Markus

Just wanna post one pic that Bob Elder from the Orlando Show took. Its my friend Bobby Block and me after our lecture and it just looks like as we were about to start a fight with the audience over there. Subtitle: "What, WTF you just said?"

Great show! Thank you Mark for the perfect oranizartion!! Happy to see you guys again (in alphapetical order ): Alfred, Allan, Arnold, Bary, Bill, Bobby, Bob, the other Bob, the other other Bob, Brian T, Chris, Chuck, Cyrus, Daniel, Danny, Derek, Eric, Fred, Joe (hey, saw you and your cute daughter just twice briefly), Jim, John, Jurgis/George, Mike V, Mike Y, Moses (Moseis ), Nick, Pat, Paul, RKG, Rob, Robert, Ron, Taylor, Ted. If I forgot anyone, it is not because I'm rude but because I'm going to bed right now

Does anyone have AITO (愛刀) magazine #391, 12-2010? Would love to check a blade featured therein for research purposes. Thank you for your attention.

Maybe koroai (頃合)?

Very sad news indeed. Thierry had always been highly supportive of my work and backed every single joint project we did here on the NMB. To give you an example of his kindness, Thierry just donated to the Gendaito Project on Thursday the 15th, the day before he presumably died, as Jean meantioned in his initial post. That makes me very sad and the very least I can do to pay tribute to Thierry's enthusiasm is to dedicate the finished Gendaito book to him. Rest in peace.

Thank you Neil and Steve! @Neil: Yes, PayPal shows me the name and the email address that you have linked to your PayPal account.

Thank you Jussi! And thank you very much for your donation!

Thank you Brian! You are on the list for the finished book

Michael, Daniel, and Klaus, thank you very much! Donations received

Thank you very much Martin!

No worries Stephen, I greatly appreciated the $50 you sent me a while ago.

Thank you Brian, every donation is highly welcome!

Thank you Peter, I already dropped you a mail from the indiegogo site, hope that it worked. @Brian: Unfortunately, that's indiegogo's new "restrictions": Please note: As of February 14, 2017, only campaigns raising funds in AUD will be able to enable PayPal on their campaigns. If you are raising funds in CAD or GBP, and haven't yet enabled a verified PayPal account, you'll be able to enable direct credit card payments only. As of February 2017, campaigns raising funds in USD and EUR will be able to raise funds exclusively through credit card. However, I would be happy to accept direct PayPal donations to "markus.sesko@gmail.com", with all the options for perks as offered on indiegogo of course

I have just started the crowdfunding campaign Thank you all for your support! Every donation is very much appreciated! Just couldn't do that project at the side, i.e. funds are necessary as many many hours have to be dedicated to feeding the database. It's my first crowdfunding so I am a bit anxious about its outcome https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gendaito-project#/

Please take a look at the link below. The Gendaito Project is still going strong and after my second announcement, I really got much data from you guys over the last couple of years. This is very much appreciated and more information will follow in couse of the planned crowdfunding campaign when I'm back from Europe at the end of February. Thank you for your attention! https://markussesko.com/2017/02/07/gendaito-project-2/

Hm, I think that the motif might be a so-called temochi-daiko (手持ち太鼓, lit. "hand-held drum") that comes with handles and which is today basically a kid's toy. And I think, as mentioned by Guido, that the left and right protrusions are for securing the menuki under the tsuka-ito.

Yes, it looks like KANEKIYO indeed. But I go with Morita's suggestion that the duplicate kanji is deliberately written different. There are more kozuka out there by this or these Masakiyo. On some of them, the MASA character is signed more "recognizable". Also the context of that there were indeed some Yamaguchi based Masakiyo smiths, that there are no Kanekiyo that would match, and that the Mondo no Shô title was used a (famous) Masakiyo makes me stay with the MASA reading. http://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/227076454 http://nihontou.jp/choice03/tousougu/kk/kk/027/00.html http://page3.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/c578315480

Yamaguchi Mondo no Shô Masakiyo (山口主水正正清). Two possibilities: 1) Gimei and aiming at the famous Mondo no Shô Masakiyo. 2) Made by a local Yamaguchi (Nagato province) smith who arbitrarily used that "good-sounding" name and title. I find several Nagato-based Masakiyo smiths (shinto and shinshinto) so I tend 70:30 towards possibility 2. These kozuka mei were anyway taken with a grain of salt.

The engraving part is actually one of Aoi Art's notorious glitches when it comes to the English website. On the Japanese site, the mei is (correctly) quoted as: 水心子正秀淬刃（刻印） Suishinshi Masahide yakiba/saiha (koku'in) Now the koku'in part in parenthesis - i.e. the "hot stamp" as we know, literally "engraved seal" - became "engrave" on the English site, probably because the blade also has engravings. Saiha/saiba with the characters (淬刃・焠刃) means "hardened by..." in this context, in short, the blade was forged by Sadahide and hardned by his father Masahide. I feature one of them in my Shinto & Shinshinto Kantei Zenshû (page 548). Now the saiha/saiba reading of these characters is surely correct but in a kantei session with Tanobe sensei where we had such a joint Masahide/Sadahide work on display, he told me that he rather reads the very term as yakiba because the (焠) character also has the reading yaku, i.e. like yaku (焼) in yakiba. In other words, (淬) and (焠) do both read sai but the latter one also reads yaku and as both were sometimes used interchangeably, and instead of (焼), in period documents, Tanobe suggested to just read them all as yaku/yaki.

As posted on my FB site, I will be in too, for the hardcover version to be precise. Checking my stats, I got a little over "500 people reached" status on my share but no concrete reply. So in order to let Paul know about the actual "real deal" backing of this project, I ask my readers to go directly to Paul's page or FB page. I think that this is a great project and an important must have reference on every bookshelf!

No worries Guidio, I knew that you didn't want to put pressure on me but I was curious myself about if your copy has been shipped already or if it was still marked as "processing".

Quick check with Lulu, your first volume was shipped on Dec 8. Not sure what's the nearest printing partner for orders from/to Japan but hope that the book arrives soon. And thank you all guys, and Grey for being so patient with my English We are working hard on the next volumes.

Reading through the thread I'm not sure if I missed it but there is also the thing that you started collecting but then you are facing personal changes and you need cash right now and what goes first is hobby/passion, i.e. swords or fitting which you don't really want to have to part with for less than you bought them for but where you are ok with to make at least some cash at that time. So you just swallow the loss for the moment but that does not mean that you are out of collecting or out of the subject for good.

Ich Danke Dir Christian für das Lob!

Yeah, I talked to another member earlier and it seems that, for whatever reason, the link doesn't work properly on Safari. Maybe it is just a temporary thing but Chrome and Edge work fine so far.