Anyone into Ancient Japanese Swords? (composited pic)

[DS1]

I took this *these* yesterday at the MFA in Boston, this is 1/4th the size of the full version.

If you ask really nicely via PM I'll give you the link to the ludicrously sized one (24000x4000 px).

Anyway, I think it's pretty neat

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. Nice.

Looks an awful lot like a set (katana & wakizashi) I saw at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC.

[tigereye]

4. that is beautiful!

I am studying tai chi sword form and my teacher has ingrained a sword obsession in me. I look for them everywhere, now. I wish I had a beautiful one like that!

[redqueen]

2. Oh, my that is beautiful.

Thanks, DS1!

[DS1]

5. You're welcome

:-)

[mike_c]

3. "a thing of beauty..."

"... is a joy forever." That's gorgeous. I presume the maker is known to produce good steel (?).

[DS1]

6. I would imagine so, the blade was absolutely flawless, despite

the shining of the light on it distorting it a bit in these pics.

[TlalocW]

7. I've been learning more about them than I care to

I recently fixed a website for a guy who buys and sells them. He tried to do it with Frontpage or something so I hand-fixed the mistakes, made it data-base driven and then coded him some admin tools to be able to update the swords whenever he likes. Most of our meetings went a lot longer than necessary because he felt the need to tell me all about Japanese swords. :) Enthusiastic guy to say the least.

TlalocW

[DS1]

8. I know all about that...

Designing theme based sites. I recently did a project around an animal, as soon as I was done I looked up its #1 predator and made a single mockup page around ~that~ :D

[smedwed]

9. London

If your in London anytime soon
there's a display of Japanese
swords in the British Museum. They are awesome.

[The Revolution]

10. They're okay.

The thing I don't like about Japanese swords is the hype that surrounds them. Some people seem to think they were unbreakable weapons that could slice an Abrams tank in half with a single swing :)

If you've ever played any roleplaying games (like d&d) this becomes much more noticable, as people are never satisfied with the stats for katanas. They always want to "adjust" the stats to make them ten times as deadly as any other weapon. As if the Europeans were messing with weapons that couldn't cut through butter. :)

[DS1]

11. I'm a sucker for craftsmanship and details

You're missing a lot of the work in this low-res version ;-)

[Pert_UK]

17. I think that they got that rep when the Chinese tried to invade....

The Japanese had developed a way to make swords sharp and hard but without brittleness - I believe this is from the folding of the metal as the blade is forged, but I'm no expert.

The Chinese had sharp, hard-edged swords, but they were very brittle. When they tried to invade (can't remember when...long time ago though) they effectively ran off their ships and onto Japanese soil, took a swing at the nearest Japanese soldier and watched helplessly as their swords shattered against the katana blades.........

Ho ho ho.

[DS1]

12. I'll give this one kick, and one kick only

:-)

[WindRavenX]

13. oh my god

flawless.
beautiful.
I am going to have to check this out with my own eyes DS1!

[DS1]

14. Go in the West entrance right off the Green Line

Get your tix, make an immediate right ;-)

[baron j]

15. MMM! Tangy!

(Silly sword/katana humor)

[Richard Steele]

16. Very pretty toy for some wealthy, late-period FOP

That is obviously a "show piece", NOT made for anyone who ever expected to USE it!

Could you post the name of the swordsmith, and the date?

Swords which were meant to be used as WEAPONS would _NEVER_ have any sort of artwork on the blade, and that tang is just completely "over the top"!

The greatest swordsmith in Japanese history, Masamune of Tembo, never signed his work at all.
His opinion was: if someone was too dense to recognize his work, then SIGNING it was just 'pearls before swine'.