Kevin

Ford, in my opinion - based on what I've seen of your work and the tsuba, fuchi-kashira and menuki that you did for me - is that your contemporary tsuba are most definitely valid as both tsuba and as works of art. The set you did for me were, quite frankly, beautiful. :-) Kevin

I feel this statement needs to be qualified somewhat ...if it looks like a repair then it may merely have been done by an inept artisan...if it was done by a suitably skilled artisan, on the other hand, you wouldn't necessarily notice a repair...it may actually be invisible to you as such. Completely agree. We use the services of a guy who trained in Japan. I've sent him saya with chipped, battered and peeling urushi for restoration. You couldn't tell that they've been repaired when they come back. If cashew is still soft then too much has been applied and there's still some thinners in it. It will dry very slowly if there's any thickness. However, even thick layers will dry very hard, given time. Kevin

Or else I do a litre of it for £35.83, shipping included, which works out even cheaper than the 100cc bottle. :-) Kevin

I'm in. Probably 4-5 swords. Maybe some tsuba. regards Kevin

Yes it allowed in France, BUT postmen have the right to refuse to handle the package if they consider that what is the box can injured them.I have been told that by my post office.In that particular case you might have to pick your sword up by yourself quite far from your home which is bothering. Don't use the post for sword deliveries to France or indeed for anything other than domestic sword deliveries and relatively low value items. I use a shipping agency. This means the sword gets delivered to you, into your hands, in a matter of days, fully insured and trackable. :-) Kevin

No and yes, in that order. Australia can be an odd place to get swords into. I think it depends upon the state. Myself, I'd give it a go, but I would have to take professional advice, plus a conversation with the relevant officialdom if there were any grey areas. Always get it bolted down from all angles first. There are usually legitimate ways of doing this, as long as the customer isn't going to insist that you cut corners and make a false declaration. Kevin

No problems at all with France. Haven't shipped a sword to Spain yet, but I've got them into Italy easily enough, as long as you follow the procedures. I don't suppose Spain would be any different. I've even got a sword into Singapore without having the edge ground off, though that took an interminable amount of emails with the relevant department of the Singapore Police Force before we reached common ground. Bits and pieces such as sword stands and fuchi-kashira would be declared as 'wooden stand' or 'fuchi-kashira'. Accurate, and no point in alarming Customs unnecessarily. :-) If they want to know what a fuchi-kashira is, they can look it up. Kevin

A good page on Yasukuni swords: http://www.jp-sword.com/files/yasukuni/yasukunito.html Unfortunately Yasuhisa isn't mentioned, but the author does give several rankings, including one based on value at market. Yasuhiro comes ahead of both Yasutoku and Yasunori. Actually four or five smiths are ranked ahead of Yasunori. From a quick bit of looking around, I suspect that Yasuhisa didn't make many Yasukuni-to, this being rather late in the way. Kevin

but if i am not wrong i think this nakago i.e is polished right? http://www.aoi-art.com/sword/katana/image/09040-3.jpg if it is, why most blades in aoi are like this i mean polished ("losing their value") Nope - that tang isn't polished at all. The sword was only made in 1943, so it hasn't had enough time to develop a deep patina. Don't ever, ever, ever touch the rust/patina on the tang. Not unless you really want to reduce the value of the sword to near zero. The patina has, in some cases, taken centuries to build up. In addition, don't try cleaning up soft metal sword fittings unless you really know what you're doing, because you can easily remove patination there as well. In fact as a general rule, don't try doing anything to a Japanese sword or its mounts and fittings unless you know what you are doing. Instead, if you need it restored, give it to someone who does know what they are doing, ask their advice and listen. Kevin

That's true of Customs the world over. I've just turned someone down cos they wanted me to take massive shortcuts in getting a sword into Israel - and giving Customs misleading statements about the value at the same time - and didn't want to wait for me to find out the *legitimate* way to get swords into the country, even though their relevant Ministry has swords as prohibited items. Doing it his way is asking for serious trouble. As it happens, I've since found out how to get antique swords into Israel. :-) It's always worth spending time doing your homework and, if need be, writing to the authorities in the country concerned. It may take time - I spent over a month exchanging countless emails with the head of the Arms and Explosives branch of the Singapore Police Force so that we were mutually agreed, in writing, as what constituted the correct documentation for importing nihonto. In my view, any halfway competent seller should make the effort, rather than issuing blanket declarations (usually based on ignorance and half truths) about which countries they won't sell to. Kevin

You get them. I can't think of any reason why a seller would keep them. regards Kevin

Sounds a bit like the Italian system; you have to get a licence to import the sword from the police ahead of it being despatched to you. That generally takes a couple of weeks. The seller can only ship the sword after the buyer has a licence. Well, they can ship it before, but Italian officialdom may go into meltdown, the sword may get seized and it may be generally bad news all round. I can't see any halfway decent seller objecting to being asked to retain a sword whilst the customer organises the necessary licences or permissions. I've done it myself. I would have thought any NBTHK or NTHK papers (plus translation, plus contact info for the organisation concerned) would suffice, since those papers provide the information required. They certainly suffice for more restrictive regimes such as Singapore. Failing that, most jurisdictions would accept the details from the sale page - Singapore doesn't, but that's another matter altogether. A copy of the Japanese police registration may work with some jurisdictions - after all, it is generated by another police force. I'd suggest that after you've got the licence you get the seller to ship the sword with three copies of the commercial invoice, uses the relevant harmonised tariff, and includes a copy of any NBTHK or NTHK papers (including translation) - or whatever else you use to demonstrate that it's an authentic antique - with the papers for Customs. Strictly speaking the seller should be observing the above formalities anyway, but not everyone does. OTOH, if you observe all the formalities, things are very unlikely to go wrong. Kevin

