Tokaido

Hi Tobias, I do not know of any regular swordshop in your area. The shop in Bad Neuenahr is: http://www.japanische-schwert-galerie.d ... /start.php Mr Peuker sells antique blades as well as shinsakuto. There are a lot of private sellers, too. Like nihonto.de, not a shop, but a privat seller. NBTHK EB: do not worry, simply contact the secretary and you will get more information. The last two meetings in this year will take place in Bonn (not a short distance from Augsburg, sorry). Greetings Andreas

Hi Tobias, you are right to not forget the import tax when buying outside the european community >( it is always a hassle) For swords more than 100 years old the harmonized tarif 9706 0000 90 9 ist suitable. BUT in Germany you will have to pay the "Umsatzsteuer" (=sales tax, in Germany 19%). No excuse, no reduction. Another word of advice: sometimes you may find swords by european sellers at ebay.com which are offered at cheap prices. Like the one discussed here viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11000 (now on ebay), you better be sure to check if the sword is worth the buy! Ask the NMB :-) Since there are only a few shops in Germany, which sell (good) swords, it might allways be a good idea to check them before buying on ebay (easy if you are located for example near the cities of Wiesbaden or Bad Neuenahr). If you want to learn about swords before buying, join the NBTHK EB for a guest-admittance (http://www.nbthk.net/NBTHK/NBTHK_Startseite.html). Greetings Andreas PS: yesterdays NBTHK EB meeting in Bonn offered some breathtaking swords for hands on study: - Nagamitsu Ko-Tachi (ex- Compton Collection) - Tachi signed Bizen Kage-(cutoff) (ex Compton Collection) - Motoshige Tachi, signed, but not dated - Motoshige Tanto, signed + dated 1362 - Katsumitsu Tanto, dated 1516 displaying ububa - Naotane Tachi, Kagemitsu Utsushi - Yokoyama Sukekane Katana (typical hamon) Absolutely outstanding session!

Hi Werner, the tip of the nakago has been cut off and reshaped, obviously. The remaining top half of the smiths kanji is visible only. Loking at the long signature, which is barely readable AND taking into consideration the information about TAKAHIRA, I find the Takahira TAK 12 or 13 from Hawely as a very close match. Kashu Tsujimura den Uemonji Fujiwara Takahira See also the attatched scan from Shinto Taikan. Greetings Andreas

Hello Mariusz, picture boook5.jpg shows this one: OSAFUNE CHOSHI TOKEN HEN, Hard bound , two volumes, 363 + 366 Pages, 11.8" X 8.0" One volume with photos+oshigata, one volume with descrition, timetables etc. Usually I see this for sale at 200-300 EURO. I do not know of any english index to this book(s). Greetings Andreas PS:of course the topic of these books are the swords of Osafune (Bizen)

Takayama To ...something. Do not sound like an old sword but like an WWII thing. I suggest to check Dr. Steins website for this. Just my two (euro-)cent. Greetings

Hello Herbert, my guess is Kanemitsu or Motoshige. But since I expect some more flat tops of the (saka)gunome für Motoshige, I go for Kanemitsu this time, mostly because of the chimney like *dust* drifting up into the utsuri in the ji from the tip of the gunome. Interesting sword

Hello Keith, I'm upset about your harsh comment. I clearly pointed out *my point of view'* im my post. You need not agree. Where did I presume a lack of knowledge in *everyone*? Did I use *everyone* anywhere? I did not. I pronounced *may be* and *often*. Your are right, remounting may be a very expensive and painstaiking process where a lot of money and undoubtly a lot of great knowledge and fantastic labor by the people performing the manufacture may be included. But some members may agree that there are a lot of lesser outcome, too. The need of an martial artist to own/use a sword lays beyond my scope and beyond my response. Therefore I tryed to empazise that those field of collecting and use of swords is a completely different thing out of the scope of NMB. I did not intend to make any harsh comments, but if my comments sound harsh because of my command of english language or the lack of it, I do appologize and stay away from further comments. Greetings Andreas

