Hello ,I am new to collecting swords,,I have collected knives and blades ,and old weaponery for a while but dont have that collection anymore....I have only 3 swords in my collection..1 I bought brand new from a sword maker in china,..it is only a cheapy ,but a good cheapy,if that makes sense,,the 2nd is a ww2 generals katana and the 3rd another katana i have been told dates from the late 1800`s ..dateing method was a tang viewing....,,I have no idea about maintianing a sword apart from keeping it clean and oiled ...if anyone has any advice on products or methods I would greatly appreciate hearing about them....well i look forward to checking this site out...thankyou verry much to who ever it was that fixed up my email address and reset my pass word..cheers
Hello and welcome
Hello and welcome to the site :-)
It would be interesting to look at the tang. Did the person who was examining the blade tell you any more details about smith or style of the blade?
If you look after the blade on a regular basis and keep it in a safe place without people having an access to it and touching/breathing/cutting something, that's good enough. Also, if you show the swords to somebody, don't forget to clean it after the session before putting it into a long-term storage. Have you got shirasaya (storage mounts) for the blades?
Then, you should always use high quality materials for cleaning/oiling the blade. There are few good articles in the internet about it (you may check out Weblink Directory for good sources of information). I personally use pure alcohol and photo lense cleaning cloth instead of uchiko powder to minimise physical impact on a blade surface. But also it depends on geographic location you are at, whether you live in a dry or humid climate etc.
Regards,
Stan