AntiquarianCat

Also, here is a photo taken without a microscope and with a lighting angle that yields maximum scratch visibility. I also have a YouTube video of the scratches, it’ll need to be viewed at maximum resolution to discern them I am including the video because I think it’s the most representative of what the scratch looks like under the naked eye: near invisible unless you’re hunched over and looking at the edge with good lighting.

So I will preface this by saying the dealer I obtained this sword from is certain it’s not hagire, has an excellent reputation here and elsewhere so this absolutely isn’t a case of someone like Monkey trying to fleece me. That said, I noticed while examining my sword with a lamp that there was an edge scratch on both sides, perpendicular to the hamon, and that provoked the sword hypochondriac in me so here I am hoping it’s not a crack. The “scratches” in question are almost impossible to see with the naked eye unless you have strong incident lighting, if so they’re visible depending on angle. With a phone mounted microscope, they are more notable, one is an interrupted scratch with no depth whereas the other side seems to have a very shallow gouge. Again, not very visible under some lighting and noticeable under other angles. Also, there is no apparent depth to the scratches, I ran a nitrile glove covered fingernail against the scratches and never could feel any sort of depth or catch like true cracks and gouges have. Oil also did not seep or sink into the scratch or linger there; being as easy to wipe off from the scratch as any other part of the edge. My dealer is sure that the appearance of the the scratch along the the lack of any depth, and his not observing hagire while selling means it’s just a scratch? Would other experienced eyes agree with that? I hope these photos under different magnification and lighting help.

Hey Jake, Nice to see someone else from my state here. Last year we were lucky enough that the nihonto show was moved from Florida to Atlanta, so hopefully there will be more shows in the future.

My apologies, I should have been more clear. When I said antique netsuke, I meant antique as an unconditional requirement. I’m well aware that contemporary ivory is illicit and unethical. That said, if the elephant passed away two hundred years ago, the people who killed him are long gone, the artisan gone too, conserving an artifact will do nothing to bring the elephant back or fund contemporary poachers but it will preserve a bit of human creativity and heart. I guess I feel the same way about the whale bone carvings my grandmother owns, they’re relics of a sort, and preserving their art will do no harm when the Pequod and the 1800s artisans are long gone. The worst evil that could come from that is making people think whaling was okay, but I think most into odd niche interests like antique carvings have the sense to know people in the past did bad things and that conserving artifacts doesn’t equate to an endorsement.

I love them(I keep a lot of stones/gemstones carved into animal shapes on my desk so no surprise), especially the zoomorphic ones like the rat and the rabbit. Would I be right in assuming that ivory netsuke, although antique, would be hard to obtain in the present day?

Honestly though, a sword being unsigned (mumei) is the least of Monkey’s problems. Tons of pre modern nihonto are mumei, especially o-suriage koto pieces, so if you want to buy those cheap you have to have some tolerance for mumei. The bonus is it avoids gimei (likely with an unpaperred signed blade) too, so so long as it’s a good sword in decent polish, a shinsa will only bring good news vs an unpapered mei sword that could turn out gimei and unpaperable. A lot of very high end dealers sell mumei koto swords that are still otherwise excellent (some even are Juyo) so there’s no shame in owning or selling an old sword that lost a signature. No my problem with Samurai Monkey is he blatantly lies about what his swords are: most of his “family swords” and gendai are obvious oil tempered showato, you can tell by their dark oil quench stains above the hamon and complete lack of activities. I think some might have had their arsenal stamps tampered with. So he really is pushing nearly worthless non traditional swords as traditionally made family blades, beware. The few swords he has that look to be genuine family blades are either at ridiculous high four figure prices for a sword in not great condition, or lower prices but the sword is so ravaged and has had its geometry so compromised that I doubt it’s salvageable, much less worth its price. So far, haven’t seen anything Monkey sells that’s worth it’s price.

Hello Steve, I suppose all I could think of doing is to screen capture and document sellers who repeatedly have counterfeits they try and sell as legitimate. Hopefully ebayers will look up the reputation of who their seller is and will be put off by a pattern of fraud. I have tried to warn sellers when they’re selling bogus items but they usually don’t listen, I assume they already know and chose to pass it off to someone else either way.

For me the buffed and acid polish problem is the deal breaker. I can’t feel safe bidding when I know a blade that looks okay from fuzzy photos will be a train wreck when I get it. Not only is the buffing hideous but it also means if I get tired of looking at the wreck I wouldn’t be able to sell for more than pennies on the dollar. If he would just do an announcement promising to not buff old polish swords, that would do so much to restore his customer base. That said, maybe the assessments of him are a tad overly harsh. True the buffing is a disaster that makes any buy not worth it, but he accepted a return. And what’s more, big retailers like SBG shamelessly buff their nihonto, sell it as a service, and lie to their customers by saying it’s a good way to conserve a sword that won’t hurt value. They also mislead customers about the value and or appraisal of their swords and sell their nearly worthless buffed pieces for far more than Showa22 and get away with it because a large fan base. So while the buffing is terrible and has scared me away, his mistakes are honestly mild by comparison to the shady used car salesman tactics 2021 (SBG, Samurai Monkey) low end nihonto vendors use.

