Katana estimate , opinions needed

[Shaihai]

Hello

I have purchased this sword in Japan about 5 years ago.

I don't know if i got a good deal on it and was wondering how much it might be worth.

I am looking for selling it so your estimate is of real importance to me.

I don't know much about the sword besides the fact that before me it belonged to the formers okinawa minister of culture. By the signature as you can see, it was made by niho kiyosada.

 

I am adding some photos of it, looking forward to your estimate.

 

Thanks

S.h.

[Geraint]

Hi Shai.

 

It is almost impossible to ascertain very much from your photographs, (Japanese swords are very hard to capture in the detail that would allow anyone to make much of an informed judgement).

You have a katana in shirasaya, as you do not mention any papers from a Japanese sword organisation I assume it has none. You might find this thread useful, http://www.nihontomessageboard.com/nmb/ ... 5&p=136122

 

Just to be clear, at the end the quote makes reference to kazuuchimono, this is usually translated as mass produced and refers to the fact that during the period your sword was made large numbers were being made very quickly for war and therefore the quality is usually not very good. All this means that in spite of dating from around 1560 your sword is not a national treasure. One sold recently for $1700, I am not in the US and others may have a different view but I fear this is about what you could expect.

 

All this assumes that there are no major flaws in the blade, something which can only really be seen with the sword in hand. It is an honourable old warrior and deserves to be taken care of, I hope you enjoy it for what it is.

 

All the best.

[Darcy]

Echoing Geraint, does it have any papers?

 

And what is the length? Best I can guess from these tape measure pictures is that overall length is 88, and if we give about 20 for the nakago it's going to be 68cm of cutting edge (measure from the machi).

 

In this case if you have a goal of selling it, your best bet is to just price it to what you paid and post it here in the for sale section. It is not going to be a great artwork and anyone's estimates based on what they see here are going to have a very large margin of error.

 

It would help to know the prices of others that have sold by this smith but finding those is not going to be simple. I'd just go based on what you paid.

 

Papers and length will be two things that people will care about in buying it from you.