Rich S

And another: Heianjo 4 is just a better pic of the front of this one.

Nice tsuba. Here are a few of my favorite Heianjo, some on Saotome plates. Rich S (I find I don't know how to add multiple pics Sorry)

Nice tsuba. Here are a few of my favorite Heianjo, some on Saotome plates. Rich S

Thanks muchly, I'll pass the info along to the owner. Rich S

This was sent to me by a friend. Anyone have a clue as to the translation, school, date, etc. Any info appreciated. Thanks in advance. Rich S

I got my first sword at a local gun show. A shobu zukuri Sukesada in perfect mounts with ensuite Shoami (signed) handachi koshirae for $142. I bought it just because it was neat and old. I didn't know squat about Nihonto then (still know very little).The sword was signed and dated, Bunmei something (I don't recall) circa 1649). I took it to a local militaria store who put me in touch with a wonderful guy (the late George Moody), who mentored me for years. After spending thousands on books and going to shows with him, I started buying more Nihonto. My second sword was a mint Ichihara Nagamitsu in late 1944 shin-gunto mounts. After that I was totally hooked and lost my mind to the study of Nihonto. Of course that price was over 35 years ago and I'm still a rank novice despite studying and handling a zillion or two swords and having a library worth more than my swords. Like it was said above - buy books, look at lots of good swords, hopefully have a good mentor - then think about buying swords. Rich S

Never collect anything as an investment. The collectibles market is too volatile and has major changes over time (sometimes very short times). What's collectible today, you can't give away tomorrow. This even goes for "fine art"; today it's Picasso, tomorrow it's Monet. Today it's Kiyomaro, tomorrow it's Sadatsugu, etc. No predicting the collectibles market. Collect because you like/love the item, not because it may or may not increase in value. Collect what you like, but like what you collect - and don't count on retiring on the sale income. You'll end up living in your kids garage :-) Just my $0.03 (allowing for inflation). Rich S

Thanks Chris, glad to put this baby to bed for good. While the pages found by Piers are interesting, I don't think they really contribute to the Emura/Nagamitsu debate, other than confuse the issue once again (no offense meant Piers - still interesting pages). I think Chris and others have conclusively proven that they are different smiths. (I'm glad - would hate to have to totally rewrite those webpages :-) Rich S

Piers - Does the author give any documentation or source of his information about Emura/Nagamitsu? I don't read Japanese well enough to tell. Chris B.- We corresponded about this a lot in the past. Can you shed any light on this? It goes contrary to everything that I've read and that folks have sent me. Thanks Rich S

Great find. The Nagamitsu like yours on my site is an oshigata sent to me, as was the translation. So I can't verify the translation is 100% correct or interpreted correctly. I think (?) the translation and oshigata were sent to me by someone on this board but many years ago (Don't recall who Rich S

R.I.P. John. Condoleances to his family. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him and the Nihonto community. Rich S

Barry - I have my collection, swords and fittings, insured under my homeowner's policy as an art rider. They required an appraisal from a licensed dealer but other than that it was no problem. Also not expensive since I had other insurance with them. Rich

The Kozuka and Kogai are the type known as Sendai. Many tanto of the period were fitted with complete sets of fittings of this type. Here's an excerpt from "Sendai Koshirae" from "Edo no Tanto Koshirae" by Ide Masanobu. He is of course referring to the entire set of fittings. ------------- This is an attractive little koshirae. When looking at this koshirae, a person from an old sword shop would say, "Oh, this is an Ogaki Koshirae, isn't it?" Because this has frequently been sold in Ogaki of Gifu, it has the name of Ogaki Koshirae. At the same time, it has quite a bit of appeal and there seems to be a large number of them on the market. Speaking of Ogaki, it is close to both the Nakasando and Tokaido and the Ogaki Han, the Toda Ke, was also a fairly large fief. At any rate, the Ogaki Koshirae is also called a Yamazashiki Koshirae. Its origin was far from Ogaki in Sendai. In the Sendai Han Date Ke, the residential area for the lower class bushi was fairly high ground and was called Yamazashiki. As for the samurai of this time, the standard of living was rather austere, and even though they were bushi of this Han, they seem to have had occupations of doing piecework. One of the items that these lower class bushi of Sendai made and were paid for by the piece for was this Yamazashiki Koshirae. However, no mattter how many of the koshirae they made, the number they could sell in Sendai was limited. Thus, the Date Ke, besides sending these to their friends in the Toda Ke, also sent a large number of them to Ogaki, and because there seemed to be a demand for them, this meant that there were shipped from the far distant Sendai to Ogaki. -------------------- Hope this helps Rich

