eternal_newbie

The Mihara school's having a bit of a moment here on the NMB lately! Great sword, TH at that price is a steal. Good luck with your sale!

Hello Barry, I am truly sorry for your loss and indeed the loss to the community as a whole. I have barely glanced at yanone until now - thanks to Laurie (and your touching tribute to him) I will now approach them with fresh eyes, seeking to see what might lie beneath. Regards, Rohan

This blade is now SOLD. Thank you all for your interest and feedback. Brian - a donation will be incoming once the buyer's inspection period has ended.

This blade is now on HOLD pending payment.

After many years of collecting, I'm now aiming for my first Juyo piece and as such, it's time to start moving some of my old blades to their next custodians. On offer here is a Yamato nambokucho blade with fantastic jigane that I bought from Chris Osborne on this board about 7 or 8 years ago. Seeing as he is far more knowledgeable than myself, I'll quote his original description here and use his original photos (for which he has very kindly given me permission): Photos can be viewed here: http://nihonto.com.au/html/mumei_koto_katana1.html It has been maintained in a smoking-free and uchiko-free environment using microfibre and isopropyl in between oiling, and the condition of the blade and shirasaya remains unchanged since I bought it. A standard purple sword bag is included. I'm asking for US$5000 and will cover the cost of overseas shipping for NMB buyers. If you want a specific courier (e.g. FedEx), you may need to cover the difference over the standard Australia Post cost. I am located in Western Australia (GMT +8:00) so keep in mind the timezone difference as it may take me a while to respond to any PMs. As is customary, if sold to an NMB member I will make a donation to the board. Cheers, Rohan

I see this point made often in martial arts (particularly the more obscure ones at risk of becoming extinct) and it holds true here as well. Furthermore, if possible, we should use the gaps in our knowledge/expertise and the mistakes we've made during our own journey to help the next generation become even better than us. After all, if each generation is only as good as the previous one, then the art will stagnate - and if each generation is worse, then the art will decay and ultimately fall to ruin. Not an easy task, especially with the rather... unique challenges facing Nihonto enthusiasts in the Internet age, but if the Nihonto world survived the Haitorei Edict and the conclusion of World War II then surely it can survive eBay, Facebook and globalization.

While the "do it my way and a rap across the knuckles if you stray" approach does often work, it's important to note that not everybody learns the same way. The job of a teacher is to figure out the best way to get a genuinely promising student to learn, not to dismiss anyone who won't learn and perform exactly the way they did (it might seem that way in a dojo, but those with a trained eye will notice subtle differences in how the best sensei teach individual students). After all, in order for any art, science or profession to flourish requires that each generation of students be better than their teachers, otherwise the entire field will eventually stagnate or worse, degrade; and often, students who outshine their teachers are those who learn, work or think differently than their teachers did. Imagine if Masamune, Norishige, Sukehiro or Kiyomaro only produced works of exactly the same style and quality as their teachers, and their teachers' teachers... There is, of course, a place for brutal honesty and a genuine need to weed out those who are clearly not interested in learning or are otherwise engaged in nefarious uses of our time and knowledge, but to dismiss anyone who won't, or can't, follow the One True Path of Nihonto Enlightenment exactly step-for-step is a road that leads to the extinction of our beloved hobby. That, I think, would be a great loss for our descendants and society as a whole. I think the "internet factor" has to be taken into account here - I personally know people lecturing in English and mathematics who, when presented with a keyboard or smartphone and a Twitter account, turn into gibbering, hateful idiots who seem unable to perform basic arithmetic or produce a single meaningful sentence if their lives depended upon it.

Not necessarily - not everyone who's in the know is a dealer out for profit or interested in Hizen blades - and those that are might already own better examples. Given the inspection period and offer to take it back if it is not to your satisfaction, it's likely the source didn't notice any fatal flaws. I'm no expert but I agree with Brian - based on the fittings alone, you did well on this one.

