Have us new collectors missed the boat?

[carlitobrigante]

Im curious. I also collect kukri and ive noticed these days that prices seem to much more than they used to be...so wondered whether nihonto has gone the same way.

 

Im sure many on this forum have been collecting for many years. Were nihonto available and alot cheaper back in the 70's / 80's? Was it alot harder to getyour hands on them as there was no ebay etc but were they dirt cheap compared to what we pay today?

 

im seeing crappy machine made gunto going for $1000 on ebay (im a militaria collector mostly and new to nihonto, and wanted an example for my collection but not at those prices!) when im sure a while back you could get a nice piece for that amount.

 

Did any of you get any major bargains back then? i bet there were quite a few ignorant antique dealers who didnt know what they really had. Is the collecting community alot bigger now than it was say 20 years ago? are blades alot more abundant nowadays or are they starting to be withere away by people hoarding them in collections?

 

wish id caught this 'nihonto' bug 10-20 years ago! im interested also in when the prices started to jump if they did at all. im guessing they shot up in the mid ninetys?

 

Regards

 

Adam

[Mark]

The price of machine made military swords has gone way up, but you can buy a old wakizashi sword (maybe even papered and polished) for less than they sold for 20 years ago. It seems low end stuff is going up, and top line items always go up, but mid range stuff is staying even, or even going down........at least that is my opinon

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

im seeing crappy machine made gunto going for $1000 on ebay (im a militaria collector mostly and new to nihonto, and wanted an example for my collection but not at those prices!)

 

here in Italy an antiques and militaria dealer in Florence is selling a machine made gunto with well preserved mount at

1,000.00 euro, not U$. Almost 40% more then yours. Obvious madness.

 

Im sure many on this forum have been collecting for many years. Were nihonto available and alot cheaper back in the 70's ? Was it alot harder to getyour hands on them as there was no ebay etc but were they dirt cheap compared to what we pay today? OMISSIS i bet there were quite a few ignorant antique dealers who didnt know what they really had.

 

Once in England and Paris you were able to find NihonTo at flea markets for dirty cheap.

Bounds of Shingunto mounts to search in. It was enough to watch and pick up the one with the "odd" curvature, et...

Voilà. Purchased, polished and stored.

I was a boy in the '70s but I remember a friend of mine, now passed away, making it.

He passed to me a Naginata purchased in a very similar way.

[Paul Martin]

In term of ART, sword collectors are still relatively very fortunate. You can still get reasonable old swords at reasonable prices compared to other areas of the art world. Even the prices to pay for very old good swords is still favorable when compared to old masters in the art world. Also, take a look at the ridiculous prices charged for diamonte covered skulls and compare it to a tachi by Amata Akitsugu or Ono Yoshimitsu etc.

 

The glass is half full...

 

Best

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

In term of ART, sword collectors are still relatively very fortunate.

 

Euro' strenght help too.

[Stephen]

I remember a show in Texas back in the late 90's, a table had all his swords priced at what was triple of like swords on other tables, I asked around as he was new to me and the shows id been to. Turns out that he got into buying in the 80's and that's what they were going for then, needless to say he sold few swords. some of the older dealers can tell you how the market was then....they only wish it would come back. These days are the good old days, unless we have a total collapses of the system (I say that with my fingers crossed) one should be able to collect comfortably.

[Guest Simon Rowson]

Hi Adam,

 

I remember the late Ron Gregory sending me article he'd written entitled "The Good Old Days" (perhaps some of the English Token members still have a copy and could put it on the board?).

 

Ron started collecting just after the war when most ex-servicemen wanted to hang onto gunto (because they were military swords and a more immediate reminder of the conflict they'd just participated in) and let any civilian swords they'd brought back go for a song.

 

He used to trawl the antique and flea markets in the late 40's, 50's and 60's and pick up mint dai-sho and huge shrine dedication swords for £1 - £5 as I remember.

 

One recollection of Ron's article is where he visited a scrap metal dealer to buy some swords and the man's garden fence was made of rusting Nihonto stuck point down into the ground and wired together through their mekugi-ana. Ron spotted some that were obviously very old but the dealer had stripped them down from their gunto mounts because the brass was more valuable to him than the blades.

(How many NMB members out there are weeping as they read this I wonder?)

 

If anyone does have the article, it would definitely be a good idea to put it on this forum - if only as a stark reminder of what our predecessors were able to buy for peanuts 30 to 60 years ago.

 

Simon

[paulb]

not sure what the average wage was just after the war but £5 represented a considerable sum. You could buy a house in Surrey for £300 (lowest now is probably nearer £250,000).

Admitedly even allowing for vast inflation swords are more expensive now than they were then, this is due in no small part to the increased awareness and information available on the web.

New collectors always feel they have missed the boat, I did when I bought my first Showa-to in 1983 for £225. I lusted after blades that cost £1000. The reality is that unless you belong to the super-rich 5% you always start at the low end of the market and gradually refine your collection as experience grows.

[Jean]

The reality is that unless you belong to the super-rich 5% you always start at the low end of the market and gradually refine your collection as experience grows.

 

Very true Paul, unless one can consider Nihonto collecting as out-of-pocket expenses