Adrian

Perhaps the name of the dealer/shop would be worth mentioning.

Thank you Junichi. You're obviously correct for the most part (including the one about taking more than we contribute at this point in time). Unfortunatelly, while most of the old members are very much willing to get out of their way to help, there are (very) few others who consider that beginners should in general shut up and be grateful for any shred of information (no matter how incomplete or even incorrect) thrown their way with great boredom. Curran is one fine example of this category and if you look at how he edited his message after I posted my reply you're going to notice he has other flaws as well This being said, I really hope we can get back at talking about books useful for the beginners. Hopefully this isn't an annoying theme. P.S. I really hope Brian doesn't delete all this before Ford has the chance to read the bit about himself. I don't know how he ended up believing I said that viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15048

Ford, I remember someone saying something like this but I'm damn sure it wasn't me :lol: (or Keith, for that matter) Since this little conversation took place viewtopic.php?f=9&t=15011&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=30 (find the big post with the coin photos), Keith seems to be really focused in following me aropund the boards and posting negative replies at the first chance :lol: This is the case here too since I really doubt that I made "peremptory demands", I showed "boorish dismissal" and so on. The only thing that I showed was a preference for precision .

I think this topic may be useful in the future to other beginners and poluting it with this kind of petty "debate" would be completelly wrong. I believe my previous message is crystal clear and honestly there's nothing more to add. You may want to re-read it. Thank you.

Well, yes, if you want to be rude and not helpful I guess you can do that. Alternativelly you could read my message and notice that I asked for more specific recommandation from his work, since he was mentioned twice about some translations, once about a book he wrote and once (spelled Marcus) more generally, about "his books". Now, in reply to my very specific question: you could have "chanelled Reinhardt" as you did OR give me a title, a link to one of his contributions here and so on. P.S. I just checked and the cheapest airline ticket that I could get for Tampa (in May, not tomorrow) costs a mere 1085$ . Thank you for your useful post.

Thank you Henry. Grey has one of the nicest (as in well stocked with good titles) virtual nihonto-themed bookstores that I was able to find so far. Hopefully I'll be able to work something out with him at a certain point.

I somehow lost track of this topic for the week-end. Thank you guys for all the useful info My thought exactly. Would you mind telling me the specific titles that you have in mind? I'm not familiar with his work. Who doesn't? :D Bernard, thank you, but, as mentioned in a previous post, I'm already reading one of the books downloaded from that section

What's a 0 added at the end these days? :lol:

Nope, they don't use it for fukure. More like a) "exposed shintetsu" and b) "hidden fukure", so to speak. Fukure is listed as a different kizu.

Thank you John. So it would apply to shintetsu being exposed because of excessive polishing? ("rough patch" seems somehow generic) I hope nothing that I wrote here was leading to the impression that I believed the shintetsu would "stick up". On that web site they seem to use the term ji-are for two different kizu: 1. the one we're talking about (exposed shintetsu caused by excessive polishing) - which is also ilustrated in the third picture at the start of their page 2. a raised area, indicative of underlying blister

I totally agreee with you about the last sentence, but again, what would be the "selling point" of this wakizashi for a collector that can afford (and knows where) to have it polihed and so on? I'm really curious. The term I used (ji-are)was taken from the kizu page on the website I linked in my previous post. If this term is incorrect/doesn't exist what is the correct term for the exposed shintetsu? I'd rather use correct terms but if no one mentions them is hard to catch on .

Japanese blades none (of course). Other type of swords, quite a lot. From my experience (again, not with Japanese swords) that kind of "flake" aspect of the rust usually means deep rust. Of course, in different climates and with different types of steel rust might take different appearances, hence my question. But again, given the cost of the polish and the cost of having the koshirae restored, would this blade sound like a reasonable gamble at 1650$ purchase price? I thought not (by a country mile). P.S. I thought ji-are were surfaces where you can see the core steel. Considered non-fatal kizu, but... from here http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/kizu.htm

Idk, the rust appears too deep, at least to me. I was thinking that after polish the result would be some ji-are. Maybe those members who have experience with this kind of situation (deep rust) care to comment. So, 1650$ for a wakizashi in need of a very good polish and with a lot of chances at kizu? Indeed, your scenario is the only one that makes sense, but I thought good polishers aren't exactly in dire need of work.

Are you puzzled by the result of the auction or by the fact that I don't understand it? :D

http://www.ebay.com/itm/350708708017?ss ... 1423.l2649 What am I missing here? There were 3 people with bids of 1500$ or higher...

Thanks again Ron, PM sent.

Christian, if you define "seriously interested" by "being ready to unload now 2000$ on books that may or may not be useful at this level of knowledge" the yes, probably I'm not "seriously interested". However, since I'm definitelly not interested with impressing anyone with my spending abilities, I would rather explore my options before parting with my money. I somehow doubt this is going to make me look "not seriously interested" in the eyes of the real collector. Thanks a lot Ron, many useful informations in your post.

Thank you Mariusz. Yes, I know the site and read most of it. Also I just located "Japanese sword-mounts in the collections of Field Museum" by Helen Gunsaulus which can be found as a pdf in the download section of this forum. Even if probably dated it seems to have the approach I was looking for. I have a question: what is the price of the Kokusai Tosogu Kai catalogues? (when sold by the group/publishing house I mean). I'm trying to figure out what would be fair to pay for them.

Thank you guys. So, from what I gather, there isn't any entry-level book that would help the beginner to get the general idea? What I was hoping to find was something that, for every era, would list the major schools and styles, with ilustrations.

Great photos, very educative If you want to take it a step forward, you could use a photo editing software to mark with little circles the various features opf the blade that you want to highlight. Regardless of this little suggestions, thanks a lot, good photos are always useful

Maybe they should start reading the collectors message boards :D

Laurent, you're making a confusion, a Ponzi scheme is very different from asking an inflated price on some goods that someone else is actually selling. What these guys are doing would be illegal only if they were unable to purchase the goods and didn't refunded the buyer in full. However, if they don't ask the permission of the original seller to use the pictures, then Mariusz is right.

It may be against ebay's TOS. But illegal?

I'm afraid that technically speaking they operate within the law (if I understood correctly the mechanism involved). Since they propose for sale items that the average ebay buyer cannot purchase directly, they are basically providing an (expensive) service. Morally speaking it's an entirelly different issue and they should be exposed on all the enthusiast/collector forums. Maybe with links to sites that offer the same service at a resonable cost.

Thank you guys, that's a serious list there. What would you recommend as a starting point? The goal being to get the bigger picture, so to speak: getting familiarised with the different styles, schools and periods not only for tsuba but also for fuchi, kashira, menuki and so on.