first post). Which isn't the case. The tsuba (and both seppas) have a rather close fit on the front-back axis of the nagako-ana (the tsuba due to seki-gane). However the left-right axis has (on all 3 pieces) a higher tolerance then what I was expecting. So I was curious if this is normal or not. Kevin, I wasn't looking for a specific number (as in "maximum .25mm on either side of the blade") . More for something like "half milimeter on either side of the blade is OK for a seppa" Just looking to figure out what the average fit would mean number-wise.

Alex, what I'm trying to achieve here is to find out if this "slightly" has a definite upper limit Especially for tsuba.

Well yes, but we don't live in an ideal world Also if the fit was so tight, they would scratch the nagako. So I guess some tolerances are accepted, but I'm wondering within which limits.

Obviously the space in the seppas and the tsuba needs to be a bit longer and wider then the tang. My question is what are (usually) the accepted tolerances? I understand that there's no standard, so to speak, but maybe a basic rule of thumb exists. Thank you.

Yup, I figured that out. Question is what are the chances that an item described as "Edo" is actually "little old"? It was the overinflated shipping cost for small items that made me cautious: if something sells for $10 but the shipping cost is listed at $25 (for an item under 50g) even if you return the item you're going to lose most of the money paid.

Ouch Barry, this pretty much settles it. Thank you.

Thank you Peter How about fakes? I was looking to buy from him some cheap fittings but don't want to end up with Chinese 0.2$ seppas instead of the advertised EDO ones.

Sorry for raising such an old topic but I was wondering what's the current perception on the seller daimyou54eb ?

Maybe I should have sold the furniture and bought Ikea stuff because I wanted aquariums :lol: I'm not sure what you don't get. For antique furniture anything between 35% and 65% humidity would do. Using the compressor dehumiditifier (there are other types of power dehumidifiers which are less effective) I keept it between 50% and 55%. Had no problems whatsoever with the furniture during the past 7 years. I don't keep my various collections in that room but that's only for storage reasons.

Keith, of course there are situations where large area dehumidification may not be a practical solution. My suggestion doesn't apply to all possible scenarios, but for those situations when using a room for holding one's collections is possible, it's certain that a compressor dehumidifier is vastly superior to any solution involving desicant materials. Not only that such device has a relativelly powerful fan which will move the air in the room and ensure that humidity remains constant in all the volume, but the modern ones are capable of switching on the compressor only when needed therefore dealing swiftly with humidity spikes while maintaining a low cost operation. Obviously some desicant material isn't going to move the air in the room, right?

The idea was that by using a compressor dehumidifier in a room that has a strong humidity source (the aquariums) the environment is kept under control and the antique furniture remains unharmed. Tbh at this point I think you're making it on purpose rather then not being able to follow what I said (which was a pretty simple example actually). As for the collection room, I think everyone understands just fine what I ment. After all we're not talking here about preserving the Dead Sea scrolls so the whole joke about "specifications" is rather misplaced. You just said a silly thing about "trying to dry out the world", get over it rather then try to ruin the thread with this kind of bickering...