Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini

Poor Ozeki sake drinker here, but collector of sake cupsand bottles. :D

You met Riccado "Jeeg Robot" Franci ? Fantastic ! :D Please help him whenever you can. Young, motivated and knowledgeable. He and Civita are an hope for Stibbert's NihonTo future. I wish Ms. Spadavecchia of the Ca' Pesaro Museum in Venice had half the knowledge and dedication toward NihonTo Riccardo has. I think you'll like a pic of Riccardo with Marco Quadri at our last meeting at Stibbert.. Maybe one day you'll meet Marco too at Mishina's house, so you'll know how he looks like :

Paul, these threads awakened the old British Museum's Nihonto Curator that was sleeping in you ? :lol: You should take a look at what are doing here in Italy to the Castello Sforzesco's NihonTo collection and what the lack of funds makes to the Stibbert's Nihonto, and what the love for laquer and hate for swords by the curator is making at Ca' Pesaro's nihonto and... Aaarghhh... I wish renaissance wax was our only problem.. Really, much better to rent a cargo and send them all back to Japan...

Congratulations for the newborn, Alfred. or do you mean a new sword ? :D

Interesting.

Original customer run out of money... :lol:

Hi John. Never seen so big, distant, with work in between and placed this way... Maybe Atobi/Atobori ?

Hi Darcy. Even if you give less written information about the blade then Mishina in his Kantei pages, you give a lot more visual info thru your excellent pictures then Mishina's Oshigata, so I can't blame anybody else then myself for my failures.

That's the hard part of the matter for me...

Hi Mike. Very nice. Likely you've sold it for something better... Darcy, when you say "I'm lucky" you don't know how much... :D

A must-have....

According Kokan Nagayama and some others like Harvey Stearn the tsukurikomi like Kobuse or Makuri were invented in the late Muromachi (around 1450), so many koto blades which are folded never show core steel and seems never tired even though they are also fine as a cigarette paper. We already duscussed this on Swordforum International, but seemed to me you weren't comfortable in accepting other points of view. (You stated Hirazukuri can't have Shingane but a REALLY knowledgeable member of this board clearly saw it in a Tanto of mine, Mino , Muromachi). Anyway : Nihonto Koza, about Ko-Bizen, page 145, Koto vol. III If you read thru the Usagiya site provided you'll see it's belived that Shingane was already present much before the dates Nagayama and Stearn quotes (according to you...). Thinks to Soshu Kitae too. To arrive at such a Kitae needs several stages before. ALL the Kitae started from 1450 ? I totally skip on evidences about Nara/Heian, Japanese-made Chokuto that already had Shingane as Japanese pre-WWII studies about this matter aren't exactly easy to find and to approach with.

A great addition as yours can only be welcomed.

Thanks Keith. Almost at the Hamachi... It have to be a designated position to cut a sword for study. The ancient Chokuto that were sectioned to study their internal composition were cut at the very same place (cut n.4 in the drawing) :

Hi Keith and Ted. It would be interesting to have details about the school and age of the swords sectioned, if available and if sharing of such info allowed.

And as per the reason it was worn this way seems to me to remember that in body-to-body combat when the brests of the two opponents are in contact, possibly both rolling on the terrain, a Tanto placed in such a way was easier to draw then in the standard position.

Piedmont ? I live at 15 km west of Novara... If it's an habit we could meet at Armeria Reale in Turin one day...

Hi Roland. Nice one. I think you're correct in stating Bashin/Umabari hasn't such a mounting (and Horimono I would dare to add...). Again, the diamond section shouldn't fit on a Kodogu that should require a flat surfae on one side. On the other hand Gabriel's point of view is sustained by the fact that's hard to find a Shuriken with such elaborated engravings and Hamon, more common on Kodogu. Possibly it is a Shuriken-Naoshi Kogatana in Tanto mounting (therms acrobatic exercise in danger of a bad mistake... :lol: ) with later (but still ancient) engravings ? More research needed, as a mounted Shuriken should appear something like this, with no Tsuba or Habaki : (Should be Izu Ryu Hokogata Shuriken, not Uchine. Already discussed here: http://www.intk-token.it/forum/index.ph ... l=shuriken)

Interesting found John.

Hi Remy. Punched seems a less "refined" circle and the middle of the inner section many times is another hint to watch at. Drilled usually is closer to a perfect circle and the inner part is different. Hard to explain with my english. Even if I'm sure that water-propelled tools were used in Edo period and possibly before, I'm not sure a steel-drilling machine existed, so I'm for the drilling by hands, but I can be wrong.

Punching with a tool in the ancient times and drilling it later. Hard tome to say when the shift happened but its a thing to watch at that can help to identify a Koto versus Shinto blade.

Kevin, PM sent. That's not about NihonTo so it doesn't belongs to here but maybe is of high interest to you.

A good advice this too. Emerging nihonto smith's blades can also be an investment.

All these requirements makes me thinking about a brand new blade made by an american smith. Not a NihonTo but less expensive, MUCH more easier to have it in your measurements (sori too...) being custom made, possibly better balance then most low-end antiques, usable for tameshigiri too in the future, with no regrets. Such smiths can provide you the mounting too. Of course, if genuine NihonTo are required by your snensei, don't mind about my lines... Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for sharing Paul...