Yeah yeah Mr. Knows-It-All so what will happen if I fall through the thin ice, get eaten by a salmon shark??
I'm not writing a scientific journal for crap's sake...
Accuracy in something like this is not that hard, but every falsehood that gets put out there usually gets passed on by a bunch of people who take it as gospel and are too lazy to do the homework.
It's a nice blade, but has no historical accuracy whatsoever...Matsuda, Rockstead and others are working in patterns influenced by historic shapes to some degree with completely modern steels....but it isn't remotely close to traditional. If you had kept to the facts and simply talked about liking your knife, I would have just posted that I thought is was really nice.
The Kamakura period ( 1185–1333) is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura Shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo. The Kamakura period ended in 1333 with the destruction of the shogunate and the short reestablishment of imperial rule under Emperor Go-Daigo by Ashikaga Takauji, Nitta Yoshisada, and Kusunoki Masashige....so there is your history lesson.
A lot of this stuff is on Wikipedia, so I do cut-and-paste for the sake of expediency, but I also have all the books, and could painstakingly transcribe the information, but what would that teach us?
What did they do regarding the making of swords? How did they limit or ban or whatever? Im just real curious and not trying to start anything by the way.
There is no law of habeas corpus in Japan, the Japanese police can - and often do - keep people in rooms for weeks without charge, adequate food or even sleep until incriminating confessions are signed. The police in Japan
have a lot of arbitrary power; they make their moves, and let the lawyers or Amnesty International sort it out later.
Possession of a sword - and be it only a smallish Tantô - without the proper registration isn't only a misdemeanor but a criminal offense, punishable by up to minimum $4,000 fine and / or up to three years imprisonment. The harsher forms of interrogation and punishment are usually reserved for native Japanese...however, even foreigners are not immune from serious repercussions, in this case being deported after incarceration with other criminals for at least several days (sometimes at a charge of $700.00 per day), without access to family, a consulate, or even a lawyer.
General Douglas MacArthur was ordered to exercise authority through the Japanese government machinery, including the Shōwa Emperor. As Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) in Japan, MacArthur and his GHQ staff helped Japan rebuild itself, institute democratic government, and chart a new course that ultimately made Japan one of the world's leading industrial powers. The U.S. was firmly in control of Japan to oversee its reconstruction, and MacArthur was effectively the interim leader of Japan from 1945 until 1948. In the disarmament of Japan, swords were prohibited, production of nihontō with edges was banned except under police or government permit....however, the ban was overturned through a personal appeal by Dr. Junji Honma. During a meeting with General MacArthur, Dr. Honma produced blades from the various periods of Japanese history and MacArthur was able to identify very quickly what blades held artistic merit and which could be considered purely weapons. As a result of this meeting, the ban was amended so that swords of artistic merit could be owned and preserved. Even so, many nihontō were sold to American soldiers at a bargain price;
in 1958 there were more Japanese swords in America than in Japan.
In 1977, the Japanese Society for Preservation of Japanese Art Swords (Nittoho), together with the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs and Hitachi Works, built in Shimane Prefecture the so-called Nittoho Tatara to provide the steel currently necessary for the production of contemporary Japanese swords. The Nittoho Tatara is managed jointly with Yasugi Works, a subsidiary company of Hitachi Metals, and is operational only during the winter.
Traditional swords are still made in Japan and occasionally elsewhere; they are termed "shinsakuto" or "shinken" (true sword), and can be very expensive. These are not considered reproductions as they are made by traditional techniques and from traditional materials. Swordsmiths in Japan are licensed; acquiring this license requires a long apprenticeship. Outside of Japan there are a couple of smiths working by traditional or mostly-traditional techniques. The only two Japanese-licensed smiths outside of Japan are, Keith Austin (art-name Nobuhira or Nobuyoshi) died in 1997, and 17th Generation Yoshimoto Bladesmith Murray Carter. Francis Boyd and Michael Bell also studied traditional swordmaking under a licensed polisher named Nakijima.
Best Regards,
STeven Garsson
