Okay, Now This Is Getting Scary!

[Ken-Hawaii]

Yes, Tim, as the OP, I will be extremely interested to see how NTHK reviewed your blade - the details of what they saw will be important. I've only seen one sugata that didn't make me think that that something was "off," & although the jihada was almost TOO good, there were enough discrepancies that I wasn't quite sure what I was looking at. As Luis said, I'm glad you took it to shinsa. We all knew that a passing grade was coming, but not quite this soon.

[Stephen]

As i stated Ken the workshit said passed, ill bet a case of beer it will get changed before origami issued.

[TheGermanBastard]

_{Tim got back to me, he sent it via Mr Bowen, Im sure Chris had so many on his hands he did not have time to look it over. Maybe one of his helpers sent it thur.  From my experience after having a koto katsumitsu pass high with a hagiri only to receive a pink in the mail it will get caught before papers issued.} 

 

Stephen, I am having a hard time at this. Maybe it gets pinked now because it has been flagged for obvious reasons AFTERWARDS. But the sad and disturbing truth is that nobody at the Shinsa team raised the flag. The blade did pas succesfully. If it gets pinked now, it is only because a 3rd party has informed the NTHK about the problem. The failure remains and it would most probably happen again when submitting more of the Chinese blades.

 

It is like with the pupil who removes the wrong result with a rubber and writes down the correct one after somebody else pointed it out to him. It is still a failure and does not make it right ... hey, you have a hole in your knee? No problem ... let me just cover it up with some tape and you are fine ... Nope.

 

The thing is NOT that this blade was made in China. Any debae on this would be xenophobian at "best" ... even a round eye can do a good sword with the proper training and gift. The thing is that a recently made sword goot papered as an Edo periode one. No good. How can we be certain then that our Hein periode blade isn't just a Shinshinto copy? We maybe never can be for sure ... but now the term sure has just become more vague / questionable.

[Brian]

Luis, time to become a bit quiet for a while.
Too many posts, replies to every comment. Sometimes less is more. You are starting to sound like a cross between Jacques and Adrian.
Shhhhhhhh for a little bit.

[TheGermanBastard]

Farewell

[SAS]

The whole matter is that the system is designed to judge Japanese blades.

[Vermithrax16]

Fascinating. 

[PNSSHOGUN]

By nature the Shinsa team wouldn't have much experience with Chinese made swords, combined with the heavy workload of the show mistakes can happen.

[0331_usmc]

I can say it is eye opening to someone who is quite new to Japanese swords. As has been said many times on this site, know who you are buying from and use the resources available to you.  There is a wealth of knowledge here if you take the time before you purchase.

[Ted Tenold]

I've been back through this thread a couple of times, and maybe I missed something, but am I to understand that the blade was known to be of non-Japanese origins and was submitted to the shinsa with that information withheld?

 

When submitting things to any shinsa, "trust" is a two-way street.  

[Taz575]

Ted, not quite!  I bought it on Ebay and there was some discussion online about the age/school of the blade, so I sent it off to the Shinsa in Chicago.  After it was sent, I found some of these threads where the origin was disputed.

[Ted Tenold]

Okay.  Thank you very much for clarifying Tim!   

[Taz575]

No problem!  As soon as I get papers back, I will post them here and on the FB group for anyone that wants to see them.  I sent in my check yesterday, so I am hoping to have the blade back later this coming week and hopefully the paperwork is included!

[Taz575]

Quick update. When Bowen went to unpack the blade, he looked at the full sheet. It was stamped passed, but they wrote in "Horyu" at the bottom, which he said means they defer judgement and neither pass or fail the blade. I will post the worksheet when it arrives!

[PNSSHOGUN]

Interesting, I'm glad it wasn't a straight pass. 

[Mark]

i saw at least one other marked Horyu, i thought it had passed till i looked for the points, there were NO points noted so that helped me understand that it had not failed, but also not passed, they needed more research.  As for time spent, i think some swords did not need much time (clearly bad etc), but a few they put aside and went back to. A friend of mine submitted one and had to wait a long time, he said at the end of the session they went back and spent 30 minutes discussing it before they came to a conclusion.

 

The owner of the sword i mention is a member here, maybe if he sees this he will comment

[Kronos]

That's a relief. I couldn't imagine them passing that. The chinese fakes are getting much better but still a long way to go on the basics like patina and shape before even considering jihada etc

[Stephen]

sellers other name? same town

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Japanese-Samurai-Sword/232758652288?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D50543%26meid%3D387b696678fb4fcebe03c2002b9f8674%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D323246886999%26itm%3D232758652288&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

[SAS]

The ara-nie on the ^^ above blade is spooktacular; the wheel of history has revolved, and China is once again exporting sword technology

[Ed Harbulak]

The 30 minute delay for the blade that Mark mentioned in #106 above is mine. When I went to pick up the three blades I had submitted, two were finished on schedule at 5:30 PM, but the third one was still sitting on the table in front of the shinsa team. Chris told me they wanted to discuss the blade and I should come back when they were finished with all the other blades for that day at 6:PM. When I first saw the blade a year ago, I was impressed by the quality but was surprised that although it was obviously shinshinto, it didn't have a yakidashi. That should have led me to consider it was suriage, but that didn't seem likely as the entire nakago looked ubu with nicely done kessho yasuri and a well done nakago jiri. It was also evident that a signature had been erased suggesting that someone had felt the original mei was gimei and therefore had it removed from an otherwise ubu nakago. In spite of the lack of a yakidashi, the blade was just too good to pass up so I purchased it and put it in this year's shinsa. The reason the shinsa team needed to discuss the blade before returning it to me was apparently precisely because of the removed mei from an ubu nakago but no yakidashi. Something just didn't seem right to them, hence the need for a discussion among the shinsa team. When I finally got the blade and work sheet back, it was apparent that one of the team members had called it ubu, but that was crossed off and O-suriage was circled after their discussion. On close examination, it is possible to see the hamon run well into the ubu looking nakago which now is clearly not ubu. The combination of ubu appearing nakago, the removed mei but no yakidashi just didn't seem right, so rather than accept the blade as is and making an attribution, they had a conference to discuss it until the shinsa judges determined what was going on. In the end they attributed the blade to Osaka Ozaki Suketaka with 75 points. He's a Josaku smith according to Fujishiro and 60 points in Hawley. By the way, a long, sugu yakidashi was Ozaki Suketaka's normal work style. On consulting my reference books, I think the attribution to Ozaki Suketaka makes sense and is reasonable. 

[Guest Rayhan]

Ed I would love to see pictures of the Suketaka

[ken kata]

sellers other name? same town

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Japanese-Samurai-Sword/232758652288?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D50543%26meid%3D387b696678fb4fcebe03c2002b9f8674%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D323246886999%26itm%3D232758652288&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

 Hello Guys,

I bought one from this seller.

  He has a real name..

  I can not say, as, this is an open forum. ( Not fair to him)

 

His last name is Wang, he said he is selling these for a friend, so, he does not know anything about the blades.

Fair enough, right? Let the buyer beware.. I took a chance for 500.00 

 

 Blades at that time, were  listed as  "  Japanese samurai sword gendaito katana tachi "  

Listed from Maryland.. Printed Mailing label had Virginia, not Maryland.

The Group said the Mei is gimei.. and, Jussi said it does not look like the  Swordmaker's mie..

Here is the Blade I bought:

 

https://sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/50501/help-sword-signature

[Taz575]

Here is the sheet!

[Mark]

no points mentioned so did NOT pass, Did not fail. So makes sense as they are not familiar with these.