Blogs

Google Ireland

I'm seeing visitors coming to NC from Google searches originated in Ireland (google.ie domain) almost every day. Yet it only happens once a year when I'm getting contacted by a local Nihonto connoisseur or enthusiast in person. It seems that Irish Nihonto collectors are a truly secretive breed :-)

Yes, I do understand all the security related concerns (I have them too), but it's always good to talk and see what we can do for each other. There's no need to disclose your addresses, sword catalogues (if any), etc. But quarterly or even monthly meetup might be an idea. Anyone?

Hizento time again

Finished reading the Kinuko Manuscript which was recently published by JSS/US.

The original was written by Hashimoto Kin'ichi (10th generation Tadayoshi) in 1884. Then it was presented to Roger Robertshaw by the Head Priest of Choanji in 2008. The manuscript outlines the family lineage and ancestry of Hizen Tadayoshi.

Need some help please...

Hello everybody,

I owned a gunto with number "86913" graved on the habaki and four Kanji on the tang ("YAMADA YASUYUKI" -translation by a Japanese friend of mine) and number "13" below the mei (blade certainly machine-manufactured...).
Would anybody be so kind as to tell me what should be this name (owner, officer, maker, swordsmith... ?).
This tachi wears five petals cherry blossoms (on menuki, saya, fuchi etc). It seems to be an authentic WWII one ; but could it be fake sword too ?
EVERY piece of information is welcome.
I thank anybody in advance.
Greetings from France,

Glossary

I'm not too happy with the way the Glossary is organised. It's somewhere in the middle between a glossary and a Japanese-English dictionary, which doesn't help it in either ways. It's not good for translations, and it's not very useful for looking up the term. I have to keep some interesting (at least for me) terms in Word document as some of them are genuine Nihonto terms and some are useful Japanese expressions. There must be some other way...

Confession to make

In case if you were wondering why it's been so quiet here for last 6 months, I may reassure you that there is still a great deal of work to do (and many new ideas also) in order to keep improving the resource, and it will be dealt with sooner or later. However, at some stage I realized that further development of Nihonto Club will be difficult, if not impossible, without some very important skill. Therefore I had to finally start formal learning of Japanese language last February. Which I'm enjoying to the very last bit and which takes all my free time (ex.

If a picture is worth a thousand words...

Chris Chaffee's new retail shop for authentic Japanese art swords, RealNihonto.com strives to deliver the most realistic online sword examination experience available. While creating our retail nihonto shop we asked ourselves, "What would we want to see before purchasing a sword online?" Since there is nothing better than examining a sword in hand, we decided that the next best thing would be to show video of someone else doing just that.

RealNihonto.com, Site launching March 8th

RealNihonto.com is an online retail shop for nihonto and nihonto accessories. The owner, Mr. Christian T. Chaffee has been studying Japanese art swords for 20 years and has retained some of the most remarkable pieces he has come across for his own collection.

The site is also aimed at education and appreciation of the fine art of handmade swords so please visit the site and enjoy viewing video and high resolution photography.

Click here to visit the site

can you confirm the name of the smith?

Can any one tell me what this says on the tang?
I will be very grateful, thank you for your help.

samurai sword

I have a japanese sword that a friend brought back from japan in 1945, and was wondering if anyone could tell me what it says on the tang if I mailed them a rubbing of the tang? Right now I have no way of posting pictures. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Sincerly, Greg K. Hulme.

Traditional Chinese vs modern Japanese Kanji forms

I was reviewing smith's singatures and names in Kanji the other day in order to figure out few things. There is a terrible mix at the moment between traditional Chinese and Japanese characters. While I tried to use traditional Kanji for the names, signatures use all different forms (e.g. I changed all 国 (as for kuni) to 國 in the names, but plenty of mei still contain 国. Same applied to 'hiro': 広 and 廣).

There are different conventions in different sources:

  • Toko Taikan uses simplified Japanese forms for smiths' names.
  • Yamanaka uses Japanese forms.
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