Nihonto in Taiwan

[Leroy]

Hi all,

 

I was wondering if anyone on the board has the oppertunity to view, or even purchase nihonto in Taiwan. The National Museum in Taipei may have some, but I'm on the southern end of the island.

 

I know the Japanese colonised Taiwan during the early part of the century. If anyone has any info, can you pass it my way? If I find some myself I'll let you guys know.

 

Cheers,

Leroy

[Leroy]

Well, I was able to locate some true nihonto here in South Taiwan. If anyone is interested there is a museum here called Chimei Museum. They have a huge collection of sculptures, paintings....and wepons! Wepons from all over the world and from all time periods. They have nice display of nihonto. Unfortunatly it was all chinese and I can't read kanji. But they have 13 blades, most wakizashi in size, a couple katana, all made in Edo period, ranging from about 1620's to 1850's. The blades were not in very good shape so it hard to see any activities. But, I did get my fix, :D

 

They had 3 full sets of armour, too as well as some tsuba. All in all it was a nice collection.

 

I then went to another place. This "shop" for lack of a better word, forges blades of all types. THis is polace that supplied many of the swords for "The Last Samurai" movie. He also made the "Green Destiny" for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Anyway, He had 6 real Nihonto that he supposedly got while studying in Japan 30+yrs ago. He was kind enough to let me see them, or his wife was anyways. Because of the thick, and I mean THICK coating of grease on the blades, as well as my untrained eye His blades looked like showato. I could not see any nie or activities. Strange. He said he paid about $1000 US for each of them. They all had traditional style fitting fittings, except one that was an NCO sword. Oh well,

 

It was fun. If anyone isinterested I will try to get the English name of the shop (Everything was written in Chinese, hehe)

 

Regards,

Leroy