I’m sorry to say the rumors of buffing/amateur polish and acid washes are every bit as true as they are ghastly. At least he was decent enough to accept a return but I can not comprehend why the buffing? An old polish sword with minor rust problems has potential and could get better. Instead the buffed swords are basket cases with almost no value and would take a professional polisher to maybe salvage. I just can not understand why he took old swords and buffed away almost all their value. He’s buffing away his own money.

I agree, and I’m very sorry to hear about that stolen sword, I will be sure to keep my eyes open if it ever shows up on eBay or other sites people might use to resell stolen wares. Also I’m sure you know but if it was stolen in postal transit then the inspector general will investigate and prosecute https://www.uspsoig.gov/uspsoig-contact They, after a long time, helped me with a stolen laptop so it was worth a try and I’m sure a five figure sword will get more priority.

I think what would be most helpful would be overhead views. Especially if you can take one of the mune, with the habaki removed. If the nakago is much thicker than the blade itself I would think so.

If it’s eBay I would suggest filing an item not as described claim or threatening to file unless the guy with the sandpaper provides restitution or takes the damaged swords back. It’s not right that he sell them as regular out of polish swords and then cause major damage to your swords because he thinks no rust will get him more money. Personally, I try to take a hard line against eBay vendors that secretly slip you buffed/sandpapered blades since if they don’t suffer penalties, they will continue to destroy good swords and sell those wrecks to customers. PS: I apologize, I just read your follow up posts, so it seems my suggestion is irrelevant, I should have read before letting a grudge get the best of me. Still, I don’t think he should be selling old swords when he’s shown such terrible judgment in conserving them and might give his clients the idea that sandpaper is fine.

I hope I’m not talking out of turn but I like the Kirikomi my swords have. Some of the swords look rather slender and insubstantial so it’s a nice reminder to see that even those were tested about as harshly as a sword could be (a fight) and survived. Battle scars on the mune and shinogi remind me of the proofing marks old European armor have. I personally would not trade sword metal in exchange of their removal.

In case if it’s still relevant, I’m very happy with its condition. The kitaware was tiny and shallow, maybe the polisher who worked on this closed it or it hasn’t opened up but it’s one of the best conditions I’ve seen for a sub2000$ sword. Especially when you compare it with sellers like S**wa22 who will tell you if you ask that it wasn’t buffed, but fib and sell you a buffed, wrecked sword, concealed by low res photos, for more than this.

Seeing as how it’s the exact same sword, I hope it’s okay if I use this thread and all the photos and info already on. To be honest, I was the person who purchased the blade when it relisted, couldn’t resist, I love swords with lots of nie and activity, and it was even a couple hundred dollars cheaper than last time around. I still have some questions, Eric told me it’s probably Kaga, 1600s, early edo period. I guess that would narrow it down to Keicho, Kan’ei, or Kanbun. I’m tempted to guess it’s Kan’ei since it’s not robust enough to fit the Keicho stereotype, and while it’s moderately tapered, it’s markedly curved, far more than my kanbun study piece (2.1cm sori vs 0.5 sori). Also, I did some looking around and it seems like some Kan’ei Shinto Kaga have similar elongated nakago along with significant sori and moderate taper. I wonder if this is similar to those. No way I’ll ever take better photos than Eric, and my digital camera broke, but maybe a couple of overhead photos, one with a generic katateuchi (1.5cm Sori, 60cm) as a frame of reference might help. I guess my questions are: would I be right in assuming this is a likely Kan’ei era blade, and would anyone have advice in my trying to pin it down to a line of smiths? Apart from Nagayama, I also have Markus Sesko’ A to Z smiths books and a few others but so far haven’t had a lot of luck with searching. Thanks everyone,

I wonder if the buffing wheel guy made the kasane thinner than it should be?

it kinda does remind me of my muromachi example and kinda look like #5 and #6b(muromachi). I don’t know enough to weigh in. But I’m sure photos without the habaki, and over head, including the nakago would help others. Also Nagayama’s book says kasane is useful for attribution so would help if we had a photo of the mune. Not sure if I’m just paranoid but the nakago looks odd somehow. It’s a shame when eBay vendors break their stuff with a buffing wheel. I made the mistake of buying from someone this forum warned amateur polished/acid washed his wares. He used low res photos hiding damage and promised me it was okay. Needless to say I regretted it and should have listened to the warnings here.

I sent him a 300$ offer for his million dollar, mislabeled pruning knife and a link to http://www.japaneseswordindex.com/unji.htm explaining what it is. Mostly for some fun and to see what he would say if given a proper ID and price. Unsurprisingly he rejected without an explanation. Not that I’m sad about it since I don’t want his compromised items no matter how cheap. I do wonder if it’s possible to contact eBay and report his fraudulent descriptions. This is his absurd listing in case if anyone hasn’t seen it.

