Gerry

Thanks for all the insightful replies, and once again, the breadth of knowledge on this forum is amazing.

Thanks for sharing. this is certainly useful read.

I've seen quite a few Tokubetsu Hozon blades that have prices that surpass those of Juyo blades, but I rarely see Hozon blades over 1M yen. An example is this 2.4M yen Hozon Kanesada katana is priced so high because of the smith: https://www.tsurugin...om/items/a00642.html Has anyone else seen examples of Hozon blades over 1M yen or more?

Sorry to hear about your bad experience with Jauce. I've purchased 26 swords through them in the last 10 months, and haven't had any issues with the export permits applications. There's one sword that had a wrong torokusho that had to be re-issued, but Jauce was very clear with updates through the whole process, which took about 5 months. Maybe you can email their customer service people to check if your sword had a torokusho issue, and ask for details? They even told me which month the education board was meeting to rview and re-issue my torokusho, and when the new torokusho arrived.

This kogarasu maru went for quite a princely sum. https://www.jauce.com/auction/u1170168654 The nakago has quite a pronounced funbari, but the hamon looked too odd to me to want to place a bid. And it's weird that the nakago also looks suriage. Why would anyone need to suriage a kogarasumaru? They're usually not long to begin with.

Here's an interesting set of mounts on this shungunto: https://www.jauce.com/auction/w1170939001

Some of the junior licensed swords smiths in Japan make blades to fit antique koshirae. You can find them online and contact them. However, you'll need to send at least the tsunagi in to them, if not the entire koshirae to be safe, and the blade will probably cost you $7K USD or so.

Hi Jussi, Thanks for sharing these links to swords with early nengo inscriptions, so there's still hope if I keep my eyes peeled at the usual suspect of Japanese dealer sites.

It's where the original nakago line ended before the sword underwent machi okuri/suriage.

Wow, that's much older than I had imagined, but these 2 examples are probably not something that a run of the mill collector like me would be able to afford, ha ha.

I've been looking around for while to see if I could get a papered katana with an early nengo inscription on the nakago, and the earliest ones I have seen are from the mid-1400s. Has anyone seen nengo from an earlier date, like in the 1300s?

https://www.jauce.com/auction/w1165674644 It'll be interesting to see how much this one eventually goes for.

It's pretty crazy that a seller would think that someone would pay 5.5M yen for something through an online auction. But hey, the Yen's back down again at 157 to 1 USD today, so you never know!

Seems like signed, ubu, long, koto tachis are still rare and desirable. The 1.65M yen final bid didn't make the reserve price. https://www.jauce.com/auction/s1165164742

I looked around the internet for Ikkansai Yoshihiro blades, and they definitely look similar. I actually have another similar sword on the way, a hirazukuri katana with the same type of hada, and I'll share some pics when I receive it from Japan. Thanks for the suggestion!

No, this sword didn't come with papers, but I might bring it for shinsa at the next NTHK visit stateside.

And just in case it's my phone camera that's making the hada look acid etched, here's a reference to use with the hada on my TBH ko-uda tachi.

Thanks for all the responses. Here's a high res shot of the kissaki.

I just received a sword that I purchased on a whim from from Japan, and it has a rather unique hada, as shown below: My question is, for which type of hada would this be classified? Would it be a type of yakuma or matsukawa hada? It's a mumei blade which appears to be from the shinshinto era.

I have had an old habaki restored with a new layer of gold foil in Japan, so it's possible. It wasn't cheap though, at about $500 USD.

It's interesting to see that Mantetsu-to prices are going up, even in Japan: https://www.samurais....jp/sword/24178.html At 680,000 yen, I can even get a TBH katana with koshirae. Case in point: https://www.samurais....jp/sword/22111.html I still remember being able to get one in pristine shape for $1.5K 15 years ago.

Apologies to dredge up this ancient post, but I thought it'd be interesting to see how opinions might have developed about shinsakuto over the last 15 years. It seems to me that current collectors are beginning to appreciate shinsakuto, especially since many of them have been receiving hozon and TBH recently.

Thanks for all the insightful responses on this topic, and I'm glad that international collectors don't seem to have hang ups about the custom inscriptions on the nakago. I, too, agree that any legitimate inscription adds provenance to the sword which it will carry through its history of ownership.

What a pity that this sword was shortened from 78.7cm to 65.1cm. But an interesting story nonetheless, thanks for sharing!

I've been looking at buying some shinsakuto, and many of them have inscriptions bearing the occasion or name of the person who commissioned the order. For example, some nakago have inscriptions commemorating the retirement of an owner, etc. I've been told that these custom inscriptions are a negative thing among Japanese collectors, because they don't prefer owning a sword with someone else's name on it. Therefore, custom owner inscriptions negatively affect the value of a sword. Is this generally true for international collectors too?