Ah, I stand corrected then. :-) Not had anything to do with 'suicide daggers' and the photos do rather look like ones I've seen that have been 'got at'. The photos of the hamon aren't good enough to know what's going on, though I did wonder whether it was acid etched. Kevin

Don't like that one bit! What the devil has happened to the nakago? - the yasurime have been largely obliterated. Not keen on the ending of the hamon and there's something about the hamon itself I really, really don't like. Without good piccies of the blade I'm not sure what we're dealing with, but if I saw it on Ebay, I'd pass. In my opinion, it's either been got at or its a copy. Just possibly the former - it may be a grinder special, looking at a) the remains of patination b) hamachi (one side is 'bitten in' in a manner that you'd get with a right amateur let loose with a grinding wheel, the other is 'eroded'), the position of the mekugi-ana (amateur o-suriage?) and some of what may be taken for the remains of yasurime may be grinding marks, cos the angle is different from other marks which may be the remains of yasurime. I suspect that someone has ground the nakago to fit a tsuka they had, and then attacked it with a polishing wheel to 'finish' it, hence the blurring of lines. In doing so they've really finished it. Yes, tanto are signed. Some of them. Just like some katana are signed. Some may even be gimei. :-) Kevin

And, having finally worked out images (I think), on old photo of a sword signed Bungo ju Yamato no kami Fujiwara Tadayuki with three bites by another sword taken out of it, two close together and one further towards the habaki. The cutting edge is to the top of the picture: I have seen a WW2 sword with the fuchi mangled and the tsuba scarred by a bullet. I presume that the soldier carrying it got lucky at that moment, because the sword stopped the bullet. Whether his luck continued is another matter. Kevin

That's pretty much identical to European half-swording techniques, particularly those used with similarly overlong swords like the original claidh mor and the landsknecht swords. These often had leather stitched round the forte. Bear in mind that these huge swords would have been for battlefield use, and frequently used by infantry against cavalry. I doubt that you'd duel with such swords. The user would therefore be wearing armour, including gauntlets. They therefore already have hand protection separate from the guard. True, some of these giant swords have a secondary guard; however the construction of such secondary guards appears to have been more to catch an opponent's sword as it slid down the blade. Presumably it could, given the potential leverage, be used to wrench a weapon out of the opponent's grip. Kevin

These two swords have been until recently in a private collection owned by a long established collector who was on very good terms with Ron Gregory. He's had both for many years; they're just a couple in a collection built up over a lifetime. The swords will eventually be for sale, after we've worked out a few more details. However, since they are rather unusual I thought the other members might be interested in seeing them. The first is an 18th century wakizashi - it has the most extraordinary lacquer job on the saya. I've not personally seen a saya like this before in the flesh, though I recall seeing illustrations of them. It's a bit difficult to do justice to it in a photo, as the illustration wraps round the saya. The habaki is almost certainly gold, though I may get it assayed. The hamon is rather flamboyant - a polish would really bring it out. The second is a star stamped gendaito by Shigemasa. The mounts are something else - I've only ever seen one other example of such koshirae, and that as an illustration. There are a total of 20 mon on the damned thing, and the metal fittings are all solid silver. It's softer than sterling, which is 92.5% silver. Totally impractical for a practical weapon, but brilliant for show. The koshirae were with the sword when the collector got it many years back; from his information they were original to the sword. My best judgement is a presentation sword. These aren't the sale pages BTW - those may undergo a few more revisions. Kevin

A sandbox, in this instance, allows you to test the workings of a payments system before it goes live. You can do all the things that you can do in the live system, but it won't charge credit cards or make payments. And it will only respond to the owners log in details. There are other uses of the term in IT security, but that's a different kettle of fish. The connection is that in both cases they are isolated from the live system. Kevin

Next problem - I can't pay my registration fee because it goes straight to Paypal sandbox. It then asked me to confirm registration without having paid. I've confirmed, but still can't pay cos it goes to the sandbox. :-/ If you let me know which email to use, I'll send you a Paypal payment. Kevin

One problem for UK citizens - it's using the US date format of month/day/year. This may well throw folks who are used to using the UK date format of day/month/year. Either that or you'll get a lot of incorrect birthday dates. Kevin

Incidentally, if you want a ridiculous Ebay sword, try this one: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0340556364 A genuwine left-handed katana! :-) Kevin

That one is a Meiji period sword cane - post-Edict on carrying swords. They're not usually known for having good blades. They've since been glamorised by Zatoichi. You can run across such canes in much better condition - that one looks rusted to hell. I doubt it is recoverable, even if it were of sufficient quality to warrant trying to recover it. In short, I suspect that it has had it. Kevin

I remember my sort-of-mentor, the late Dr Peter Reynolds, telling me something almost identical. :-) He followed it up with the remark that if the data disagrees with theory, then the theory is wrong, no matter how cherished, deeply held or widely established that theory is. Kevin

I am reminded of a practical I did for MA Archaeology, namely casting copper and bronze arrowheads using open moulds and Bronze Age technology. What you got was basically an arrowshaped blob, with rounded edges and surfaces. It needed a lot of work to turn it into something you could call an arrowhead. Very nice once you'd put the work in, but don't imagine that you'll get a perfect arrowhead out of an open mould, complete with flat surfaces. As Ford said, molten metal doesn't obligingly level out, even in bulk. In small quantities, it is going to be even more problematical - lots of blobs. Casting thin sections? Forget it, there are easier ways. That was my impression on reading it - but then again, I've worked in light engineering. :-) Kevin

Ditto. Kevin