Informational Sites
Dr Richard Stein's great site on everything Nihonto related. A real gateway to Nihonto resources.
Japanese sword sales and online reference materials focusing on the functionality of Nihonto.
This great site is run by Danny Massey. It provides a visual glossary of jigane and hataraki terms with detailed photos. Also, you may have a look at comprehensive articles in the 'Articles' section.
Paul Martin's site offers an oshigata gallery, links to his numerous articles and hosts Nihonto TV.
Website/shop of Kashima sisters. You will find swords and fittings for sale, gallery of sold items, visual glossary and few articles.
Website of famous Kenji Mishina, Japanese sword polisher, a student of Kokan Nagayama. It offers latest news, lectures and montly kantei. Don't miss Kokan Nagayama's diamgrammatic oshigata.
NBTHK Japan publishes "Nihon Koto Shi" (History of Koto) written by Dr. Junji (Kunzan) Honma in English on their website.
Click 'Nippon To' to go to Japanese Sword section.
This site is intended to provide information about Japanese swords (Nihontô).
To understand, date and identify Japanese swords it is important to study the shape and form of blades, the patterning (hada) of the surface metal, the pattern and age of file marks (yasurime) on the tang, the shape and features of the hamon and so on.
It is also very difficult to gain any understanding of Nihontô without being able to decipher Japanese characters (kanji) to read the signatures (mei) and other inscriptions on sword tangs (nakago). There is much information on the site to help you translate mei, together with information to enable you to describe various features of Japanese swords so that you can communicate easily about them.
"This page was created for the sole purpose of introducing some aspects of Japanese culture, history and tradition in association with one of the most respected traditional work of art in Japan, Nihon-to (i.e., traditionally hand forged and polished Japanese swords). Unless otherwise noted, the articles contained herein were written by the author of this web page (i.e., a.k.a. Dr. T) to present academic information on Japanese history, culture and traditional crafts related to Nihon-to."
Modern Nihonto, Fittings, Photo Gallery and Biographical Information.
Modern Tosho was started by Ted Tenold and Keith Larman in 2005 with the goal of bringing the brilliant work of modern tosho in Japan to the American public.
Martin Hellmann's tsuba related site with a beautiful gallery.
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