I wonder, if there were a (more or less) universally recognised system for 'papering' Picassos, Van Goghs and the like, would we see a similar difference start to emerge between an officially attributed work complete with documentation, and one that looks exactly like the work of that artist and time period but lacking any official papers? And now back to the original post... A better phrasing would be "a case of just needing to know whom to ask." Even assuming any two collectors/dealers know everything there is to know about nihonto, you may still receive completely different answers depending on their personal tastes. Many people might agree that a Yoshioka Ichimonji tachi with brilliant utsuri and hamon like dancing flames is worthy of Juyo status, but if the person you are asking prefers conservative, tranquil Yamashiro workmanship and dislikes flamboyance in a sword? I suspect you may receive a different opinion unless the sword is of truly peerless quality or historical significance. To this end it might be worthwhile following the example of movie buffs and finding an expert(s) whose tastes seem to match up with your own and take notes on their own recommendations or personal collection.

While we're on the topic of eBay search software, FatFingers (and Eaby for Android users) is also useful for finding misspellings that might otherwise go unfound in a typical search (e.g. "samauri sword" or "kattana").

From a purely tech support perspective, based on a cursory glance at the registration form (I registered with them a while ago but didn't have any problems): Check your email spam box to make sure they didn't actually register you but just failed to display the confirmation. Check the inputs you are entering to ensure that they are all within the restrictions (less than x characters, more than x characters etc). Try changing the userID you are trying to register with as it may already be in use. Make sure you are only using digits in the phone number field. Make sure you're not using an invalid date (e.g. 31st September). If you're using any special characters in your password, try replacing them with numbers and/or letters (some sites only allow alphanumeric passwords). Only do this if nothing else works as it makes your account less secure! Also, the most widely accepted password lengths online seems to be between 6 and 12 characters, so if yours is longer or shorter you could try adjusting it. Edit: just thought of another one - try a different internet browser. P.S. And if you do figure it out (or someone else provides the answer), the etiquette for asking for technical help online is to make sure you post the result here so that a) nobody else spends time trying to help out and b) anyone searching for the problem in the future knows how to fix it.

Well, at least the account name of the seller is accurate - the "premium" part of it, anyway :lol:

A sad day indeed. His career has been one of the more interesting among the modern smiths. There is a good write-up about him and his son (now also Mukansa) in The New Generation of Japanese Swordsmiths.

Many Australian home & hardware stores (e.g. Bunnings) also sell it - the brand I tend to see the most is Digger's.

People using the "inevitable zombie apocalypse" to justify their sword collections always brings out the pedant in me... In the event of a zombie apocalypse where guns/bows aren't available or practical, I recommend a good yari or naginata - given most zombie plagues are spread by bodily fluids, you'd generally want the gore to be as far away from yourself as possible even in a melee. Swinging around a sword (or shortsword, if you're indoors) is practically asking to be 'turned' by wayward blood spatter after your initial display of heroics. And who'll keep those Juyo blades oiled and rust-free after you become a walking corpse? But I sense I'm wandering off-topic here, and I apologise if my glibness offends anyone :D

In Ogawa Kanekuni's case, his Sukehiro-style swords were the ones that "put him on the map" and earned him the Mukansa title. It stands to reason that his older works not in this style would be considered of lower value, as they weren't sufficient for him to gain recognition. That said, if an artist becomes famous enough, even the early works acquire a certain level of historical cachet as an example of the artist's evolution, especially by collectors of that particular artist; I doubt an early work of Masamune or Go Yoshihiro would be frowned upon in this day and age Not that I expect Ogawa Kanekuni (or any modern-day smith) to be anywhere near as highly regarded or historically significant as those two, of course...

