[R. Kramer]

Here's my situation:

About 7 years ago, a friend of mine gave me a katana that his grandfather brought back from Japan. It was an item that he had acquired from a Japanese soldier during the U.S. occupancy. It sat awhile in a semi-damp basement where it was slightly pitted from rust and the handle mounts fell apart. It appeared at some point that somebody attempted to re-polish the blade and succeeded in making it worse. While they didn't severely screw up its lines, they sure scratched the ever-loving hell out of it. When I got it, it had no handle, but it still had its metal scabbard and its circular crossguard. I was able to determine from a small stamp on the tang that it was one of the swords manufactured during WWII, it also had a blacksmith's signature chiseled into it. I began to explore what it would take to properly restore this sword, and made contact with a Japanese sword expert somewhere on the west coast. He informed me that he could rebuild the new handle mounts for about $300 to $400, and translate the tang for me, but the polishing needed to be performed by an expert Japanese polisher, of which at the time, there were about 4 in the U.S. The cost for polishing was about $100 a cutting edge. Naively, I emailed him back saying that I thought that was a fantastic deal! Where do I ship this pig?

For those of you who know what makes up a single cutting edge on an edged weapon, you can imagine what the response was. One cutting edge was made up of 1 inch of steel. The katana was approximately 25" long. The grand total for completely restoring this sword was close to $2800 including the handle mounts. Naturally, I dropped my jaw at this, and quietly put the katana away, vowing to myself that one day, when I could afford it, I would get it restored. Now, 7 years later, I STILL can't afford that kind of cost, but I also haven't been really doing any research on the subject. My question is, has anyone here ever had something like this restored, and is it worth the expense? If it had been forged by a master swordsmith, I would think the cost of restoration would be a drop in the bucket compared to what it could be valued at. But, aside from the chiseled signature, (which I still haven't gotten translated) it clearly bears the tiny stamp associated with swords manufactured in Japan via machines during WWII. It likely doesn't have that distinctly beautiful hamone associated with the tempering process used by most Japanese swordsmiths. However, even stripped of its mountings and with a severely scratched blade, it somehow just seems to radiate that elegance associated with traditionally forged and polished katana blades. What do you all think?

[Russ Ellis]

I think that if possible you need to post some pictures, it's possible that someone will even be able to tell you about the signature. It is my understanding however that a signature itself means almost nothing and that having arsenal stamps almost invariably means a machine made sword. I am however no expert so I would suggest posting pictures.

[Björn Hellqvist]

Here's a useful starting point in trying to ID the blade: http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/