Bigbox store offering nihonto sandpaper machine polishes

[AntiquarianCat]

I know I’ve said the best thing to do when people do bad practices like amateur polishing is to deny them exposure, but this is a big sword site amongst millennials and genZ so regardless of what I do, it already has massive exposure, plus they rejected all private criticism and went full speed ahead in promoting sandpaper polishes as a way to cheaply and safely restore nihonto.

 

Anyways SBG which sold replicas and gave advice regarding them is branching out to selling nihonto, when I heard I thought that was fantastic since a lot of new people might get into this hobby... Even if it turned out they were mostly just selling lower end stuff for huge markups(green papered swords for 30K is steep). 

Then I found out they sandpaper polish their nihonto. Like this (formerly) nice hefty looking blade: in their own words it was in reasonable polish, had a very minor inactive surface rust problem and instead of using a less destructive way of removing, they took a 600 grit sandpaper machine and gave it a “polish” and called that a free restoration. It gets worse since all their other swords are trying to upsell the buyer into buying sandpaper machine polishes or machine-hybrid polishes (acid using I think).

 

They are telling people that trust them to pay them top dollar for sandpapering their antiques, that it will improve them. It just seems shady and like something that will forever put off new people from the hobby when they buy one of their blades and realize the “restoration” did irreversible damage and loss of value. Also, thanks to presenting themselves as experts many people will now think you restore antique swords with sandpaper and acid.

[AntiquarianCat]

Here is another example of how every antique sword they are trying to sell has two levels of "restoration" they are trying to upsell people into buying: a 750$, 600 grit sandpaper buffing, and a sandpaper buffing plus acid bath for twice the price. It seems that despite being a new project, they’ve already sold at least half a dozen swords. Their archives don’t mention if they sandpapered what they sold but I would not be surprised if people, who paid them quite a premium over market, decided to do what they thought was the responsible thing by getting it a machine/hybrid polish.

 

Funny enough they are trying to sell shinsa services for the swords they already have in Japan: they're charging 1000$ a pop for the ones they already have in the country, which includes the sandpaper machine polished sword... Somehow I'm skeptical that it will get papers given its state. I hope if its submitted and rejected they refund.

 

It really seems like they made a series of poor decisions and instead of owning up to it and changing course are doubling down on the expert act, leading everyone off a cliff.

[Jussi Ekholm]

I remember I was trying to let Paul (SBG owner) know what seems to be wrong with this project but the response was not too notable. There was a thread of it in SBG forum when the project was released.

 

I genuinely believe there would be a market (in the western world too) for modern Japanese blades made and fitted for martial arts sold at reasonable prices. Which is where I think they should have aimed for instead of many questionable items. If I remember correctly, there were actually few that I might consider as decent deals for modern swords. The antiques on the other hand...

[AntiquarianCat]

I wish they would have done as you suggested. I think this really could have had potential and benefited all, especially if they connected buyers to current smiths.  And I’m sure those smiths would have kept bad restorations like these from being carried out.

[JH Lee]

It's bad enough that the purveyors of craptana/chinatana continue to spread ignorance and dilute the market.... now they're just engaging in willful STUPIDITY out of greed.

[Hoshi]

Yeah I remember writing to them about their disastrous and overpriced offering of antique swords with invalided papers. 

 

No response. 

 

In the end it's their business team which chose this course: maximize profits extractable from low-information buyers reliant on our platform. 

 

So be it. Let the invisible hand do its work here. 

 

What saddens me are all the buyers that will get burned and exit the hobby once they find out the truth and go to the secondary market with their green-papered shinto swords. This always hurts. 

[Ken-Hawaii]

+1

[Brian]

Hi SGB. Welcome to the sh*tlist.
 

[AntiquarianCat]

 

13 hours ago, Valric said:

In the end it's their business team which chose this course: maximize profits extractable from low-information buyers reliant on our platform. 

I would have thought so except their sandpaper advocacy is so obviously a mistake that it will send anyone who knows anything running, so it’s more ego and refusal to change course. Case in point the people running that site routinely sell themselves as the foremost sword experts and call themselves the A-Team that’s going to “save” nihonto, also make other dubious claims. I guess they made a mistake and their ego as “experts” kept them from making any corrections, no matter how ridiculous that mistake is.