Brian - Glad you are back home safely and get over the flu (or whatever) quickly. Sorry about your Delta flights - they are the worse US carrier as others have said. Did you ever get your luggage? Any great finds at the shows? Rich S

Several examples of sanmai tsuba can be seen on my website at: http://japaneseswordindex.com/tsuba/sanmai.htm Rich S

Look on the bright side, at least you won't have to worry about oiling it or rust if it's an aluminum blade :-) Rich S

Thanks to Brian for hosting the mirror site. The original is still there (when bandwidth permits Also you can still download your own complete copy in zip format and put it on your hard drive from: http://home.earthlink.net/~steinpic/jsi1.htm It is about 8 Megs, so those of you on dialups like me, it will take awhile. Of course it will not ever have updates. I will be sending Brian what very few updates there might be to my site so he can upload to the mirror. Thanks again to Brian. Rich S

For those who have forgotten their basic chemistry: >Mole Day is a Nationally unofficially recognized day in celebration of > Avogadro's Law which is one of the corner stones of chemistry > and science. It says that in any pure substance, 1 gram molecular > weight (1 mole) there are 6.02 x 10^23 (10 to the 23rd power) number > of molecules. It is celebrated on Oct. 23rd (10,23) from 6.02 AM > until 6.02 PM. Hence: 6.02x10^23 Avogadro's Number. Rich S

As a retired chemist, I must abide by the alchemist's creed and am required to wish all of you a happy and pleasant Mole Day with many more to come. Rich S

IMHO, choose condition over stamps. Polishing is VERY expensive, esp for WW II era swords. You could very well end up spending more on polishing than the sword is worth. Rich S

Matt - While I have no hard data on the subject, I believe a variety of mei were used by Emura while working at Okayama prison. I have always wondered about the lineages of Emura and Ichihara Nagamitsu. Who were their teachers; where did they learn to forge blades, etc? I've not seen any info on those topics; of course I have no access to first hand info or original literature. Rich S

Chris and Morita san: thanks for the information. I will add it to my Emura page (with credit given as usual). Rich S

Emura, like Nagamitsu, had several helpers/apprentice smiths working for him. I don't believe anyone has identified which mei are actually Emura and which were made or just signed by his apprentices. Rich

Not rare at all. I have one and have seen dozens of others. Rich S

I fully understand Brian's "addiction" (for lack of a better word) to Kanezane. I have one, a two character mei in civilian showa mounts. Nice blade, but that's not my point. I have an "addiction" to Ichihara Nagamitsu and Emura blades. Like Brian having a Kanezane as his first, a beautiful Nagamitsu in mint condition in late 44 mounts was my first sword. I became involved with finding more and more about him, his work, etc. etc. Emura came into the picture as at that time it was thought they were the same smith (which of course they are not). I still have 3 swords by each and the first Nagamitsu is still my favorite sword even though I had gotten into sword of all eras back to a nice Kamakura tachi, several Muromachi era SukeX (some Sukesada), Shinto and Shinshinto blades. Since I am primarily a knife collector since age 8 (don't ask, it was when we rode dinosaurs to school bare foot in the snow :-), I've also collected numerous tanto of various style blades and mounts. I don't have a specialized theme, I just follow one basic rule: collect what you like, but like what you collect; Brian is doing just that. Go for it Brian - hope you find many more Kanezane. Rich S