I looked yesterday, it would seem that SBG’s SiteJabber and SBG’s ResellerRatings (who the owner obsesses about scoring highly enough in to have fans brigade) are probably the reviewing systems that SBG might care about the most. I agree, it would be fair game, and completely supportable by these screenshots to note that they sell over priced, oft misattributed/described swords and cause severe damage to their wares by sandpaper polishing and urge their customers to buy their amateur polish, all while concealing the loss of value such “restorations” do to their wares. I probably will leave a review on reseller, with my SBG screenshots as evidence if it lets me, but I suppose the trusting fans will outweigh me. I’ve been thinking over the Echizen sword they claimed belonged to Ieyasu’s smith, when the papers seemingly said something else. How SBG, buying low end YahooJP stuff in Japan to resell must have a translator around; how they deliberately put in clipped out and blurred certificate images to hinder reading. At first I thought “Blades of Japan” was just the result of a hubris fueled, poorly planned, incompetent operation; now given the dubious “Ieyasu’s smith” claims used to sell something for astronomic prices, I’m starting to think I’m looking at the Nihonto version of this.

It reminds me of a transcript from an old panel that included Robert Benson that discussed when uchiko was appropriate. I personally would be afraid to uchiko an in polish sword for fear that it’ll go downhill under my watch, but I will admit to using some of Mr.Benson’s uchiko on partially out of polish old blades he said were not worth a new polish. I think in that situation it has improved their state since the blades in question had unseeable hada on nearly all of the ji, and after gradual use along their instructions I can see it and some nie. I wonder if a lot of the uchiko damage you see on the net was predominantly due to misuse, or the user having overly coarse uchiko? But yes, I would not try uchikoing my in polish swords for fear of scuffing them. I’m sure it’s much easier for an expert like Hiroshi to uchiko perfectly and always have superb uchiko, than me.

A funny thing happened while I was traveling. I brought Nagayama‘s book as (re)reading material and bumped into something that oddly enough contradicted SBG’s sales pages: the green papered daisho they are trying to sell for 30K claims they’re made of a veritable super steel; Nagayama says it in fact was chock full of sulfur and other contaminants that compromised its performance. I’m willing to bet Nagayama is referring to studies and SBG just made up that super steel babble without looking it up because they thought it would encourage more eager buyers. Then again that’s probably less serious than them insisting those swords are “proven” to be Yasutsugu when all they have are green papers from the grade/smith inflation era. It’s not as bad as the buffing wheel antics but there are eBay sellers who literally sell the same stuff for 1/10 the price, only they don’t insist their green papered stuff is legendary and genuine. Normally I would feel bad for nitpicking over mistakes but they’re a big retailer and they claim to be leading experts and there are many people who could be confused by their dubious claims.

Those are extremely poor quality fakes, shinogi, shinogiji, niku, nakago, everything looks like a 50$ fake made outside Japan, no offense. I just hope you didn’t spend on more fakes when that = less money for a real sword. Anyways, why would you want an obviously non Japanese work translated to Japanese? You’ll just get a word salad at best I bet.

I would have thought so except their sandpaper advocacy is so obviously a mistake that it will send anyone who knows anything running, so it’s more ego and refusal to change course. Case in point the people running that site routinely sell themselves as the foremost sword experts and call themselves the A-Team that’s going to “save” nihonto, also make other dubious claims. I guess they made a mistake and their ego as “experts” kept them from making any corrections, no matter how ridiculous that mistake is. Then again SBG is selling the same stuff Katanabotique and others sell at a fair market price of 1-2K, but SBG does it with a markup of several to ten times, and exaggerated or misleading appraisals, so yeah, I guess there is some used car salesman greed in the operation too. It amazes me but many of theirs have sold, possibly with buffing polishes.

I wish they would have done as you suggested. I think this really could have had potential and benefited all, especially if they connected buyers to current smiths. And I’m sure those smiths would have kept bad restorations like these from being carried out.

Here is another example of how every antique sword they are trying to sell has two levels of "restoration" they are trying to upsell people into buying: a 750$, 600 grit sandpaper buffing, and a sandpaper buffing plus acid bath for twice the price. It seems that despite being a new project, they’ve already sold at least half a dozen swords. Their archives don’t mention if they sandpapered what they sold but I would not be surprised if people, who paid them quite a premium over market, decided to do what they thought was the responsible thing by getting it a machine/hybrid polish. Funny enough they are trying to sell shinsa services for the swords they already have in Japan: they're charging 1000$ a pop for the ones they already have in the country, which includes the sandpaper machine polished sword... Somehow I'm skeptical that it will get papers given its state. I hope if its submitted and rejected they refund. It really seems like they made a series of poor decisions and instead of owning up to it and changing course are doubling down on the expert act, leading everyone off a cliff.