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The folks at the NCJSC meeting Sunday agree that this is a better example than most they've seen and that I should be happy to have it, as I am. One person pointed out that along the back edge of the nakago you can see evidence of kobuse or hosanmai construction.

here are some close ups from the camera. you can see near the habaki and around a couple hills the hadori doesn't completely cover what looks like a weakly hardened edge. you can see the color changes as the grey hadori transitions to a darker area, before transitioning to the color of the unhardened part. since the line is so faint it is hard to photo. sorry: no idea when oil tempering started. got hot water and oil confused; my bad! the author of this old book said tempering in hot water [to avoid hagire] is a shameful trick

Thanks Bruce for the insight. You know we now need to see the whole thing to put the post into proper perspective (just kidding, sort of) ????

Ok, I will get wife's canon g12 and try and photo elements of the egde. I see a faint thin line above at least one of the hills, that has no hadori directly above or below it. Chrome would explain the good condition of finish, but there must be an explaination for the terrible nakago state, which maybe the photos will help inspire more answers. My thought was western person stripping the patina, but anything is possible. There is also some rough patches where it looks like original foundation work that was hastily done and not bothered to be refined in latter stages of polish, that would have likely been covered with chrome plating. Not buying that it's plated, this is carbon steel.

Thomas, to assume cosmetic hamon is wise, I agree. I am keeping an open mind for now, but safer to assume purely cosmetic as this would be the norm. I can always count on you to sober me up! Thanks.

Only odd after the handle comes off. Till then odd in the fact that most of the factory made ones don't really even try to make a hamon that looks real, while this one may be oil quenched. I read that toyokawa arsenal had subcontractors, and some in China. Who knows about the blade but it does look better than 95% of the examples I see for sale (edit: at my low price range). The handmade ones are rare and obviously nicer than this one. Believe me, the blade is pretty nice looking in hand. The kanji looks licks chicken scratch though???? Cost: $355

eBay again, this time seller has 35 as a feedback number, but there was absolutely no feedback to view; pos, neg, or neutral. Probably got a decent deal because this fact. There are 2 stamps on the guard: toyokawa naval arsenal and possibly nakano shoten (koshirae?). Matching number 23 on seppa and guard. The nakago looks to have been stripped badly, but oh well. Nakago not too well shaped, and huge (forging opening?) is evident, along with loose laminations at the very end. I've seen worse dirk nakago so I went for it. Seller says nakago has "seki" in kanji. Much smaller a knife than I was expecting. For your enjoyment, and if anyone has anything they would like to add, that would be appreciated.

Maybe a reworked broken old beater???

The most amazing temper line ever! What a work of art!

Wow!

Stephen said $500 on the sabre, which seems fair enough. The tanto is too far above my pay grade to guess. Looks like black shoe polish on the nakago. One way to make it look older or hide active rust- just an observation. Maybe some research is in order to try and verify the mei? Valuation of old blades is an art form which requires years of learning. Maybe a member will come along who has collected/researched this school/smith and can elaborate on the value.

In army sabers, the tortoise shell handle is generals grade. This one is also probably a high ranking official's sword as well. The work on the handle looks very nice, and the tassel and knot is a really nice plus. A ROUGH guess based on the great condition of the military blade, coupled with my general complete lack of knowledge: $750 on the low end. It could be worth more, but not a great deal less I would ASSUME.

Well done Joe! I especially love the tanto. The shape and heft look like it is a weapon and art. Really nice! I'm sure the pics don't do it justice (not to trouble you for more though, just to say good job).

Dear Hamfish, I share your mixed feelings on these many late (so called) edo shakudo tsuba. These seem like well kept ones. I bet the shakudo is almost only a surface treatment. The nanako is nice. I'd assume there are many other exact copies. Other than that: REAL. Not my "cup o tea". Probably only 100 years old or so, maybe more recent. I think some real edo mino work is similar, and maybe these would even qualify as such, but don't like them. In my opinion, same with the many ones with treasure ships, flower sales baskets, animals/insects, flowers, etc: rather cheap mino copies; or late to post edo mass produced tourist stuff, but on the better side of the spectrum. MY GUESS ONLY Of course.

Thanks again Mr. Reusch, for sharing such moving pieces!

Brian, about these bare blade supposed gimei gendaito, I'm sure we would steer WAY clear of THESE puppies. no idea what they are or aren't. basically, to those who may be considering one of these: keep the cash and get something better. There it is said. Don't want to devalue what may be a great deal but if one is educated in nihonto they can find SURE FIRE decent stuff for this money. It's a delicate matter trying to keep newbs from getting screwed, especially when we can't get decent photos, and we hate to be the one to cause a new blade owner to potentially ABUSE what MAY be something totally different from what we expect it to be. What I mean is: I and most others here wouldn't spend $500 on one of the MANY of these bare blade supposed gendai to, but I am not sure that is what U have, just guessing.

These blades like this, that Kimonjo sells, have been discussed here before. IF memory serves, they aren't registered so whoever is making them is doing so illegally, with unknown materials, and thusly can avoid wait times in exporting and other legal hassles, while using any method of manufacture that they want. Did the blade arrive quickly, from Japan? I don't recall too much being discussed as to the quality. It would be nice to have close ups so we can see how well they are made and if the edge is well hardeded and if the metal has much grain evident. Also maybe it is the same group doing all of them. They always have a $500 min bid and usually sell for that. Just from the pictures that aren't too well zoomed in, the blade seems nice and if the hamon shows evidence of decent differential hardening (nioi or nie), the $500 price tag may be a fair bit better than what you get from a decent name brand Chinese cutter. Don't feel too bad is what I'm saying. The lines seem OK and the verdict isn't completely "out" on exactly what you have as far as quality/usability go. More pictures of good quality and you may have more answers/speculation

Thanks Fred and the rest of the team memebers that worked to make the show happen. I was impressed by the quality and prices of what I saw, and I was able to hold and inspect some nice pieces. I'll be making the show a tradition, as long as Fred is willing to organize it. Above all, it was nice to meet some great enthusiastic folks and make a couple toasts! The show is so much fun Fred so please keep up the outstanding work!

Sorry no help, but the design is gorgeous!

If it's cast then the original old tsuba (if the design was copied from a forged piece) was probably really nice. I'm with curran as the design is very appealing to my eyes also.

Maybe it is a matter of taste? I'm like the Kung fu panda: "with authentic battle damage!" Yeah. But then my collection is very low end. I'd imagine for higher aspiring enthusiasts it's really wouldn't matter (they would be more concerned with blade Characteristics) as long as the damage wasn't too deep to affect usefulness.

Very unique and wow that saya! I think the (?hot stamp?) was another way for the maker to ensure that his blades/mei weren't copied, or rather the copies were less likely to be taken as shoshin. I mean, someone can tack on a mei after the fact but stamping is more involved.

Bugs? smart phone auto-spell checker, or is this a Marine euphemism? I've heard of maggots, so bugs would be logical I guess.

Thanks Peter, btw, for the seemingly never ending supply of informative and useful contributions. Keep up the good work!

Setsubun bean throwing coming of Spring festival?