Nice daito on AOI

[nihonto1001]

http://aoi-art.com/sword/katana/08639.html

 

No Brainer? Is it just my inexperience, or is this a great deal on a very decent sword? If not, please tell me what I am missing.

 

On Hold, I guess someone else thought so too.

 

Jon

[Henry Stewart]

Jon;

 

If your idea of great = in excess of £2,294.00, sounds to me a great deal of money in this day and age. Still all things are relative; do you like the blade must always remain the leading question.

 

Henry

[Jean]

Jon,

 

The real question is : what is a decent blade, taking into account the school, the era ....

[cisco-san]

Hallo,

 

I also think that it would be a good deal.

 

@all

Btw. in the description of the blade you can read that it was polished.

If you have a closer look on the kissaki from my point it seems that there are some horizontal "scratches". I saw such "scratches" recently on a freshly polished sword as well

I have no explanation for that. Of course a the polish can be bad but.....?!

 

Thanks

Klaus Schicker

[Gunome]

Hello,

 

The aoi art link doesn't work on my PC !?!

and if I go directly to aio web site I can't retrieve the item number 08639

[nihonto1001]

Jean:

The criteria I look at in judging a blade as decent are:

(not necessarily in this order)

1. Health, Size and Kizu (or lack thereof)

2. Hada and Hamon- I am partial to ko itame/mokume, with active hamon.

3. Jigane

4. Age- I am partial to Koto pieces

5. Smith - This is the least important, and most important at the same time. I believe that if a mumei blade is above average in all of the above criteria, it will probably gain a respectable attribution by the NBTHK anyway. I would rather have a healthy blade attributed to a respectable wakimono smith, than a tired one attributed to a big smith. But, that is just me.

 

Not that this blade is incredible in any of the above, it does possess some of the attributes I like. The price is great and includes koshirae.

 

Klaus:

Yes, that polish does not look like they agreed with me. Belt Sander:?)

 

Folks:

Thanks for responding.

 

Jon

[raven2]

Klaus,

If you look at all the descriptions on AOI, they all say the blade was polished. From what I have seen, it doesn't mean it was in new polish but just polished at some time. Either that or they are having them done at some of the worst polishers I have seen.

[reinhard]

Proper polishing of NihonTo basically consists of replacing coarser marks by finer ones. By doing so the angle of the sword is slightly changed in relation to the stone from stage to stage. Proceeding like this helps the polisher in wiping out coarser traces from previous stones. He can tell by the angle of the scratches. Polishing Kissaki is different though. All stages are performed within the same 90 degree angle. This makes it very difficult to see wether all of the rougher scratches are really eliminated. Using abrasive Uchiko for sword-care for a long period of time, some of the finer stages will partially disappear and reveal some of the coarser, overlooked scratches one more time. - This feature is not uncommon to be seen on blades in very old polish.

 

reinhard

[nagamaki - Franco]

  raven2 said:

If you look at all the descriptions on AOI, they all say the blade was polished.

 

Hello,

 

When considering the purchase of 'any nihonto', asking who polished the sword should be a standard question. Followed up by evaluating (kantei) of both the sword and polish once in hand. A "new polish" should not be mistakenly equated with a "good polish", as it often is. The price of miscalculating the quality of a polish is the cost of a new polish, food for thought.

[Jacques]

Hi,

 

  Quote

Using abrasive Uchiko for sword-care for a long period of time, some of the finer stages will partially disappear and reveal some of the coarser, overlooked scratches one more time. - This feature is not uncommon to be seen on blades in very old polish.

 

reinhard

 

 

 

 

The purpose of the thinner stones is to efface the marks of the previous ones. If the work is well done you never can see the coarser marks again.

[Lee Bray]

  Jacques D. said:

If the work is well done you never can see the coarser marks again.

 

If the work is well done...probably not always the case and so Reinhard's post makes perfect sense.

[Jacques]

  Quote

probably not always the case and so Reinhard's post makes perfect sense.

 

 

In this case they are always visible, since the end of polishing.

[reinhard]

Before this is getting out of hand one more time I wonder what Ted has to say about this matter. Telling from my very limited polishing-experience I realized great difficulties in telling earlier, deeper marks from later, finer ones when moving a blade over various stones without changing the angle of movement. This is how Kissaki-section is polished traditionally. Apart from theoretical armchair-philosophy, I'm really curious to get some feedback from practitioners. - And for the record: my few polishing attempts were limited to blades of no real importance during my early years of enthusiasm. No important katana was harmed during the making of this film. It was an important lesson for me nevertheless.

 

reinhard

[Ted Tenold]

Reinhard is correct. The kissaki is polished perpendicular to the edge through all stages. In the body of the blade the stroke is changed to distinguish prior marks from fresh, but it also aids in maintaining crisp junctures in the geometry of the sword. However, even in the body of the blade the stroke eventually become parallel to the length of the blade in two or more stones. Typically, from chunagura through uchigomori the strokes are in the same direction, parallel to the edge. The marks can still be distinguished and the removal of the prior ones is a matter of training the eyes to see them as well as observing the clarity of the steel. I've seen many polishes in which the yakiba or ji (especially if there's lots of nie in the ji) looks cloudy or hazy. This is generally caused from not enough time on the stone, poor technique, poor stones, or a combination of these reasons. But through the body of the sword the marks from coarser stones can be distinguished more readily with the stroke angle change. Not so with the kissaki. The kissaki is more difficult because the strokes don't change at all there (though there are some rare exceptions) and finer stones can actually "round off" the tops of course marks rather than remove them effectively masking them. In the end there will be evidence of those courser marks if they are not removed. The kissaki is also a much more confined and complex area.

 

In this sword there is another concern; the appearance of the koshinogi on the right image. It's rounded with poor definition. Perhaps the foundation was not reset and the kissaki just touched up to bring up the boshi. It’s difficult to say from the images what stone may have left the scratches shown in the kissaki, but it could be poor choice of tsuya (i.e. hazuya) for the final finish, lack of removing prior scratches or both. It's also very easy to leave scratches if the tsuya is not properley matched or prepared. Working the boshi/kissaki to a fine finish and full definition can take a very long time. A well defined, scratch free kissaki really is an equation of time, material, and skill.