I need your advice /k/. I collect antique knives and swords as

>>34281349
>tl;dr

I would honestly be surprised if anybody here would be able to help you, even at this hour.

Still, /k/ has surprised me before. Expect lots of shitposting about weebs and etc. regardless

Pick a time period and a blade style and go from there. Use specific info when googling for info. Sword buyers guide .com is really good at reviews. Most commonly now you will find shinogizukuri blades but others are out there. I like iris style kissaki and aikuchi mounting, but there's a ton of traditional style blades out there.

http://www.swo rd-buyers-guide.com/authentic-samurai-sword.html

>>3428134

Surprisingly they are good ebay sword vendors from japan but swords in good condition are expensive.

I recommend buying only from japanese sellers and getting a hook abut japanese laws first.

1 - Real swords in japan have to be registered as weapons, this is no expensive or strange operation and cost is usually 25-30€, if the vendor has one he usually has also this documeny, but this is a mandatory for ALL real swords in japan law, if someone finds grandaddy katana on one old closet has to register it by doing this.

2 - japanese national treasures can't be sold overseas so any blade that is sold has to be evaluated to ensure it is not a "treasure", even if is a rusted crap piece, this operation is also fast and cheap about 25€.

3 - Swords that are "good enough" have a NBTHK regstration, this is not mandatory but shows that the sword is both in a good shape both as weapon and art piece, if a sword id good looking but can break or cant hold the edge wont get this paper or vice-versa.

also badly polished swords are also rejected by NBTHK , no nbthk paper means a risk or a subpar product and price must go accordingly, ensure that the paper matches the sword, there are cases of sellers using papers from a lost sword to pump the price of other.

4 - If a sword is very good the NBTHK will write another document of excellence, but by no means this means is grorious katana forded 1000000000 times.

If you have money i recommend starting with serious buyers that do all this operations and send all info.

Good luck and i hope it helps

>>34281349
Why not buy a shin gunto? These were the Japanese military katanas of world War ii. You can usually buy them at a semi-reasonable price, they have a history attached to them and they for the most part look like a katana.

>>34281349
Antique katanas require some special bit of maintenance, for one you're not really supposed to store them with the curve facing downwards, rather the curve should face upwards, for another you need to clean them with some fair regularity, apparently they're susceptible to mold. You can find guides for this online I think.

If it's not a weapon you're going to use, and you don't want to bother with the special care and upkeep, I would suggest a modern replica (doesn't have the potmetal, I'm sure there's some decent actual steel replicas out there).

>>34281802
>http://www.swo rd-buyers-guide.com/authentic-samurai-sword.html

Dude, WTF? I've never had problems posting URLs on /k/?

>>34281349
OP, do your research. And read everything at this site:
http://www.sword-buyers-guide.com/

>>34282260
NCO Guntos are going up in price, but I'd agree with this suggestion.
Beware of Chinese fakes.
Historical sword collector of 20 yrs here.

http://www.nihonto.ca/index.html

http://waltersorrellsblades.com/gallery/