Cola

Not at all an expert but: Where's the hamon? Also in case you want to properly handle a nihonto at some point: Don't hold the blade with your bare hands, and also don't rest the cutting edge on the floor.

That indeed looks very nice! It'll be a few months before the sword gets here, but I will definitely be in touch when I have gathered what I need!

I may be wrong, but I think sending a sword to Japan may be difficult with permits and such. Anyways, there's a lot of them out there, so when in doubt it's a no for me. Also out of curiosity: Where did you go to have new Koshirae made?

Thanks for clarifying, I noticed that there's a lot going on at catawiki, so will definitely keep an eye out for nice finds. Returning to sender is really something I only want to do as a very last resort. Anyway, I got a wakizashi in shirasaya mountings from a Japanese seller for a very nice price (400 euros), let's see how that goes. I think I'm going to make a project out of getting it some period appropriate fittings.

Hello all, I'm casually looking around to expand my collection, not in a hurry to buy but if there's a good deal somewhere I don't want to miss it. Being located in the Netherlands I think it's going to be difficult to see a real nihonto live before buying it, unless I go on a holiday to Japan again. So I'm mostly looking online, for example the tozando shop and catawiki. They often give lots of pictures, but it's sometimes hard to tell what is a big "no go" and what is an artefact of the picture. For example right now on catawiki there's a sword with this pic: I'm talking about the dark line on the hamon. I've never seen it mentioned anywhere in discussions about flaws. Also would you recommend buying from an online source (such as catawiki) based off of pictures and an NHBTK certificate? Or is that considered asking for trouble?

It doesn't have a signature, so a faked signature is not something to worry about. The only thing I was/am slightly worried about would be that it may be dated as being much older than it really is. I will post some pictures when I have time for you all to enjoy. And, thanks for the info! It's nice to know that it was registered at least somewhere in the 50s. I also can't read the second number for the year it was registered, it's a scan of a document so I can't get more than what you see unfortunately.

Hello all, I went on a holiday to Japan and I found all the very old and carefully preserved swords very intriguing. So when we came across the Tozando shop in kyoto I decided to buy an antique sword. I was very intrigued by this particular sword because it is from the late muromachi period (or so I was told). This would mean it was built in a hurry, because they needed a lot of swords. So the quality may be a bit less than many others (the tsuba is just a metal disc with no decorations). The blade has no signature, and also no token, so for all I know it's fake (but I don't expect it since the shop is legit, and the staff has been very nice in handling the shipping). In any case this is the document that came with the sword, but I have no idea what it means. Anything I can learn from this? Thanks in advance!