Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini

All should be in order now. Swords are still considered war-weapons in Italy and he have to demonstrate what he's listing is properly registered otherwise things could get *really* serious. Please let me know if he'll try again.

Sent him an advise. Next step will be to get involved the "Polizia Postale".

Hi Brian. Touch up polish is the key word here. As you say, hard to fix things without a full polish. Surely not your fault. This brings up once again the matter that a past bad polish can give us an altered sword beyond any possible restoration, no matter about our efforts, and remind us to use only good polishers to avoid such sad occurrance to the ones that will care for our swords after us. Danger of Shingane shown in the kissaki ? Has to have been messed up quiet a lot in the past. Usually Shingane starts quiet safely away from the tip...

Koshinogi looks not right as well, resembling too straight in the forward part, both sides. Might be the pics and lack of sleep on my part.

Eretic french. Back home, as punishment you have to drink 3 bottles of any Grand Cru of your choice. :lol: Waiting for your pics.

Hi John. You're most likely right as me too arrived at this conclusion until I figured out how differently a wakizashi was worn in Edo period, the golden age of these items. It was worn not parallel to the uchigatana but rather close to the body and more angled toward the up. This way you had the left side of the body protected by the Wakizashi's blade while fighting with both hands on Uchigatana, the wakizashi's tsuka not being in the way of your arms movements. In most of Kendo schools now it's allowed to strike the left Do, but once it wasn't considered a valid score for this reason. This placement would have made the kodzuka easier to draw with right hand if the left thumb was pulling it out from the Omote side as the Ura one was close to the body. At least, this is the reason that makes me wonder, but I can be totally wrong.

This puzzles me as well by far... can't figure out why but guess in the evolution of mounts at a certain point it was accepted as a rule, written or not. Early examples of such items as Kogatana and Kogai were always placed on the Omote and was so important to place them one over the other. I can't imagine these mounts as battlefield ones, so "to show up" was likely the reason of the placement. This reason must have been lost in the much later wakizashi. We share the same question, Ian. P.S. IMHO their use is much older than usually believed and if you look carefully you can find prototypes of all three main items discussed here, including what looks like a proto-bashin with hole in the handle.

Hi Guido. She's grown up a lot eh ? Not recognizable from the pic. Just for your information half of Markus' numerous contacts on facebook are attractive women. You're warned :lol: Anyway it's not the first DTI Markus survives to, so I think he was fully able to manage a translation even after the cruise's drinks... Jean likely suffered the lack of his wines there. Or not ? Mmmmm... Not.

Markus started with the right foot eh ? Sake and sit down in front of a nice girl. I wonder about the result of an A4 translation if submitted just after the cruise...

Guess "complicated" is the closest one. Make a search for Kokturk weaponry of the same period to see how complicated it really is.

Yimu, don't take me wrong. Simply, I've seen and continuously see a war between chinese, korean and Japanese about the attribution of such and such a sword, in other board chinese and koreans. My aim is to leave this sort of ethnical controversy out of this board. Likely the swords in question are made with Japanese steel smelted with a particular furnace now exctinct by far and with smithing performed by 3rd or 4th generation korean smiths. But this is better discussed elsewhere because there are too many cross-cultural matters and archeological questions involved.

The miracle would be to find rust on a bronze weapon as the one you're posting, of late Eastern Zhou Dynasty, excavated in Wangshan, Jiangling County, Hubei Province. But guess you meant "oxidization" . Not a miracle but the result of a very smart process of protecting the bronze surface, well described by Dr, Yang Hong. It doesn't work with steel, hence the poor conditions of most of the iron/steel swords in the two countries. I'm not so sure you've the knowledge to prove they *surely* are made in China. Are you sure to want to rise such a topic ?

These not for sure, but it's a matter of fact that in China are available lots of incredibly well made fakes of bronze weapons of any (chinese) historical period that sometime fooled even museums. E-bay has the low-end of them as well.

Thanks Lorenzo. I'm posting it on Samurai Archives in the Ancient Period subforum with full credit to you. Guess I've to get in touch with a friend of mine about the matter.

Found it...

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Indeed... Once I had a pic of a single detachable loop placed on a Handachi Koshirae, but for the life in me I can no more find it on my HD. Here an old work that might be of visual help and hopefully not too much wrong :

Yes, it's my fault as I've never given enough attention to the matter. Limits force me to make choices.

I can handle it for maybe 10 minutes (surely for my fault). Me think it needs an understanding and background many of the westerner (and possibly many Japanese as well) greatly lack.

Guido, first alchool instead of uchiko, then foam instead of wood... you're destroying all my myths. :lol: This is a better idea than wood for a fireproof safe. Shape seems easy to be worked out from large pieces of foam, fixed with velcro to adjust the length when collection changes and it fits even non-Japanese scabbards, either more fat or slim. Think I'll give it a try...

Ken, don't you feel better to have shirasaya made for these ones before anything else ? Or are they still waiting for polish ? Naked blades should stay behind a safety glass only, IMHO...

Hehehe, social relations... At least it'll be stored here for future references.

Or because it was for a lefty sammyrai... Wonder why the experts never got it, sticking with the butterflies...

Piers, I don't think it was a stupid move. otherwise you'd have not been asked to sell it back... If you don't need the cash and like the item, why sell it ?

Ford, are you so tricky to have posted the tsuba flipped ? :D I would have said Eboshi but Markus' explanation makes a lot of sense to me...