KungFooey

You've got two hopes of Jacques bothering to do that - Bob Hope and no hope. So here they are as far as I can make them out: この健衛別 潇亂沙

So Eric, reading between the lines, the company President got sick of you contacting him, found the postal worker who had stolen it and made the lame excuse of its having "been opened". 🤬 I truly hope that you finally get it and the sword itself has not been damaged. You really deserve a happy ending after all this stress! PS: "writen with the hell fire" LOVE IT!!! Give the bâtards hell!!! Dee X

Don't you mean you agree with Fujishiro - or do you lecture him too now?

I love Nick Komiya and wish I'd discovered him before his passing. 😥 He calls BS when he sees it and takes no prisoners - my kind of guy! Dee

What happened, Eric? 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

Er, if that bugs you, shouldn't you have asked the question before you bought?🤔 Also, price is largely subjective unless you bought it solely to sell it straight on. If you love it, it's worth it. Just sayin'

Unfortunately Patrice, to quote Benjamin Franklin, “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it". You're probably entirely innocent but, when you lend your name to something, you are also putting your personal honor and reputation on the line. Claiming expertise and then ignorance is always poorly received. I'm sorry that it all panned out like this. Dee

Probably the owner.

This Bizen smith is fascinating in his commentary - and, personally, I think he graciously cuts the western sword makers a lot of slack. However, it's also interesting to note he confirms that he also uses some of their techniques (using a rotary tool to cut hi, oil quenching for hocho) and that he would actually like to use their equipment (hydraulic press, large electric kiln etc) if they were available in Japan. A Japanese Swordsmith Reviews Katana Forging Videos - YouTube

The mei looks fairly good compared to TH papered examples.

Sorry Aldrin, They're both probably signed "Uncle Fong got a new engraving chisel for New Year 2024". We've all been taken at some point - it's just part of the ride. Dee

What has #910 got to do with the 47 ronin? Did they have 863 backup guys that nobody bothered mentioning?

Fakeroo, huh?

Definitely not my forte but this is on Yahoo now. Think it may be the incorrect, buckled type. 😳 Yahoo!オークション - 軍刀　九五式軍刀　刀緒　革製...

Another recent purchase. A guy was selling off his late father's collection of Buddhist statues. I made an offer on this one and got it for a good price. I've always been fascinated by the concept of Fudoh and what he signifies.

By a modern calligrapher, I bought it simply because I loved the excellent penmanship and have always admired the phrase Shichishō Hōkoku! (七生報國; "Would that I had seven lives to give for my country!"). These were the famous last words of samurai Kusunoki Masasue in 1336 and were later used by Yukio Mishima on his hachimaki and by Otoya Yamaguchi who assassinated anti-American socialist Inejirō Asanuma in 1960.

Another possibility is that the dealer put it in for polish and they discovered a hitherto unseen kizu. It would then make sense for the polisher to call the dealer, telling him what he found and the dealer saying "ok, stop now and I'll pay you for what you've done" - then to offload it to the foreign market.

That is a beautiful tachi koshirae and a lovely family history to go with it!!! You're getting a lot of great advice on this thread and I would tend to side with those suggesting having a blade specially made. True, you probably will eventually come across an antique that fits your koshirae - but lining up the mekugi ana will be something else. You really don't want to have to drill through an antique nakago (although it was often done in the past). Dee

Dear Gpa Stephen, I got Steve his knitting needles and made it from sand to pebble, didn't I? All is well! 😉❤️

Hey Steve, You strike me as a knitting kind of guy so how about bamboo knitting needles? Available in many different widths - thickest I've got is 6.3mm. Dee And "if not im screwed" ......seriously?!! You're screwed because you can't cut a little piece of wood? 😳

Oh sorry, I blocked you straight after your creepy PM so I only see your responses if I bother to open them up. I made an observation based on the fact that damage in that area is easy to disguise by moving the habaki up and I had seen an example of battle damage in the same area: katana in real fight Of course I don't know - and will never know - the true story of how the damage occurred - just like 99.9% of the swords we see on this board. I was simply throwing an opinion out there. But then you knew that, didn't you?

Brian, I was directly responding to Jacques' own observation that very few people had replied to his 'quiz' (read 'sarcasm trap') - his obvious implication being that most were either too dumb or too scared to try. I was simply pointing out - in perhaps too direct a manner - that the real reason might be that he deliberately upsets so many people. Also dude, as administrator it is presumably your responsibility to shut down a thread like this when all of the very learned contributors (like Michael, John, Uwe and Thomas) have added everything they possibly can to teach us hard facts about Nihonto and are then simply being repudiated - over and over and in the most churlish, discourteous and boorish manner possible - by Jacques. My late father used to love the Brit comedy show Monty Python (personally I couldn't stand it) and one sketch he watched again and again was where two guys are paying each other to have an argument. In the end they start arguing about whether it is actually a proper argument or not. That's what you allow these supposed 'kantei' threads of Jacques to devolve into each and every time. Just sayin' Dee

SELF CENSORED

Steve, it's just a piece of bamboo!!! 😳 You take a chopstick, work out which end is the right thickness and saw off a length to match the width of your tsuka. It's not rocket science. Dee

It actually looks legit to me but, considering I could buy a nice sword for the same price, I wouldn't gamble on it. Dee