silent_ninja1

Tables are all full of stuff, some good people here! Mark has a table full of nice blades and tsubas. Great group of guys helping teach the rookie out here.

Thats fine, ill be the goofier looking rookie with a couple beat up blades hoping for a better opinions on what to do! http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/15983-newly-acquired-signed-katana/ http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/16139-restoring-a-katana-and-wakisashi/

And this is precisely why I didnt want to trust my own judgement and go off on my own! I knew that I was probably looking to be right at value buying from an antique dealer leaving me little to no room for profit selling them. Im assuming the consensus is that the katana is too far gone to put much restoration effort into, how about the wakisashi? Thats in much better shape. It also has a saya that seems to match the habaki, but its pretty beat up and split near the top. The one that came with the katana is a generic plastic one that dosnt fit the blade at all. I did get a pm with info on a show in Chicago coming up in April. I may take them with me there to let someone more knowledable see them hands-on. Ive been meaning to find a reason to get to chicago anyway, so close yet ive gone right past it over and over, never stopping!

I paid $750 for the pair. I figured even a modern high carbon ground piece would run me that.

Cheap in a subjective sense for sure. From what im seeing brosing the bst section here, a "cheap" authentic tsuba is around $150-200. By objective means, sure thats not cheap. Subjectively, there are some on here for a few grand. If I just want them complete, I could grab an ebay tsuka ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/331471513906?ssPageName=STRK:MEDWX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1435.l2649) and modify slightly to sortve fit, and repro $40 ebay tsuba and leave it in the new plastic saya it came in from the antique dealer. As it stands, im pretty sure that neither of these blades warrant a polish, or any high priced components. It does seem that the style of saya / tsuka shown here - http://www.e-sword.jp/sale/2015/1510_1043syousai.htmis the cheapest restoration option, since it dosnt require wrapping the tsuka or a tsuba at all. Im not sure if the saya could be stained and modified to fit a tsuba and wrapped tsuka later or not, since I personally prefer that look. (I found this guy on here that im tempted to get for one of the blades it if I knew it would fit http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=znq8ep&s=8#.VN4FvC5jZSC )

The information is great, I just dont trust my own judgement! Just hoping for some second opinions, maybe offers to sell me spare parts that can be used to piece these back together, or recommendations on who to have made new handles (tsuka i think).

I recently aquired a couple bare blades from an antique shop. The katana is signed, and and this group helped translate it (although there is some uncertainty between first, or second generation or gimei) http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/15983-newly-acquired-signed-katana/ https://plus.google.com/photos/109497601524099837046/albums/6100983868474477249 And the wakisashi https://plus.google.com/photos/109497601524099837046/albums/6115498089770685137?authkey=CMH5-_e6zIjLzAE So, are these blades worth restoring past just cheaply making them complete? The wakisashi seems to be in better shape than the katana. Someone tried to sharpen the katana with something pretty harsh, so its all scuffed up. If its going to do anything more than hide in its saya on the wall, itll need polishing for sure. Its also not very straight.The wakisashi seems to have some rust on the surface, but beyond that looks pretty good to me. The antqiue shop said they believed it was a katana that was shortened. These are the first authentic blades I have picked up, so im a bit clueless on most of the terms and such, but through reading here im getting better! I was hoping to find tsuba designs that would have reasonably been expected to be seen on these blades new. Thanks in advance for any advice / guidance!

Ok, I got a few more photos, and the stamp on the reverse side is much better now. Hopefully this confirms the above suspicion on the translation. High res and a few more shots added to the album from the first post.

Haha! You guys are fast! Ill try to get a rubbing of the other side along with better photos tomorrow. Believe it or not, this screename was dubbed on me for my gameplay in an FPS 15 years ago (im getting old...)! It stuck, my interest in Japanese blades and martial arts grew, and ive just kept it. Thanks for the ref material! Thanks again, alot faster than I expected!

I recently got my first antique sword and was hoping to be able to learn some more about it. It has a makers mark and family name on it that I was curious what they were. If anyone here can help translate it, id appreciate it. The sword itself is kindve in rough shape, it looks like someone tried to sharpen it with a grinder of some sort. There is a black tar over the handle, and most of the hardware is missing. More photos, full sized here : https://plus.google.com/photos/109497601524099837046/albums/6100983868474477249 Thanks in advance