clue on Nihonto Zuikan

[leo]

Hi, folks,

I need advice on the 2 volume book set of " Nihonto Zuikan" by Kataoka.

 

My reference set is 2-coloured:

The koto hen is green with a beautiful romaji index and the names of the smiths in romaji on each page.

The shinto hen is blue without romaji index!

 

1. Is this the way they come or are they maybe mismatched?

 

2. Does any board member know if there is a shinto hen with romaji index?

 

Grateful for any clue,

Martin

[Grey Doffin]

Hi Martin,

My Koto is dated Showa 57, it is green, and it has an English index.

My Shinto is dated Showa 59, it is blue, and it has English index.

There were different editions of Nihonto Zuikan. I think the later ones had the English and I know the later Shinto included more swordsmiths than the earlier. It could be that you have a mismatched set, which isn't uncommon.

There is a good chance your books are indexed in English at my online index. 1 Koto and 2 Shinto volumes are included there; check the publication date to see if your Shinto is one of the 2. If so, you can make an English index for your volume from my index. Let me know if you'd like to learn how.

Grey

[Jean]

I'd like to know Grey as it is my case, Shinto without romanji, Koto with Romanji. BTW, the Koto volume is very rare and seldom found for sale. The set is sold for around 1000/1200 $ + freight ...

[Grey Doffin]

How to make a one book index from my online index (linked above).

 

You have to search for the one or 2 letter code for the book you're interested in. This doesn't work very well for books with one letter codes because you get far too many hits. Both editions I've indexed for Nihonto Zuikan are two letter codes so this should be possible. NS is the code for the 1977 edition; NX for the 1984.

You will get 32 pages of hits with the NS search and 28 with NX. Copy each page and paste it in a Word (or similar) document. Once you have copied all pages go through the Word doc and erase all the listings and other references you don't want and when you're done you have an index of the book you're after.

Unless someone can think of an easier method.

Grey

[Jean]

Thanks a lot Grey

[Grey Doffin]

And let me add: We had this come up once before on NMB. 2 or 3 of you did the work to make one book indexes and made them available to all via email. If someone wants to do the work for one of the Nihonto Zuikan editions, let us know you're doing it (so the effort isn't duplicated) and when done let us know you're willing to email it.

Grey

[leo]

Thanks a lot Grey and Jean!

 

So it is clear that the 2 colours are normal, just my Shinto set is probably one of the older editions!

 

I do not necessarily need the index for checking on on a smith, but from the collectors point of view I would love to have the integrated index in both volumes!

Good thing is that the shinto books are easier to come by. The koto volumes are presently not available, not even in Japan.

 

Grey, I already did some extractions with the help of your index on quite a few books! You explained the procedure earlier and it worked quite well, even though it is a boring work, as far as the bigger volumes are concerned. Took me a few weeks!

 

I can scan or potograph the pages in the Zuikans koto volume. If somebody could do the same with his shinto volume without doing damage to the spine, I would be most grateful! These scans should be sufficient for reference work.

If nobody extracted the names from Grey´s index yet, I can do it, but it will take a while. Grey´s idea of different people working on different books is great. We could share the effort and could swap the results!

 

Presently I am working on Shinshinto Taikan by Iimura.

 

Regards, Martin

[DirkO]

Copy each page and paste it in a Word (or similar) document. Once you have copied all pages go through the Word doc and erase all the listings and other references you don't want and when you're done you have an index of the book you're after.

Unless someone can think of an easier method.

Grey

 

For what it's worth:

I did one for the Bizen Taikan and I would recommend Excel over Word, simply because then you can easily make an index which is sorted on page number and add an index sorted on smith name. Makes the index easier to work with afterwards.