Is this carving sometinhg to see as a warning?

[brillone]

I have read that when a sword has carvings on the blade you should be on your watch casue it meens they maybe are hiding something or it is a fake.

So is this sword real with a carving to hide someting, or is it a carving that was made when the blade was made?

Are there any good ways to recognize carvings thats made to cover something?

[brillone]

Heres the url

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/Japanese-Sword-Monju-Yamato-School-Carving-of-BONJI_W0QQitemZ320281254254

[Brian]

Horimono don't usually hide a fake, they hide flaws such as open grain or fukure. Not easy to know what is original and what was done to hide flaws. Best way is to know what a good carving looks like. Usually bad quality grooves or horimono hide flaws. If they are very good carvings, then less likely someone spent a lot of money to hide a flaw. But there aren't rules as usual. If the carving looks odd, or doesn't belong there, then it may be added later.

On that sword, the bonji may or may not be original, but the flaw it would be hiding wouldn't be serious anyways..just visual.

The groove on the other hand makes me think added later, maybe some open grain. Just an opinion.

However knowing this guy's auctions, I think reserve is going to be above $1500 anyways.

 

Brian

[Bugyotsuji]

Joakim, in my experience you should always be on your guard with any sword.

 

Carvings on the blade could indeed be a smokescreen to cover something else.

 

But they could also be, and usually are, quite legitimate. You will need to look very closely at the quality of the carving as one aspect of appraising a sword that you may be considering purchasing.

 

Cover the carving and look dispassionately at the blade on its own. Is it worth the time and money to have asked a good carver to work on the blade?

 

PS Just my personal feeling, but if the seller was really, really proud of the horimono, he/she would have taken a super close-up shot of the Bonji for us.

[brillone]

Tanks for the comments And yeah this sword probably has a much higher reserve than bid is at now. I was more wondering about the carving. But i think its a nice sword tho the carving to me dont look that nice i dont think it fits the sword. So my first impresssion is that the carving is newer then the sword. But i dont know thats just my thought.

Theres only a couple of hours left so i will be watching this and if it doesnt get to high i will probably give him a bid, but as you said brian the reserve is probably higher then what i would bid.

[remzy]

 

PS Just my personal feeling, but if the seller was really, really proud of the horimono, he/she would have taken a super close-up shot of the Bonji for us.

 

That was excatly what i was going to say. No macro shot of the horimano? suspicious...

[brillone]

How much does a bad carving meen to the sword. Does its value go down, do you collectors value it lower. If its a nice blade but a bad carving is it still concidered a nice nihonto? This blade on this one looks nice to me but the price is still very low is it the carving that make people stay away becasue it can hide to much?

[Stephen]

would not worry about the carving its the least of the worries on this....how about that rust on the cutting edge...no flags there??????? you get taught but you dont listen, seems were wasting our breath...er typing

[brillone]

Stephen

 

This sword i wont be bidding on i thaught about it before but i wont. I posted this thread cause i wanted to know more about how its with carvings on the blade. And how you collectors look at it.