 

Then again SBG is selling the same stuff Katanabotique and others sell at a fair market price of 1-2K, but SBG does it with a markup of several to ten times, and exaggerated or misleading appraisals, so yeah, I guess there is some used car salesman greed in the operation too. It amazes me but many of theirs have sold, possibly with buffing polishes.

[Hoshi]

In the end it adds another filter to the hobby:  collectors challenged in their ability for critical thinking will drop-out. But a few of them would have been good additions...

 

The problem is the hobby struggles to attract new people. This is good for the buy-side of things but terrible for the sell-side of things. The hobby is petering out in the US as most of the old guard is off to heaven and the younger generation that has money is obsessing over classic cars. A lot of it has to do with the fact that its just harder and harder to treasure hunt in the USA, which arguably was one of main motivators for new entrance. So the bounty-hunter types are off chasing other things while Stimulus checks are being spent on buffer-wheel polish. 

 

No growth in the entry-level collector population: prices for mediocre things go down. SBG is the gateway into the sword world and squeeze in an ungodly margin out of the few that cross the gate only to see that landmine blow-up in their face some time later.  

 

And then we have 99% of the buy-side in Japan for masterpieces run by a just a few whale. The GINI coefficient of the Nihonto world is more skewed than girls swiping Tinder for dudes. But the battle up there is fierce and good things are becoming harder and harder to find, and those that buy them aren't leaving an estate for poachers to pillage, rather they leave behind well-endowed museums for a hundred years which will dry up the supply. Look at the Sano Museum. Now imagine the Sawaguchi Museum. 

 

So SBG if you're reading this, welcome to the sh*it list of the Nihonto world. 

[AntiquarianCat]

A funny thing happened while I was traveling. I brought Nagayama‘s book as (re)reading material and bumped into something that oddly enough contradicted SBG’s sales pages: the green papered daisho they are trying to sell for 30K claims they’re made of a veritable super steel; Nagayama says it in fact was chock full of sulfur and other contaminants that compromised its performance. I’m willing to bet Nagayama is referring to studies and SBG just made up that super steel babble without looking it up because they thought it would encourage more eager buyers.

 

Then again that’s probably less serious than them insisting those swords are “proven” to be Yasutsugu when all they have are green papers from the grade/smith inflation era. It’s not as bad as the buffing wheel antics but there are eBay sellers who literally sell the same stuff for 1/10 the price, only they don’t insist their green papered stuff is legendary and genuine.

 

Normally I would feel bad for nitpicking over mistakes but they’re a big retailer and they claim to be leading experts and there are many people who could be confused by their dubious claims.

[Jussi Ekholm]

There are lots of mistakes in their descriptions Juan, so it is not too bad to point them out.

 

I think some of the pictures are bit blurred by purpose, I tried to zoom in the old NBTHK paper for that katana. I would assume there is (越前後代) Echizen Kōdai in brackets, which would mean it was put as work of some late generation by Echizen Yasutsugu line. I am not too well versed in Shintō smiths and lineages but I would believe the Edo Yasutsugu lineage is more prestigeous one as I believe they split after 2nd generation and both Edo and Echizen lineages have 3rd generation Yasutsugu. There are multiple mentions of Ieyasu in the sales pitch but if it work by late Echizen gen, there is very slight connection to Ieyasu.

[Hoshi]

Where can we bomb their sites with reviews? Their poor clients should be warned. 

[AntiquarianCat]

I looked yesterday, it would seem that SBG’s SiteJabber and SBG’s ResellerRatings (who the owner obsesses about scoring highly enough in to have fans brigade) are probably the reviewing systems that SBG might care about the most.

 

I agree, it would be fair game, and completely supportable by these screenshots to note that they sell over priced, oft misattributed/described swords and cause severe damage to their wares by sandpaper polishing and urge their customers to buy their amateur polish, all while concealing the loss of value such “restorations” do to their wares. I probably will leave a review on reseller, with my SBG screenshots as evidence if it lets me, but I suppose the trusting fans will outweigh me.

 

I’ve been thinking over the Echizen sword they claimed belonged to Ieyasu’s smith, when the papers seemingly said something else. How SBG, buying low end YahooJP stuff in Japan to resell must have a translator around; how they deliberately put in clipped out and blurred certificate images to hinder reading. At first I thought “Blades of Japan” was just the result of a hubris fueled, poorly planned, incompetent operation; now given the dubious “Ieyasu’s smith” claims used to sell something for astronomic prices, I’m starting to think I’m looking at the Nihonto version of this.