atm

When shipping in the United States, USPS Registered Mail is best for high value items up to $50,000. It is slow but secure, as the package is signed for each time it is handed off internally and it is held in a secured area while waiting for the next leg of the journey. And the insurance is relatively inexpensive. Otherwise, I insure collectible items using a special policy (like this) that covers items in transit, and I ship them UPS Next Day Air to minimize the item they are in the UPS system.

I cannot speak to the legitimacy of the signature, but it reads Sagami no Kuni Tsunahiro. There are many generations of Sōshū Tsunahiro smiths.

It can get confusing when swordsmiths and schools share names, so you aren't wrong @klee if you were referring to the school. The names Samonji and Sa can reference the school or the smith. So some differentiate by referring to the smith as O-Sa. We run into the same problem when only referring to Shizu--are we referring to Shizu Kaneuji, Yamato Shizu, or Naoe Shizu?

I can see why you were drawn to this blade @Matsunoki. The condition isn't too bad, and a new polish would really highlight what we can already see.

Thanks, @Toryu2020! They are the Taoist symbols for Mount Hengshan (South) and Mount Tai (East).

These appear on a tanto koshirae I own. Do they mean anything to anyone? I have searched bonji charts online, but I am struggling. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much for sharing this index, Rohan! I got the book just last month, so this is super helpful for enjoying it.

As a proportion of their work, there are a good number of signed Hasebe tanto. There is, of course, a price premium when buying a zaimei Koto blade. But I think there is a distinct downside to buying a mumei blade when zaimei is more common among a particular smith or school (unless that mumei blade is an extraordinary work). That may partially explain the pricing of this wakizashi.

Beware that shipping is not without its own headaches. A couple of months ago I tried to ship a blade to Japan via U.S. Post Office Express Mail International. I carefully followed the instructions of Robert Hughes, who was going to coordinate submission to shinsa. My package cleared outbound U.S. Customs. But despite my blade being over 700 years old, someone at the U.S. post office rejected the parcel before it was loaded on a plane and sent it back to me because the "destination country rejected shipment"--in other words, they erroneously thought that all Japanese swords are illegal to export to Japan. I later learned that a very experienced U.S. dealer had the exact same experience with his shipment of blades to Japan within a week of my shipment. That dealer was able to successfully reship with a new description of "Traditional Japanese Art." I, on the other hand, decided right now is not a good time to try shipping to Japan, so I'll wait for shinsa some other year.

Although a separate topic (like yours) probably would have been better, it is being discussed here:

It is somewhat rare when a Masamune comes to the open market. I certainly enjoy looking when they come up. But as others have said, Aoi Art's Masamune leaves a lot to be desired. In addition to the photos, there are plenty of hints in the listing about its condition. This is not an entirely fair comparison since they have much different asking prices, but compare Aoi's Masamune with the TJ Masamune tanto that @Ray Singer has available for sale: link. The latter has a far superior condition, TJ papers, and Honma and Tanobe sensei sayagaki confirming the attribution. If you are among the elite who can afford to buy a Masamune attributed blade at 42M JPY, you are probably also able to buy the much nicer tanto. This is not intended to be a slight to Aoi either. I think a lot of dealers would love to list a blade attributed to Masamune, regardless of its condition. It is a consignment sale, so Aoi is doing its job by listing what their client is offering. It is obviously working as we are drawing attention to the listing. Even if it does not sell at auction, I cannot imagine this blade sitting unsold for years. Someone will buy the attribution (and overlook the condition).

I have not yet done business with Eirakudo, although my interactions with them by email and at DTI have been very professional. They seem to have a good reputation, so I would be comfortable buying a sword from them.

There is a subforum for translation assistance, so you are better to post this there. Even better, pay @SteveM or another translator to professionally translate this for you. You’ll get a better result, especially since Tanobe sensei sometimes has some nuance in his commentary.

I bought a zaimei Hasebe Kuninobu tanto, although not at DTI per se. Sokendo sold it to me after DTI as it wasn't there. To build on what @Hoshi said, there was a wide range of asking prices, with pricing on higher end swords seemingly higher than last year. There were a couple of nice Juyo swords of interest to me that had asking prices of 15M and 18M, which I thought were substantially overpriced. But by Sunday they seemingly had sold as they were no longer on display. Of course, we don't know what price was actually negotiated. I saw some solid TokuHo and "lower" Juyo swords at decent prices--mumei Aoe with nice koshirae and the like. And some dealers were volunteering discounts of 10% on any expression of interest.

Even though I recently bought a blade in Japan, I would not try shipping it to the U.S. right now. As noted, EMS is not an option. UPS is reportedly destroying some international packages (link to article), which is not a risk I will take. OCS may be an option, but I don’t know if they have a U.S. customs broker. Then add in the usual chaos, volume, and theft of shipping around the holidays. I asked several dealers at DTI how they were shipping to the U.S. Answers varied from “UPS is no problem” to “OCS” to “we cannot right now, but maybe we can ship it next year.” The answers did not give me much comfort. And even if they can ship, tariffs still add 15%. I will just have my blade held in Japan unless things improve soon. Maybe I will make a special trip to Japan next year just to bring mine back personally. In that case, I should buy a couple more to make the trip worthwhile.