*I may choose to keep the blade in shirasaya or even remount it* This gives another aspect of collecting Japanese swords, which maybe more relevant in the West than in Japan: remounting to recreate a *samurai sword* from a *romantic viewpoint*. This makes little sense from my point of view (collecting swords as art) because: - the newly created mounting has no history besides the put together of old (often mismatched) fittings. - the newly created mounting reflects the taste of the new owner and may be miles away from historical accurate assembly - some may argue that old fittings were frequently re-used during sword history, but this is a blunt argument since this re-using (up to haitorei) was made with the intention of mounting AND USING/ WEARING the sword as a weapon, which is obsolet today Greetings Andreas PS: My arguments do apply to the collecting of *artswords*where shirasaya is a must on newly polished sowrds. The *martial arts corner* is a totally different approach and need not be discussed in NMB (just my oppinion).

Hi, maybe I turned paranoid after reading the "Facts and Fundamentals of Japanese Swords" written by Nobuo Nakahara , BUT the texture of the rust at the beginning of the nakago looks odd. Greetings Andreas

Hi crowd, since I couldn' wait until amazon will deliver, I got my copy from abebooks within 5 days (from UK to Germany). The following review is my personal oppinion, not intended to offend anyone. This book is easy reading for those who allready know *The Japanese Sword* by Kanzan Sato. You may allmost fell asleep during reading . BUT then there are some *individual* theories about boshi, shape of blades and osuriage mumei swords which will wake you up again There are some more chapters on repair of blades and the method and traces of suriage jobs, which are well worth reading as well. Some of the authors opinions like *do not pay much attention to the difference if a sword has itame or mokume hada* or *no need to differenciate between nioi and ko-nie* are , well ehrr, *not mainstream*. Anyway, good buy for the price and may thanks for this good translation job to Paul Martin. Greetings Andreas

Hello Maurice, nice tanto Please add some measurements to your pics. These are essential. A picture showing the mune of the blade in full length would be nice, too. The pic *mune kissaki* shows only a part off the blade. Looks like continuing tapering from habaki to the tip?=> Muromachi Uda Kunimtsu = founder of the Uda school? Greetings Andreas

Hi Andi, Wakizashi 2 leaves me with an impression of saki sori....Maybe I'm mislead by the uneven distributed lighting on the blades length. So the short nagasa, the tapering and the deep (saki) sori reminds me of sue Koto, up to very early shinto. The shaping of the nakago together with the hamon (a kind of round gunome midare) may point to a Mino origin like Kanefusa. But thats only a very wild guess (as always: statments about blades based on fotos only are not reliable Compare the shape of this sword with your Waki2: http://www.aoi-art.com/kantei/kantei78.html (This Kunimichi looks like a pre Kanei one, if I look at the signature) Greetings Andreas

Hello Andi, the disadvantage of the most books are the small and scetchy pictures/drawings as you allready mentioned. It is not easy to compare a 2 inch pic in a book to a 18 inch sword in your hand! The answer to your question is simple: do it yourself! There are a lot of sites like aoi-art oder seiyudo who provide high resolution pics of full size sword fotos. They show very little disortion of the shape. Save them, invert them (to get rid of the black background) and print them out in scale 1:1 on a large size plotter. Or print them on you DIN A4 printer and glue the parts together. This will provide you with a collection of full size sword "maps" to compare with you own swords. I have done this several times and it is fun! You can make your own charts for wakizashi, tanto, yoroidoshi etc. Another advantage is the effect of intense studying the stuff: collecting the pictures, selecting the references -best are dated swords, use only ubu blades if possible, collect sword-pics of the same time period, but by different areas - eg. Osaka Shinto and Edo Shinto differ in shape although made during the same time! It is not a quick and comfortable way for the lazy ones, but its worth the efforts. Greetings Andreas

Dear Henry, I'm not the seller of this item, I do not know him and I have no sort of relationssip to him. This tread was not about price, but about autenticy and technical terms of the blade. I fully agree with Ron and Brian: the asking price is a matter of the seller and needs no discussion. (No matter if it is an unreasonable high or low figure.) Greetings Andreas

Hi to all, thank you for your comments. I was never in danger to buy this one, just curious. So we probably see a shinto with an atobori bohi (carved by someone who did not know how a propper bohi is to place and carve on a katana). The polish on the kissaki is horrible, I do agree! I have seen and handled some Mishina School blades, but none with this type of hamon, yet. I have seen a photo by Fujishiro of a Rai Kinmichi with a similar *disorderly* hamon. But the habuchi of the ebay sword looks awkward, maybe its the result of the *surface-treatment*. Greetings Andreas

