Meet the New Staff

 

As regular visitors to the shop will know, Toru has returned to Japan. His plan is to apprentice as a blacksmith, possibly with Iwasaki san the most talented straight razor maker in the world or with a knife maker. I can't wait to use your handy work, Toru.

We are mega happy to welcome Mark and Kasumi to the team. Mark is a knife nerd from way back as well as a carpenter and drummer. You can find Mark behind the kit of the Steve McQueen Band most Saturday nights. Kasumi comes to us from that great city of Tokyo. She is easily the most professional and organised of us all. BTW her Japanese and English are flawless. Her French is pretty good as well.

Welcome aboard Mark and Kasumi. The shop is a better place again.

We are as cool as John Deer and Budweiser

Yes, it true that we are officially super cool. We have ball hats and new shirts!! The hats say "don't touch my knives" on the back. And I hope the Ramones don't sue us over the shirt design. Thanks, Keith, for modeling. $16 for the hats and $20 for the shirts.

Cool sword/tanto week

Wow. It looks like we had an unofficial weapons week. The tanto arrived in the post to get us all excited and earlier in the week this wandered through the door. What a fun treat.

Now we get a lot of cool 'show and tell' at the shop, but this was one of the best. On Saturday afternoon this gentleman walked into the shop with a distinctive looking parcel. Out of the silk bag he drew a katana that his father picked up in the 1920's. It was old at that time. Now I am no sword expert, but I can tell you that the folded steel had that sexy look that old swords have, their was a small bit of tarnish including a very clear finger print and the hamon had a subtle, but poetic wave. All of the handle hardware was intact, but in fair condition. The saya was particularily good. All in all it was a special treat to see a very nice blade with all of the original hardware attached. It felt a bit like I was on Antiques Road Show and I was the specialist who was woefully under qualified.

I feel foolish that I didn't get his name. Thank you if you reading this.

160 year old Tanto in the post today

What a great day for post today. Shiba of Masakage knives has sent us this Tanto that I purchased on my recent visit to Japan.

The Tanto was most likely constructed as a Talisman for a girl of marrying age to give her strength in birth. It was made at the end of the Edo period, about 160 years ago. The blacksmith is unknown, but it was forged in the city of Fukusima just North of Tokyo.

The steel is in great condition, no mentionable tarnishing and the old folded/Damascus steel looks super cool. The Hamon is crisp and has a nice artistic wave. This is a great example of an 1850's tanto. SUPER SEXY and for only $2966.