Jussi Ekholm

That looks amazing. I really like the custom stands you have made too.

You can also see that nakago looks to be long and there is no (or very little) sori. Like others I would like to see more pictures of the sword before saying anything (and even then my guess won't matter much...).

Welcome Matt, nice to see a familiar face from couple other forums. I'm sure you will enjoy this forum too.

Some info in English can be found In Afu translation of Nihonto Koza: Koto part 1 and Art and the Sword Issue 8. I can really recommend Art and the Sword issue 8 as there is lots of interesting information in there.

Morita-san pointed you to an awesome source. I just browsed through these two numbers of TB and there is lots and lots of information. Unfortunately with my own very limited Japanese I cannot yet read these amazing articles. However, I'm sure you will find the information you are looking for in this article. This much I could read, this is to my reading enlargened side by side comparison of nidai and sandai mei. There are 33 pictures in these two issues. But unfortunately I cannot read Japanese well enough to provide you the 4 indisputable oshigata that Morita-san mentioned.

I'm in the same boat as many of you said, based on pics I think the koshirae is modern made (I just wanted someone with more knowledge to say it first :D). And to my eye it's of very good quality, however it goes against my personal taste. So in this case I would say that koshirae wouldn't be worth of the investment for me. Someone else may think totally opposite. I like some newly made koshirae very much, it all depends on a piece. I think there are two separate things in this discussion as was brought out, modern made koshirae vs. antique koshirae. I'm a romantic too, so I think old koshirae should go with the sword. In my opinion the "basic" koshirae does not pump up the value by that large margin. Sure it raises the price a bit but it's understandable as they are a package. Like many others I think finding a sword in original (by this I mean koshirae made for that sword) koshirae is optimal. Regardless of the age of the koshirae I would not like to part such thing. Unfortunately I don't think I'm yet at the level where I can always identify original vs. fitted one... So therefore at the moment I would also accept koshirae that has been cobbled together if it fits my taste. Of course there are sometimes very fine antique koshirae as well as modern koshirae with the sword that are raising the price by large margin, which is the reason why I made this thread. Needless to say I'm not in the position to get such a sword so that is not an issue for me at the moment. :D Just discussing that is fun.

Of course this subject is totally subjective and case by case basis but I thought it would be fun to discuss this. I'm personally mostly interested in blades but sometimes the sword has a koshirae which also fits to my taste. While on occasions there are cases where I don't like the koshirae at all but the blade is beautiful. I have been eyeing this blade every once in a while, it's way above my budget but looking is free. It has been priced at 1M yen, here it is for sale in shirasaya: http://web.archive.org/web/201311070605 ... 080313.htm Now I was browsing last night the dealers site as I hadn't checked in few weeks. My jaw dropped when I saw that it now has koshirae and the price is now 3,3M yen. http://www.seiyudo.com/ka-080313.htm Even though the tachi koshirae is very luxurious, it does not fit to my koshirae taste as I prefer more plain tachi koshirae. However I'm shocked about the jump up in price with this koshirae. As my Japanese is still very limited I ran this through translation program but that didn't make me much wiser... 尚、写真の通り大変立派な太刀拵が附しています。飾り栄えがする豪華な拵です。I'm wanting to figure out this koshirae and price jump caused by it.

SOLD.

That will be a nice Christmas gift Antti.

That is fine looking blade Mariusz I like the slender sugata. How long it is? As for what kodachi is for me, I see it as a small tachi. However I think that there is wiggling room in the term at least for me. Kotoken Kajihara states in Nihonto Yogo Jiten that average length of the tachi is around 85 cm and any tachi much shorter or longer are called kodachi or odachi respectively. For kodachi koshirae he writes "Kodachi koshirae means a small tachi koshirae that to put kodachi into it. This koshirae is intermediate between tachi koshirae and katana koshirae." Here is the image of kodachi koshirae from the book: Personally I tend to see tachi that are longer than 3 shaku as odachi and those that are around 2 shaku as kodachi. That's my current understanding which will evolve as I learn more. In Seskos Koto-Kantei book you can see couple kodachi, 2 of them are around 55 cm and 2 are around 60 cm. Generally in books that I have kodachi are around that length. Longest that I can find on quick browse through is Kunihira kodachi from Sano museums "curve book" and it's 63,2 cm. I think that slender sugata is also necessary for kodachi attribution as there are many swords in my books that are only bit over 60 cms but are still classified as regular tachi by the same experts. Hopefully we can gather information to this thread, as I have also often wondered about kodachi.

Here is the pic that Arnold hinted about, I was taking a pic of it as he replied.

