Justin B

Thank you for the help, guys. I'm a newbie at this stuff yet, and this is my first Nihonto. So I'm trying to keep a lid on my excitement, but I am a little surprised and excited to hear that this blade could/might be saved, and even more excited about the prospect of it actually being (potentially) worth enough to be worthy of the cost of restoration. My thoughts are running in a hundred different directions at once here. I've always wanted a Nihonto, but never had the money, and only grabbed this one at an estate auction because I knew the fittings were probably worth more than I paid, even if the blade couldn't be saved. If I invested several thousand dollars in this one, there's a good chance I'd have to sell it to get my money back, and then I wouldn't have a sword anymore. It's one of those things where I think I could come up with the money for restoration and get by, but would feel a little guilty spending that much on something nice for myself considering family obligations should come first. Know what I mean? The Chicago show is coming up at the end of April, so that would probably be my best/easiest bet at getting it to a shinsa. I likely won't be able to go, but maybe I could find a collector in the Saint Louis area who'd be willing to take it along for me or something. I'm still really curious about how old this thing might be. I know the pictures aren't enough for an evaluation, but if you guys have any thoughts, or even leads onto what era or school of swordsmithing I should research, it would be appreciated. I can tell from the nakago it's obviously older than WWII, but don't have enough knowledge to guess whether it's 100 or 500 years old. Also, I really like the tsuba. It must have taken a lot of work to do all that carving and shaping with chisels, etc. I'd like to research more on it- what schools normally worked in this style, or where do I begin?

Here's some additional photos, though I must apologize for my poor skills with the camera. If I could have some decent sunlight one of these days, maybe it will work better. The top of the tang picture is a little skewed making the tang look bent, but it's not. If you look about an inch behind the machi, you can see divots on the edges of the tang where a previously mounted tsuba must have rattled around enough to damage it. This is about where the nakago is at its thickest. It's very hard for me to get a decent picture of the hamon, but there are a few places where the hardened steel is like a bubble sitting above the main line.

The nagasa is right at 27 1/2" (69.9 cm). (I'm adding 1/4" for the broken point.) I'll try to get the pictures of the tang added tomorrow, but in the meantime, it's 7mm thick at the machi, and is 8mm thick about 3/4" back. So it reaches its greatest thickness right about where the old tsuba must have been- you can see how it left rub marks in the edges of the tang on the photos I posted above. Hmmm... Now you've got me thinking... There's 3" between the first and last mekugi ana. Was this possibly mounted as a tachi with 2 pegs and then shortened only a little bit to fit it in the current mounts? The fullers stop right under the habaki, too.

Unfortunately, someone broke off the tip of the kissaki. There is still a bit of hardened steel there, but I really don't know if there's enough to reshape it- I think it would be quite a risk & would need to be evaluated in person by someone far my qualified than me. But at this point, unless you guys give me some surprising info, I'm going to assume this blade would not be worth a new polish job. There is some light scattered rust, but none too deep, and I think one small opening above the hamon. There is also a very small nick in the edge, but I think it could polish out; certainly nothing as serious as the kissaki damage.

I acquired this sword a few months ago, and was messing around with my camera the other night & decided to take a few quick snap shots. I'd like to learn what I can from this piece, and hopefully find out a rough time frame it was made. It has 2 narrow fullers on front and one wide one on the back. I read a reference a while back that said these are referred to as chopsticks and Budda- is that correct? My pictures are too lousy to see much of the hamon, but there's quite a bit going on in there when you turn it in the light. It has a nice copper tsuba with a gold dragon weaving in and out of the waves (on both sides), a two piece copper and silver foiled habaki, silver foiled copper seppa, and fuchi/kashira with 3 guys on it. The menuki were robbed long ago, and the wrapping stitched back together. From all the holes, I'm guessing the tang was shortened quite a bit, and no signature remains. The only marking I could find of any kind is a horizontal line, which may be "ichi"? But from the placement, it looks like it would have been out on the blade instead of on the tang when it was new, so I'm not so sure.