Curran

badda bing. Just renewed.

The first step to recovering from the Maple Syrup Maddness , is acknowledging you have a problem. Leave the syrup on the table, but take the canoli. Bye-bye.

Thank you Signore Piva. It is good to hear from you again. Signore Dolci collected at a level above my own. The weekly meetings with wine and chateaubriand sound very ideal. It made me nostalgic for years (and friends) long since passed in NYC. I will be ordering a copy of the book from Grey.

Totally don't bother trying to understand DEN usage for a while. Or go search NMB for Darcy's epic posts on it. Still, it is something the western scientific mind educated have a hard time getting the right feel. Perhaps like rolling your rrrr(s) in Spanish, certain tonal shifts in Chinese, or even "gli" in Italian -it takes a while. Most westerners make the huge mistake of defining it as negative, when sometimes it means something much greater or better than normal. Some Japanese organizations use DEN for everything. Ex: NTHK papers. What sources are you reading from about Nomura? It is a good school, but not one that people usually start with. If you are near Piedmont Park area, PM me for a visit to my building and we can have an opening discussion. I will bring out a few decent things that I don't usually transport or share.

Hi Richard, Midtown ATL here. Ironically, I had thought of starting up an Atlanta group that might include Eastern Tenn and Western NC. Please share what you feel like sharing.

Tadahiro instead of Tadayoshi. There is a lot there.

More towards Shoami. It might be just the two photos, but the tsuba seems to have some condition issues? Third photo looks fine, so I am left uncertain of the condition of the tsuba.

Very sound advice. " focus on items that you really love, decide what you want to pay for them, and don’t go past that." Long ago, I collected wine before I really got into tosogu. Luckily, the wine markets taught me Justyn's advice. You may not get what you most want at a moment in time, but you will probably end up with what makes you happy.

And SOLD. Sales section Mod: please leave it up a day or two until I get it shipped off.

Also, somewhat choppy chisel marks along the northwest edge of the front seppa dai. Who'd bother to fake that? I don't think they'd have come out so choppy if it were a cast job.

ALSO: Will include a basic tsuba box

$90 + shipping. Proceeds will 100% go towards supporting NMB and another Nihonto related non-profit group. I picked this tsuba up 1.5 to 2.5 years ago, as part of a package deal. It was the surprise sleeper of the group, being much nicer in hand than I could perceive from the photos. Nice iron. Fine sukashi. Good seppa zukuri from having been mounted. Anyone interested, PM me.

Thank you Victor for the well written breakdown. I think the OP's question has been answered. Like Mr. Sinclair, I worry that we freak people out too much with rapid fire dismissals.

Antiquities are now excluded from tariffs. [However, my new expensive Shimano fishing reel is not.] Without even looking up the specific maker, I assume it is a Tanaka tsuba. The fan-base is quite rabid. Given size, condition, and authentication papers, -I am surprised it did not go for more. To some people, including a few members here, this is really cheap. Welcome to the K-shaped economy.

I am going to reduce the price to $350 for the daisho pair (4 menuki) for 1 week. The local experts with the XRF machine and a lot of knowledge say: "Gold plate or foil over base material" They seem to think the base is some sort of brass. So probably: cast+finished+ gold foil or such over the front I am going to reduce the price to $350 for the daisho pair (4 menuki) for 1 week. If they cannot sell at that price, I will keep them ad infinitum for a koshirae project or tsuka project. Interested people PM me.