I have a truly gorgeous Howard Clark tanto FS. The 12" blade is folded 1086 and antique wrought iron, with HC's superlative heat-treat. The hada (can't really see in the pics) is gorgeous. The hamon is dead gorgeous. Comes with both shirasaya and formal aikuchi fittings of the highest quality and fit and finish. I just spent close to half-a-grand for a fresh polish to remove some minor surface rust and as the old polish was a tad bit tired. Sharp.
HC no longer works with folded blades (he does the L6 only nowadays) nor does he accept commissions.
Quality of the blade, heat-treat (based on observations during polishing), polishing, fittings jumps out at you when you handle it in person.
Priced to move - selling at less than what I have in it - you don't see many HC folded blades anymore.
$3000 shipped. Prefer a bank wire transfer (it works out better than paypal fees at this amount and I don't get raped by paypal when I withdraw the funds) but can do paypal if you cover the fees.
(the above pics borrowed from Keith Larman)
and my quick pix of the sword in its aikuchi koshirae (sorry for the poor quality):
HC no longer works with folded blades (he does the L6 only nowadays) nor does he accept commissions.
Quality of the blade, heat-treat (based on observations during polishing), polishing, fittings jumps out at you when you handle it in person.
Priced to move - selling at less than what I have in it - you don't see many HC folded blades anymore.
$3000 shipped. Prefer a bank wire transfer (it works out better than paypal fees at this amount and I don't get raped by paypal when I withdraw the funds) but can do paypal if you cover the fees.
(the above pics borrowed from Keith Larman)
and my quick pix of the sword in its aikuchi koshirae (sorry for the poor quality):