francois2605

Very nice pictures, Jonathan. Thanks for sharing

Your sword comes with green papers which aren't considered reliable and therefore worthless today. Search "green papers" on the forum and you'll find plenty of discussions about them and why they're no longer trusted. Here's one such instance from January: Another thread where papers are discussed and why green ones are no longer trusted: Your sword was initially sold by showa22, regulars on the forum can immediately tell just by looking at the pictures without even clicking on the eBay link. Likewise, search his name on the forum where you'll be able to read opinions about this seller.

I had a similar issue with a gunto and after thinking about it realized that the seppa had not been put back by the previous owner in the correct order. Swapping the seppa fixed the issue for me

Steve, since you're into gendaito, have you considered buying "An Oshigata Book of Modern Swordsmiths 1868-1945" by Slough ? This book would probably answer a lot of your questions, is out of print but there's one currently on sale on the forum: This is the entry for KANEMASA Redirecting to those 2 pages

I think you're confusing shingane with umegane It's the repeated polishing of the kawagane which eventually exposes the shingane

In the Buyee interface, you get to choose how to describe the package via a drop down list. There's an entry "Antique" in the list. If I remember correctly, you can do it upon choosing the shipping method

The picture of the jihada really has the komonjo feel and doesn't look like a typical Japanese sword hada. If the sword is supposed to be from Nakata Kanehide (2 million yen and high to superior-grade gendaito), the mei doesn't match. The 2 pages from John Slough's book about Kanehide for reference. 2 other Nakata Kanehide online at the moment: * https://japanesesword.com/archived-pages/2017/9/14/star-stamp-gendaito-by-nakata-kanehide * https://yakiba.com/kanehide-nakata/

I'm not an expert but... Probably hira-zōgan, searching "inlay" in Markus Sesko's Encyclopedia of Japanese Swords returns the following definition.

@Ray Singer is in Florida, you may want to contact him

I bought once from them, indeed their communication is a bit blunt probably because they're not very comfortable with english. I paid them via PayPal, everything went fine, they even declared the sword as an antique one for the customs even though I never asked them to do it.

Nicholas, there is this hotel in Japan which looks pretty unique: https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/29265-this-hotel-has-one-of-the-coolest-katana-collections-in-Japan-and-admission-is-totally-free Edit: probably not compatible with your time constraints

Is it possible to see close-ups of the hada and hamon ? I'm sure this will help your sale.

Bruce wrote a great document about stamps found on WW2 swords that you can find here: Look in page 28

Just to give an order of magnitude: Aoi Arts charged me 33 000 JPY in April for the UPS shipping fees (of a wakizashi) to France.

Simply by adding a link to this thread in your sale post

BTW I forgot to mention that there is link to a template of kantei sheet in the "Nihonto Info" menu on the forum, this should guide you in the process. http://www.militaria.co.za/articles/Kantei_Sheet.pdf

My 2 cents: the technical term for this is yakidashi. From Markus Sesko's Encyclopedia of Japanese Swords.

How weird, I had a look to the "Military swords" collection and stumbled upon several eBay pictures from Komonjo and SamuraiMonkey. This (Komonjo) 1937 katana is supposedly by Yasunori... Obviously a fake but why is it there ?!? I'm so confused

Is it possible to see the opposite side of the tsuba ?

My understanding is that the shipping to Europe stopped because of the situation in Ukraine so it normally shouldn't resume before the war ends

Excellent, thank you so much for this information, Piers. I would have never guessed !

Hello gentlemen, Several months ago, I bought a tsuba on Buyee and the box's lid contains long handwritten notes. I was wondering if someone could translate them. Thank you very much for your help For those interested, this is the corresponding tsuba.

Hello William, that's a nice Type 3 you have here. Some minor remarks regarding your description: Shin-gunto refers to a type 94/98 koshirae, yours is a type 3. The sugata is shinogi-zukuri, iori-mune only describes the geometry of the sword's back. The nagasa is too long and cannot be correct, gunto normally have a length between 60 and 65 cm. You probably measured the total sword length which isn't the nagasa.

Your sword is gorgeous, it looks very powerful with its long kissaki. Are you alluding to a kinnoto in your description ? I remembered (from Aoi Arts pictures) that kinnoto had an extra long nakago (among other things) that I can't see on your sword so I checked Markus' encyclopedia of Japanese swords and I don't think your sword qualifies as one: the nagasa should be at least 80 cms and the nakago is too short (once you've seen a kinnoto nakago, you just can't forget it).

Peter hasn't been online since Jan 23rd according to his profile page