ChrisW

Japanese felling axe. Had one very similar to it. Traded it for my new ken!

Agreed. A poorly rendered fake. Hopefully not too much was spent on it. This site has a lot of available resources for you to study. And when you're ready, reputable sellers who can hook you up with a genuine article. Stick around and move past this initial stumble!

Perhaps Southeast Asian, like Vietnamese or Cambodian? Mind showing us a picture of the tang area and the hole in the tang? The soft-metal casting looks too crude to be Japanese. The whole thing looks like something done in the past century as a tourism piece. Might be loosely Japanese inspired? But I doubt its actually Japanese.

I've got one, its a bit of an odd theme: soybean on a stalk. Gold and silver leaves/stem with copper beanpod. Measures approx. 2" tall.

What is the price range you're looking at? Open hitsu-ana, right? Any particular theme?

Forgiven! And please, its just Chris. Or Christopher if you insist. If you ever come to the Chicago show, be sure to stop by my table and I'll show my tanegashima as well!

Well, you can't tease us and not show and tell!

A shame you got rid of it so soon! I would have at least waited for an opinion on it from a polisher you like first (someone who does it for the love of swords and not necessarily the money... as if there is much money to be made for the time spent anyways!) Not to be crude, but to quote a favorite author of mine, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. once famously said, "Opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one." I find that opinions fly fast and quick when people are looking to add it to their collection or they have some sort of interest in it. Also a shame you didn't give me first crack at it, I would have probably went for it. Oh well! I am sure it will find someone who will take it on. As for the blade itself, its possible it was an omi-yari, but to me... it looks like a ken and looks ubu. They're not standardized pieces and they're fairly rare. The final judgement would have been a good polisher and then shinsa. Ken were made through all time periods, so it matters little if the patination does not appear to be that old. The only problem that I can see on it from the photos would be that long ware that appears to be running up most of one side of the blade. As for the possible atobori? It'd study the patination of the nakago closely to see if the rust within the carving seems to match the rest of the nakago. If it doesn't, then I guess we have an answer. Lastly, I've taken a risk of a ken before.. returned it too. I discovered that there was a nasty hagire hiding within the pitting on one side of it. Was the quickest return I could have made. So I understand your hesitance! Best of luck to you Piers! You'll find one soon that speaks to you I am sure. ~Chris

I love it and would love to add it to my collection, but it is in your care it seems!

There's a wealth of knowledge here, enjoy!

It was great meeting you Marco! I hope to see you again at the next Chicago show. I'll be sure to have some more interesting pieces by then as well. Ah, you're one of Coco's friends, are you not? Both of you, welcome to the board!

Any opinions out there? Much appreciated!

And a few more:

Here are some photos of the activity:

Hey guys, Been a while since I've posted a new acquisition, but this one has me excited and its not something you see every day. I acquired it at the recent Chicago show and got it in a trade deal. I've put it in front of several people at the show, including Bob Benson. He seemed to really like it and told me how he could properly bring out the hada even more than it is already so this one is going to Bob for work eventually. His opinion was that it was late Shinto/Shinshinto. Bob did note that someone had messed with the nakago in an attempt to make it look older but he believes it would be easy to remedy and properly repatinate. It is a massive 29" nagasa with a VERY active hamon and mokume hada. There is kinsuji, inazuma, nie and nioe present. This piece feels like it was made to show off the smith's skills yet is mumei which leads me to believe that this was a temple offering piece. I am welcome to opinions on school and smith. My blind guess is perhaps Mino, but ken are so poorly researched that it is really anyone's guess. Without further ado, here you all go! (If you want to see it in person, DM me and I'll get you the information for the next ITK meeting which is this next Saturday.) The first picture shows my two other ken for reference to scale since I neglected to lay a tape down with it. The top one is a Yamato den, and the bottom is Bungo Yukihira (1199-1206).

The cut ken makes me cry.

Not to stir the pot, but if he was an experienced collector of 40 years, then he would know for certain that the Showa stamp is an indicator of a non-traditionally made blade and would have priced accordingly. So either he somehow missed the stamp/forgot it was there or he thought he was taking you for a ride. I can't claim to know the man, but an extra 1/2" of blade would not make it particularly noteworthy. It would still fall in the standard nagasa length for an arsenal blade. The blade itself is almost certainly a high-grade Showato, but with that stamp, it is most definitely not a Gendaito. Still, a very nice Showato!

This is a question that only a polisher could answer definitively. If you're able to make it, there is a sword show in Chicago during the last weekend of this month. There will be several known polishers there that could assist.

Save one of the photos to your computer, go to Google images and do a "reverse image" search. You'll upload the photo to their search engine, and it will find all instances of the same or similar photos that turn up in its search algorithm. If you get the same or similar photos, then you've got a fraudster if said lady isn't the daughter of Sam Young. I'll go ahead and see what turns up for you. Update: Did a quick search using Google lens. None of the photos turned up anywhere else online. So they are likely to be taken for the first time. Which makes it more likely this is legitimate, but still: caveat emptor.

Get this in front of a traditionally trained polisher. Some options include: Bob Benson or Woody Hall.

That was my suspicion too after further study. Thanks Ray!

Thanks for the largely non sequitur. He was informed that the quality of his photos may or may not receive results. I decided to try for him anyways.

Jean, if you had read my post, you would know that these are not my photos. If you cannot post anything constructive to the post requests, then don't post. Thanks!

No idea. I've not yet seen this one in person and the photos are all he's given me to work with. But I fear for his sake that you may be right. Anyone else?