I think it's quite common to ask bit higher price out here where we live. Not that many Japanese swords are probably sold in the Norway (I would believe it's the same as in Finland ). I know when I'm selling replica swords I'm asking a small premium as swords are not common sale object here (and I'm trying to earn small profit too ). So even though you might see items cheaper in larger markets you have to take account the prices of importing them, for example we have 24% VAT here, I don't know how it is in Norway. Add to that how the seller might want a profit of varying margin too. Not really helpful as I just rambled some thoughts out. I think you can get help with that wakizashi too if you want. You can for example post a pic of the papers and get an identification to those.

I think it's sometimes hard to use adjectives when describing things as like Jean said people have their own thoughts about such. I have lots and lots of hada terminology in my books and I don't understand even the half of them yet. However I think that rough hada might be translated to jihada tatsu or hadamono. Here is one amazing article by Yoshikawa Kentaro that explains this in great detail (among lots of other things): http://www.nihontocraft.com/Ura_Nihon_no_Toko.html I have previosly falsely thought that hadatachi also implies "rough" hada but now I understand it actually means the visibility and "standing out" pattern. So if hadatatsu means "rough" hada then hadatachi means "standing out" hada. Of course both can to my understanding apply at the same time also.

http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/viewtopi ... 1&p=174261

That video left me bit speechless, and I'm not even a tsuba guy but that tsuba is just amazing...

I praise the person who donated the sword, as in the museum it can be enjoyed by many. According to Yamanaka the origin of Shimazu name for the sword is not known. Also look at the bottom part of Yamanaka notes. As the Newsletters were published between 1968-1972 so during that time someone was selling A Shimazu Masamune, of course as there are no pictures it's impossible to say if it was the real sword that was for sale. And you can read Yamanakas opinion about the sword he saw.

I believe there is brocade (nishiki) under the tsukamaki.

Price drop to 550€ including worldwide shipping & Paypal fees...

Christian I think the reason why this book has been so popular is the fact that a lot of information could be had in compact package for somewhere around 50-80€'s in this book. I agree that the prices on this book have gotten too high for my taste. I would rather recommend a book that has c. 350 pages and can be bought for less than 100 euros to a someone starting out with books than a set of Nihonto Koza or Yamanaka Newsletters. I think it's written in good format so that it's more easier to grasp "basic" things than reading Yamanaka or Nihonto Koza early on. Connoisseurs book has been great easing between the introductory books and more advanced books as it builds your knowledge up. Of course once your start getting deeper into reading material and acquire more books I think you will use this book less but it's still a great resource. And as it could be ordered from Amazon for a good price it was pretty killer deal.

Jimi as it's attributed to Shimada then 1500's would be much more likely than 1300's.

Kongobyoe is one school that I like. Can't explain exactly why I seem to like it but I do. Here is bit of history of the school from Nihonto Koza. I believe Sword Society of Canada will be publishing a book focused on Kongobyoe smiths.

Tjena Hans! Welcome to the forum. It's very nice to have you here. I got to see some of your work at Scandinavian NBTHK meeting and I must say they were great.

Nice to see the discussion and interest towards the blade. I agree that romantic way of thinking can easily make that being a battle scar and I am not sure about the origin of it. I think the un-romantical explanation Chris gave might be more logical one. This old pic is probably as good closeup as I'm gonna get. I cropped it to show detail.

Awesome article Gabriel, very well written.

I'm putting up for sale this decent mumei wakizashi. I don't like selling stuff I own but this one has to be moved if I'm thinking of improving the quality of my collection. It's in decent condition with multiple minor flaws, but it's well viewable in this condition. I cannot say anything definitive about age or school. Nagasa: 44,5 cm (1 shaku 4 sun 7 bu) Nakago: 13 cm Sori: 0,7 cm Motohaba: 2,7 cm Sakihaba: 2 cm Motogasane: 4,2 mm Moto-shinogi-gasane: 5,7 mm Sakigasane: 3 mm Saki-shinogi-gasane: 4 mm Nakagogasane: 4,6 mm Kissaki: 3,5cm Weight: 342 g Blade is small sized and light. It has some scratches and some amount of pitting. It also has one weird circular dent in the middle of ura side. But in overall sword is in viewable condition as it is. Habaki is probably copper with worn out gold plating, it has split a bit at the seam. Shirasaya is quite nice, it has one small dent that I pictured. Price: 650€, includes worldwide shipping & Paypal fees. Bank wire transfer is also an option for payment but I think most prefer Paypal. I can provide fullsized pics by email.