My understanding is that swords considered suitable for iai tend to be lighter and longer, and thus more prone to breaking or bending, than those considered for batto-do/tameshigiri. Also, iai-to need a reasonable amount of curvature to facilitate the swift draw from the saya, whereas an almost-straight sword - in the style of Kanbun shinto, for example - can still suffice for tameshigiri. As Chris has noted, it goes without saying that any sword offered for iai or tameshigiri would also need to be of low enough aesthetic and historical significance to be worth the risk of destruction - even the most well trained martial arts practitioner can make a blade-ruining mistake under the right (or rather, wrong) circumstances. Outside of Japan, however, there's not much excuse to risk any historical weapon for iai or tameshigiri - if you can't afford a shinsakuto, there are numerous factory-made swords for martial arts practitioners as well as a number of Western bladesmiths whose works are as well-balanced and durable as any Nihonto (in some cases, more so).

Rather than envy, let us be relieved that this sword didn't find its way to the hands of someone just looking for a Japanese-style cutter to swing around for fun or hang on their wall, which is clearly what it was being marketed as at that price *shudder* Interestingly, as Chris pointed out, this Ogawa Kanekuni made his mark with a Sukehiro-stye toran-ba - which entailed a clean break from the Mino tradition that he had previously been working in. I imagine this would have been mildly scandalous in the rigid traditionalism of the swordmaking profession. According to "The New Generation of Japanese Swordsmiths" upon presenting his first toran-ba sword for competition, he was even accused of having bought the sword from another smith and signing his own name on it!

The photography and description look very similar to the komonjo (Mike Yamaguchi) listings, and if I'm not going senile, I believe he sold this exact sword a while back. There's no way to tell how many times it's changed hands since then, but at the very least, if anyone's interested in it they could shoot him a query asking if he's given permission for his photographs to be used in the listing (if he did, it would be a good sign that the auction is legit and not a scam). Note to moderators: if any of the above is against site policy in dealing with live auctions, please feel free to delete and/or add an explanation so I and others don't make the same mistake twice.

"Ko-Uda" means "early Uda", so most (good) references with information about the Uda school - such as the one posted by Jean - would include some details on the early period of the school's lifespan. Another example: http://www.nihonto.com/abtartudaschool.html Edit: I believe in this case, "early/Ko Uda" refers to the Uda school in the Kamakura and Nanbokucho eras (pre-1394 AD). Past that point it is just referred to as Uda.

Not sure how much of a difference there is in quality/size/construction (if anyone knows I'd love to learn about it), but Tokugawa Art seem to have similar paulownia katanabako at a much lower price: http://sanmei.com/contents/en-us/d23_01.html 23100 yen for a box housing a single katana vs 70000 from Namikawa Heibei Co., and they also do boxes for daisho, wakizashi and tanto.

I wonder if the data gained from this type of testing would be of any use to a modern smith, for example, trying to reproduce the steel composition in a treasured Awataguchi or Masamune blade...

Clearly Masamura is the gimei blade Doug is using in combat while his Muramasa sits safely at home!

As a relatively new collector who used the expensive "head-first" method of starting the hobby, I've noticed something - when I began, the one or two average blades that I picked up inspired a great deal of excitement, while the first two references I bought ended up collecting dust. As time went by and my tastes became more refined, I found that I grew less fond of the blades and more fond of the books, to the point where I think my collection of references and catalogues is worth as much as - if not more than - my swords! I tend to treat the Internet more as a super-index for all the literature out there to see what references would be most likely to give me the information I need. I also find that (reputable) online stores can be a surprisingly good reference if one is able to apply the right amount of skepticism and cross-referencing - as the proprietors have an interest in making their merchandise attractive, the descriptions and photography often far outstrips what you might find in a textbook, so long as you check to make sure the information is accurate. In particular, listings for blades by obscure or unpopular smiths are sometimes accompanied by a veritable torrent of information to make them more appealing to buyers, when my own limited research and expertise would usually yield nothing more than a single nondescript listing in Hawley's.

Slightly off-topic: paulb, I believe the smith that the "11 of them are fakes" comment referred to was Kotetsu. Can't remember exactly where I heard/read the original quote though...