Hello, if anyone can endure looking at this sword: ebay item 220533735635 and please commend on - placing of the horimono (ending of the hi = very uncommon?) - hamon (as far as visible in the pics) Greetings Andreas in case you cant get access by searching the items number, search Seller: vonderzung items listing as: Japanese Sword Shinto-KATANA in Mountings in new polish Maybe access is limited because the seller states: Shipping to: Worldwide Excludes: United Arab Emirates, Australia, Canada, France, United Kingdom

Hello Dick, Ian, Thank you for the information. Dick, I guess the kanji for both mon can roughly translate as "fan-paper in circle". Ian, I forgot to mention the size of the cover: total length is 300 mm. So you are right that it is the size for a wakizashi or a short katana with very short hilt. I looks bulky on a mid size wakizashi Greetings Andreas

Hello Oliver, next meeting will be held on January the 30. For more Info about place and time, feel free to contact Joachim (see *Kontakt* on http://www.nihonto-club.de). To NMB Members, the mentioned website is in German language only, sorry for this obstacle. We may be able to *upgrade* the websites or at least the most important information on it to English language during the next year. Greetings Andreas PS: contact in english language is possible without mayor problem

Hi Oliver, most times those meetings are no farer away from Karlsruhe than a two hours ride over the *Autobahn* http://www.nihonto-club.de/ Greetings Andreas

Hello, I'm curious about some mountings which have a fuchi without the *headplate* tenjo-ita. Can anyone please shead some light on those things? My observations: 1) Those tenjo-ita lacking fuchi occasionally could be seen with the so called *Satsuma Rebellion mounts*, where the fuchi is a plain iron ring to reinforce the mouth of the tsuka which is often an *emergency made* one (e.g. from saya scrap). 2) I once purchcased another one with fuchi+kashira made form casted silver (?) wich is obviously of late shinshinto Period (or later), please see pic. After close inspection I'm sure it did not loose ist headplate but never had a tenjo-ita soldered to the fuchi-ring. I doubt this is from an *ersatz* koshirae, because of the use of silver. 3) Sometimes the tsuka shows fine string binding (of low quality string), so maybe these tsuka were never intended to be used? Is it possible that these ones are for a kind of *simple koshirae* for donation of blades to shrines etc? (this leads to the question why do they bother to make a *plain* koshirae instead of placing the blade in shirasaya?) Greetings and best whishes for the new year. Andreas

Hello, I recently stumbled about this tsuka cover made of laquered leather. It bears a mon, which I did not find anywhere, yet. Seems to show a fan in a circle with the charakter *ichi* below the fan: Found a fan without ichi here http://www.otomiya.com/kamon/kibutsu/jigami.htm OK, I do know that it is most unlikely to pin down a mon to a certain family, but maybe anyone came across this pictured mon togeter with a family name or other sorce? Greetings and best wishes for a happy new year! Andreas

Hi, I suggest any serious sword studying club should own - a sword with hagire, -a saiha blade and - a sword showing shingane for the sake of educating the novices Greetings Andreas PS: If can get one dirt cheap, I would buy it and donate it

Hi Eric, thank you for the flowers I have no provable idea, yet. I have handled 4 blades with this effect and seen another one on photos (above mentioned Naotane). That's pretty few compared with the many blades I have seen in Japan and Europa. Greetings Andreas

Hi, here you can see a Naotane sword with a VERY similar effekt in the jihada! http://www.seiyudo.com/assets/galleries ... 1-950a.jpg So we find at least three swords made bei Rai Kunitsugu, Sue-Seki and Naotane showing the same effect Greetings Andreas

Hello Eric, this tsuka has a 4.5 mm tsuka ito. I guess it dates from late Edo/Meiji period. Greetings Andreas PS: of couse this is NOT a piece of art. The quality of the fittings is not high and the silk ito is thin, but in my opinion it is collectible as piece of history. It well show the workmanship in medium quality pieces made for low ranking soldiers or for souveniers.