Katsujinken

Oh my.

You need to remove the handle from the blade to show the full tang in your photos. You can do this by removing the bamboo pin first. Then I would recommend you post more detailed photos that show more of the sword in close up.

Historically significant, yes. An interesting specimen! But very, very tired. Basically nothing left at the hamachi. Others have articulated it well. This is never going Juyo because it’s not a Juyo sword, so I think $21k USD is a fine price for what it is… if it’s what you want. I hope the buyer was able to do their own accurate translation of the site and papers. With LLMs now there’s no excuse.

Agree with Brian. Tanto and kirikomi are not a thing (that I have ever seen). (Now waiting for a seasoned vet to pull out a picture from a 47 year old newsletter. :-P)

Ugh. Welp. So much for that.

I emailed them about the SSN thing because I had the same concerns. There’s no need for it as a buyer. They replied and said that I could just write N/A or something to that effect.

Oh this photo is quite different in my opinion. Very helpful. Perhaps Alex saw more clearly than I did from the start. I'm willing to move a bit on my point of view here — this could be from someone attempting tameshigiri, but I still harbor some doubts because the scratches appear in clumps. Regular tameshigiri practice, even by an amateur, creates a consistent area of wear. The "clean" areas we see here raise questions for me. I'm still more than 50% confident that what we see here is due to what I called "misadventures" (including whacking unorthodox targets) than traditional tameshigiri, but everything others have said is totally fair.

“Misadventures” would include someone trying to do “tameshigiri” without proper training, but I really don’t think that’s what this is (and I have the experience to say this with confidence). Impossible to know for sure without a time machine though! Notice how the scratches stop right at the shinogi — someone did this by hand with a goal in mind. But again, no time machine.

Those scratches look like they came from sandpaper or a tool of some kind. Like an amateur tried to repair or remove the results of some misadventures. I respectfully disagree with Alex. Scratches from tatami on wara are generally more subtle than this, so I don’t believe that’s what this is. They’re also a bit too close to the end of the blade in this case to reflect consistent use for tameshigiri. There’d be no need to do anything in the kissaki if the blade was used for actual tameshigiri practice.

I ordered one yesterday without issue.

Yes, you do need to confirm your particular airline’s policy regarding “weapons”.

I assume you mean checking the sword as luggage during round trip air travel? No, there’s nothing you need to do. If it’s old and valuable, it’s always a good idea/precaution to have documentation proving that you have owned it prior to your trip and did not acquire it abroad (if your trip is international) to avoid any confusion about duties and the like.

Nice choice. Welcome to the edge of the rabbit hole. And to the NMB!

Great choice!

I was going to say exactly this. Here's a video of this process (link to specific timestamp at 46:08)!