Gerry

I've used Nosyudo in Gifu prefecture for 4 swords, and Koji-san there is very easy to work with: https://nosyudo.jp/our-products/koshirae/ Their regular full katana koshirae with modern fittings currently cost about 200,000 yen.

Oh yes I only buy swords with recent NBTHK papers, and many of the listings do list Kamakura or Nabokucho blades, but without papers to substantiate the claim. This was one that was listed on Yahoo Japan for only about $2300 USD, as opposed to the much higher price on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/305559650419 It seemed like a great buy and an interesting piece, but someone in Japan beat me to the punch.

Ah, that's a very interesting perspective by which to curate your collection, by aligning to your story. I guess that requires enough familiarity with Japanese history and how it relates to sword making to create such a story. Has your collection grown a a moderate pace using your principles of collecting? I always find that I have to reign in my purchases, which would help if I had more of your focus, ha ha.

That's very useful advice, and thanks for confirming that you had to cover all the shipping costs for the transaction with Jauce. I'll go hunt around now to see what's interesting on Yahoo Japan, ha ha.

Ah, great, and thanks for sharing that you have had success purchasing blades using Jauce. I'll check into their website to see how it works. Ah, the documentation fees do seem quite steep, so good thing the USD vs JPY rate is in our favor at the moment. Did you also have to pay for shipping from the sword seller to Jauce, and then Jauce to you?

And the nagasa is 28.5 inches. Motohaba is about 2.5cm, and sakihaba is about 1.7cm. Definitely very slender proportions.

It also has quite a length of ubu-ba.

Surprise, surprise....it's a supposed Yasunori! The nakago patnina seems to suggest that it's a pretty new blade, probably Taisho or after. And the person I bought it from said it was a WW2 bring-back, so the gimei signature probably was done during the war, which is a little unusual.

I thought I'd source the collective experience of this forum to see if anyone has any ideas about what exactly this gunto I picked up a few years ago actually is.

I've been collecting nihonto for over 20 years, but have had to stop in the last few years because I moved to a country where it illegal to own nihonto. I left my collection stateside, and recently moved back to resume collecting again. For the seasoned collectors on this forum, I was just curious to hear about how you curate your own collections? Do you have a fixed quantity that you rotate in and out by selling and buying new swords, or do you instead focus on completing your collection with swords from particular schools or styles?

Yahoo Auctions Japan sure has some interesting items at reasonable prices. https://page.auction.../auction/g1138098422 https://page.auction.../auction/f1108866449 Kelly Schmidt says that he doesn't export blades anymore, so I was wondering if anyone else has suggestions of proxy buyers to use for nihonto in Japan? Gerry