Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini

Some reserve on the kissaki shape as well...

I've always had a soft spot for Gassan School...

Kogarasu maru is mumei. How much is the discount ?

Well done Peter...

Hi John. Isn't a bit too elaborate with all that horseshoes to be part of a Kamon ?. I'd agree if the "boat" was flat or rounded, but this way seems too elaborate... Having said that I've not the palest idea of what it might be. My 2 cents..

Fantastic...

Still thanks for the effort Peter

Randy, I'd be very grateful if you can address me to these posts. I'm interested in very ancient chinese sword guards

Steve, you nailed it, thanks. It took quite a few years but I finally have pictorial evidences of what I didn't find on due time when ​I wrote in my essay Quote... "A sword dated to this period and similar to the one in fig. 2 bears extremely important inscriptions showing Chinese characters used to write at least a few Japanese words. This linguistic evidence is still highly debated and need further studies. This blade is identical to continental specimen and might be an imported one with inscriptions added later. Another possibility is that a Korean immigrant might have made this sword as Korean linguistic elements are also found in the same inscription15. ​... unquote. Seems that nothing has improved about the meaning of the inscription from then. I've now a better starting point. Many thanks to everybody. I'll update this thread if anything more definitive and academic would pop up.

Sorry to bother but this might be of great interest to me. It seems this sword has been hunearthed in Japan and bearing the inscription "100 times fold". I'm skeptic but the inscription is too tempting. So here I am with a chinese text regarding a possibly Japanese chokuto. Might anybody give me some translation of any part of what is hereunder ? Info about the blade welcomed as well of course even if she seems familiar to me... God bless :

One day my time will expire. Tomorrow or in 50 years I'll probably (hopefully) have a nanosecond of time to realize it. And I'll be happy to have invested in MEMORIES. Memories of moments passed together with what I love and that gave me joy. F@CK THE MONEY. Every time I really needed it for my father, brother, mother,uncle,all and everybody of my family but me (wife and sons excepted) I realized it is merely paper that convention between humans put over sentiments and art and that can't buy time. Paper to get more paper ? Nonsense to me. Follow your heart.

As said by Guido in the link provided by Gabriel, this was made by the University of Tübingen, so academic material, as back as 2011 but it disappeared. Searching the web for a certain very ancient Nengo I stepped into it again on another german site. Maybe something else interesting and useful here but dominion of german-speaking members: http://www.yukikurete.de/index.html

An old friend that seems forgotten : http://www.yukikurete.de/nengo_calc.htm

My money is on Shoshin or at least ggimei by a good smith. No need to add Yasurime on a sword for puppets, Too bad the tsuka and tsuba are gone but I bet they were of good level as well.

Brian I'm flattened by your words. I still have the pics of your home under the snow. I wish I had such a "buen retiro".

Short and straight doble edged swords never had a fighting use in (Yamato ruled and after unification) Japan. In early periods (300-500 C.E.) the ceremonial swords were, generally, either straight and double edged, much like the well known Ken that resembled the ones of the Late Chou Dynasty, or indigenous, snake-like “Meandering Swords” (Dakô-ken) soon replaced by Ken. For ceremonial we could consider also "status symbols" for High rank officials. Longer (partially) double edged blades seems randomly used in the pre-Wanto period. BTW, Wikipedia is not a reliable source, and very far to be academic. Good for quik references that have to be confirmed by more academic means. Hereunder : Ceremonial (religious) Dako Ken, long combat chokuto and ceremonial (social status and religious) proto-Ken

And Han Dinasty gold fittings :

The iron blade is gone, however jade is still wonderful. Dragon family:

And here is how they were preserved :

This is "warring states" period (500 b.C,). No saya however an interesting proto kodzuka in the same style of the main blade :

Thanks Piers. Effectively, it is hard to find information about this topic.

Nice reading. Thanks Peter.

Re-reading an old book of Thurnbull I found reference to Mounted Samurai with pistols supposedly used AFTER Sekigahara. This is much like central european Reiters fought. However I would ask about the timeline accuracy of the reference as it sound strange to me imagine a battle with such armed warrior after 1600. Maybe at Osaka, still just a more unique than rare occurrence. I think the specialists in this forum can teach me something about the matter and may give some link to educate an armchair historian like me. Some pics :

Thanks Peter