Help To Remove scratches from Blade

[waddac2]

Hi, Im new to this group and joined as I collect katanas, but my knowled is basic. I have a samurai made by franklin mint and ment to be worth about £600 to £100, so ive been told!! There are quite a few scratches on the blade where the prior owner had honed the blade. Not sure if it is hand forged or stainless steel, prob the later one. Can of you kind people give me any ideas on how to remove the scratches to get it back to its original condition? Hope you can help.

 

Regards,

 

Richard (waddac2)

[Gabriel L]

Hi Richard,

 

Welcome to the NMB!

 

Franklin Mint seems to be an American collectibles manufacturer. Therefore whatever this specific sword of yours is, while an appraiser might value it highly as vintage sculptural work (did you mean £60-100, or £600-1000?), it certainly isn't nihonto; it almost certainly isn't a real sword either, defined as a metallurgically-correct, functionally-mounted blade.

 

This forum is dedicated to nihonto, which are antique or contemporary Japanese swords that are traditionally made (according to very strict methods and materials, and even a licensing system in the case of modern blades). In the case of nihonto, polishing or restoration would be done by a qualified professional togishi, a job that takes many years of careful study and scholarship to become proficient in. Most of the members on this forum would be able to guide you in getting authentic nihonto repolished, but I doubt that their expertise would extend to restoring a vintage sculptural model of a sword by an American collectibles manufacturer - such a thing simply lies outside of the scope of this forum.

 

Still, I think you'd be welcome to post images of the sword here and seek people's advice; you may get lucky in that some member's interest in antiques covers your particular item. One point of advice is to not attempt anything on your own; the extent to which your antique can be restored, the correct method of restoration, and the actual act of restoration are best left to experts of the appropriate field, if you care about preservation and value.

 

On another note, what other blades do you own? How long have you been interested in Japanese arms and armor?

 

Cheers,

Gabriel L.

 

PS - just some semantic points: Japanese nouns are both plural and singular, e.g. one katana / many katana. Also, a samurai is a member of an historical social caste, not a kind of blade .

[waddac2]

Hi Gabriel,

 

Nice to meet you. I have about 10 katanas at the moment. All are hand forged. A couple are made by masahiro (not sure if that is spelt right)

 

I would dearly love to buy an original katana, but cannot afford one. I suppose the nearest I could afford would be a WWII katana. Are the WWII hand forged folded steel, or are they just stainless steel?

 

I am currently at work, but will add a couple of photos at some point of the katana in question. This is a great site for me to use, with there being so many experts to ask for advice. Is it also true that prob 90% so called original katanas on ebay are fakes?

 

I am also just starting to get the hang of spotting fakes, by looking at the hammon lines etc..

 

Cheers,

 

PS. seems I have put katanas again by mistake, so use to wording it that way.

 

Richard

[kusunokimasahige]

Hiya Richard, is your Franklin mint sword the Tachi mounted one with the aluminum saya, Tokugawa Mon, brown/metallic and blue golden tsuba?

 

Please post some pics, I myslf know a litle bit about buffing modern pieces and replica swords....

 

and do shre some of your other swords with us, it is always nice to see..

 

anout WWII swords, you have both forged and waltzed blades (machine made stuff)

 

generally you could say that most NCO swords with total metal hilt are machine made and most officers swords either forged or proper gendaito, which means forged and folded many times according to the ancient way.

 

a giveaway can be the missing of real hamon, stamps etcetera, however there were also smiths working for arsenals..

 

also there is a difference in oil-quenched swords with hamon, etched hamon, and water queched swords with hamon.

 

an etched hamon generally is not a real hamon......

 

try to read up as much as you can on this site..

 

http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/nihonto.htm

 

it helps a lot!

 

KM

[Grey Doffin]

I would dearly love to buy an original katana, but cannot afford one.

Richard,

I would bet that for what you spent on your 10 katanas, from Franklin Mint and Masahiro, you could have bought the real thing. If you are truly interested in Nihonto make your next purchase a good book, or a trip to a Japanese sword show. Learn something and then buy a real sword.

Grey

[Gabriel L]

Hi again Richard,

 

WWII era swords (gunto or showato) vary greatly. Most are mass-manufactured and are of little interest/value to nihonto collectors, although they are still interesting and important pieces of WWII militaria that people will pay several hundred to a thousand or so US dollars for. The blades are sometimes chrome plated, or handmade but using inferior materials and methods. Many had fake hamon. Some good resources for WWII swords exist, such as R. Fuller and R. Gregory's "Military Swords of Japan" (now out of print, but still available used).

 

Some WWII swords did have true blades, either antique or contemporary (such as by the Yasukuni smiths), but these are not very common.

 

MANY eBay swords are Chinese fakes. Many more still are sold with dishonest or deficient descriptions. eBay is not a good place to buy unless you are pretty knowledgeable and very careful, and even then it's still a risk. There are many reliable and reasonable sellers of authentic Japanese swords, including online retailers, so there's very little reason for a beginner to ever consider eBay.

 

Gotta go,

-GLL

[waddac2]

Thats correct regarding the franklin mint katana. It had a gold plated tsuba, and blue markins. I purchased it last year from ebay. It was £100 or best offer. The owner also stated that they paid £350 for it a few years ago.

 

I offered £85 which they accepted as needed the money for a wedding. I then saw an exact one on ebay last month with starting bid of £300. I contacted the seller for advice. They kindley replied saying that he paid £600 for it in 1992, he then told me a month prior to putting it on ebay someone offered him over a £1000 for it claiming that only about 50 were ever made. Not sure again if any of the above is true.

 

One of my masahiro katana is clay forged, and is one off. I will add pics of all my katana at some point, as I say Im at work and will be leaving for home soon. It is a real pleasure meeting everyone online this evening. You have made me feel so welcome, and want to thank you for that.

 

Kindest regards,

 

Richard

[kusunokimasahige]

Nice to hear Richard!

 

well about the Franklin Mint...... its not true......

 

there were a LOT made.....

 

however, they come in a slightly higher price range since the steel of the blade is Toledo, and quite hard....... however the price ranges they mention to you are ludicrous.... IMHO at least......

 

KM