Jean

Thanks Jussi

Signed Minamoto Masayuki. Will fetch less than a Kiyomaro mei

He is going to be cremated and will join her late friend, Pretty Woman, and my mother in our countryside house..

Pas faux, Bruno

Against Miike is the fumbari. Ryokai is Yamato influenced, with high shinogi, shirake utsuri and less refined hada with masame...

We took the decision this morning as he stopped eating and drinking. He passed away among kisses, pating and a lot of tears... I am already at my fourth hankerchief, I can’t help it...

Riesling passed away peacefuly in our arms two hours ago he had lost more than half of his weight...

I have noticed that Oei Bizen nakago are not often in great shape. My Yasumisu tachi, look at the yasurime

That’s what I was aiming at BaZZa

Ryokai

No

Useless topic

https://www.nihonto.com/100218/ At this price....

Mantetsu can be VERY nice...

I added it to your profile Jethro, so don’t bother with it anymore...

Brad, Is it papered? This will help to specify the period when it was forged. Otherwise, it is difficult to give a time frame. It seems the nakago has been slightly altered to rework the hamachi. The Nakago does not look very Muromachi.

WWII blade, Seki stamp. Factory blade

Rivkin, There are always other cases, one of which being a Yamato blade which is famous on the Board. It has a double sayagaki on the shirasaya: On the Omote, Sayakaki by Honma Junji to Hosho school. On the Ura, sayagaki by Tanobe to Hosho school I submitted the sword to Shinsa, it came back with an NBTHK Hozon Kanteisho to Tegai Kanekiyo who forged in masame.

Smith looks like Kanefusa. WWII showato.

Rivkin, When you go to lesser quality blades, kanteisho are just papers and you don’t pay thousands for them. The old papered or non papered blades in dealers shops are the ones which are not judged worth a shinsa price. Now for the others (corner shops) bundled swords, naginata, yari are not sold as papered swords but rather as souvenirs Arnold, I entirely agree with you, there are real experts/scholars in both NTHK organizations and I am sure that their kanteisho are as valid as NBTHK ones, even if in the Nihonto world they are not considered as good as NBTHK ones for historical reasons rather than objective reasons. I am sure that some green papers are valid but should I be in the States, I shall double it by an NTHK kanteisho as the North American market is used to them. You described exactly my mood about sending a blade to Japan for papering, too much hassle/too expensive. I don’t need to have my blades upgraded from Hozon to TH as their quality speak for them. That is the reason why I buy my blades in Japan and have them papered before sending them to France. In Europe, NBTHK prevails...

John, Just for your information and it is free: http://www.japaneseswordindex.com/military.htm And to help you decipher the yellow kanji (which are numbers for assembling) the koshirae parts): http://www.japaneseswordindex.com/kanji/number.gif

Feel free to ask any question Oliver, even in French by PM to me. We are keen to answer any inquiry (if possible) as there are real experts on this board ...

John, The policy here is to give free opinions, no money involved, unfortunately for you, on this board you will find the greatest experts in the field of WWII blades, so any paid expertise on this sword will be wasted money. In Nihonto field, Most of the experts I have met were not professionals but amateurs driven by passion. NMB members are driven by passion and not by money, you will be surprised that some of our members are able to discuss at length and for pages (sigh) on the validity of a screw, or handle. The signature of this blade coupled with the Seki arsenal stamp betraid a non traditional nihonto. If nobody else have answered, it is because nothing more has to be added. Ite misa est... If you know what you have, no need to ask ... what is important is that you don’t pay too much for this sword and that you’ll recover your money.

If one refers to Japan, serious dealers have 99% of their blades papered, more than 90% of these papered blades are NBTHK papered with the « new » NBTHK system, remaining papers are NTHK, Fujishiro... papers. It is normal as NBTHK is the dealers’reference. NBTHK makes the market. Go to DTI if you want to be sure of my sayings. Now, Japanese dealers don’t even think over old certificates. They put the swords directly to shinsa. I am not going to be more royalist than the king if all Japanese dealers are going for new NBTHK certificates putting the old ones aside. Right or wrong, I don’t care, my opinion does not count, I follow the trend as the trend drives the market, that is what I call common/good sense... The fact that an old certificate is valid or not is irrelevant, that’s just a fact.

I am posting this just to draw the attention on the yasurime and the danger on dating a blade by them. This is an Eikyo Bizen wakizashi. Look at the ura side, forget the date and the kiritsuke mei. Concentrate on the yasurime. They look fresh and could be shinshinto, the blade is koto. https://www.aoijapan.com/wakizashi-bizen-osafune-norimitsueiroku-4-nen-2-gatsu-hi-kiritsuke-mei/ To sum up, nothing can be kanteied from this nakago.