ChrisW

Yup that seems to be the likely case! I've only made exceptions where I've bought a blade directly from a veteran's estate or from the veteran themself.

I am an Indiana resident, would be happy to assist if you need it. Message sent.

This and I avoid any blades that have a fuchi but a missing kashira. I am not into playing matchmaker! WWII blades with bullet damage, while neat, are automatic rejections for me. I got offered two a month back at the Countryside Military Show, was a hard pass for me.

I don't think its a lack of interest in such blades, its more the inaccessibility and/or cost of such things. Any time an antique one comes up, they're almost always either deemed a national treasure (as they should be) or are in the hands of a very high-end native Japanese collector. Modern-made ones don't tend to come up often either. Ray obviously knows way more about how often one could come across them on the market, but I suspect sites like Aoi occasionally get them.

The paper under the silk wrap is purely for making the silk have proper curvature for grip. There is no significance to it other than that.

Quite a looker, here's hoping!

For Indiana, we just call ourselves the Indiana Token Kai. As for membership, we simply state it is open to anyone, regardless of place of residence.

If you see dark clouds or peaks directly above the hamon, then that is usually the indication of an oil-quenched blade. The photos make it hard to tell unfortunately.

Glad to hear Tanobe Sensei is back on his feet properly!

Before I go gently into that good night... Our next public meeting is on Saturday, August 13th at 10 A.M. We will be meeting again at the Morgan County Public Library in Martinsville, IN. The topic for this meeting is "Best of the Collections" and will feature some nice blades including a Senjuin Tachi, Yamato Ken, and a Kiyomitsu Katana! If you have questions, please reach out to me for information on how to attend or if you have questions! And of course, if any of you gentlemen on the board would like to come, we'd more than love that!

Time for a price quote on that?? Crazier ideas have worked.

Thanks for sharing! Can you give a theory on how that damage came to be?

With over a thousand years of development, history, styles, etc.... I don't think anyone has the right to claim the title of "Elitist" in this discipline.. except for maybe Tanobe Sensei and even then, I've heard he's a very humble and unassuming man. A wonderful smith can produce a low-quality blade, and likewise, even the lowliest of smith can produce a blade that should be held in extremely high regard. Far as I've read, the rankings just refer to a general sense of the known and published body of their works. Maybe as blades are papered and information is collated, rankings should change.. not be a static thing. But that is just my humble opinion. I look at the blade first, generally ignoring the name on it or on the papers until I've gotten an opinion on the quality of the work itself.

If you are on a laptop, your trackpad might be going out or having a loose connection. If its a desktop, try replacing the mouse. Wireless mice are especially prone to this with some age.

I think part of the issue with that is the fear that martial artists may use antique blades for their practices, even though the vast majority do not. I am sure Brian could chime in more about the policies regarding that with respect to NMB.

Oof, I just looked again and saw that! That is pretty awful.

Hate to break it to you, but its an imitation. Everything is wrong about it, from the blade to the fittings. My suggestion would be to meet up with someone who has a real one so you could compare it side by side; it would be a lot easier that way! To answer your questions more specifically: 1. Habaki were never stamped with a serial number. 2. The mei looks all wrong (sloppily written and inconsistent spacing), I am not convinced it is correct kanji or anything more than just gibberish. But I cannot read it, so I'd wait for someone to chime in who can. 3. The fitting don't match anything from WWII nor do they match anything that is correctly made. If you look at them closely, you can see the general crudeness and I bet if you look even closer, you'll find casting seams. 4. The blade itself looks like it is a crude Damascus and acid-etched as well. The machi (places where the habaki slides up against) are not in alignment and that is a typical hallmark of a Chinese-produced imitation.

The second should always come first and foremost in my book!

Graverobbing has always been a problem. In some countries though, it was a family occupation or even a social caste. If you look into India, there was an actual social caste whose job was to "liberate" things from graves. And oddly enough, America has had a pretty profound problem with it historically and currently. Especially on the east coast and deep south. There's a reason why things like "mort cages" were made!

Ninja-to as you understand never existed. Yes, there were swords that had little or no sori, but they were not made expressly for the purposes of clandestine operations (spy and assassination work). Ninja as actually existed used the same sort of weapons their samurai counterparts would use most of the time. At least, that's what I've always heard and read.

Let us know where you're buried, alright? Would be a shame to not pay respects to... the items.. Anyone got a good shovel?

I think the biggest part of the struggle is for the hobby, and organizations by extension, to compete for time with other things that go on in peoples' lives. When us folk in the ITK set meeting dates, it is invariably something we do in advance and often have to reschedule so that even just us few can make it. I think this problem goes hand-in-hand with trying to get younger folk into the hobby. Though online resources are huge in getting people interested and keeping them connected; so loathe I am to say it, but social media is perhaps the best way to move forward since it is the main method through which people arrange things.

With the cheap items that may not sell well? My suggestion is to use them to get new collectors into this hobby. Sell them at modest/low prices with a full and honest explanation to the new collector of the item's potential. Last month, I was going to sell a mumei wakizashi to a father whose son was really interested in nihonto. The blade itself was no catch and fairly abused, and would have made no financial sense to restore. I was upfront about that with him. And when it came time for him to see it and other potential blades, to my surprise, he had brought his son! His son looked at several of my blades and had his heart set on a slightly more expensive wakizashi than the original one I had proposed for a potential new collector. It was a modest blade in shirasaya and reasonable polish with a rather nice gold and shakudo habaki, mid-1700's blade. I could see how much it meant to him, so I knocked about 30% off my price on this blade so it was affordable for him. Taught him all about the blade, related terminology, and how to care for it that I could. And now we may very well have a new ITK member! So even though I ate a little bit of the profit on that blade, I feel pretty good about getting someone new into nihonto.

My plan, is if I get to be fortunate enough to get on up in years, to make sure I have already sold everything but the most precious to me so that I minimize the burden of dealing with what is left behind. Anything else will have a tag on it with documents that include instructions on how to properly sell it to someone who'll appreciate it and give my descendants the most value out of it.

There's a lot of kinsuji and chikei present that my ITK group had noted. I'll share the mei later today to give people some more time since I had posted so late last evening.