Katana

While setting talking with a friend yesterday, the talk turned to martial arts and the weapons associated with the arts.
 He said ..... Hey, wait a minute...and went inside. He returned shortly with  2 swords. We looked at the swords and talked a bit more. One was a nice newer shiny 440 stainless and the other was much older and not shiny at all. He mentioned that he paid more for the older dingy sword than he did for the shiny larger one.

The scabbard was wrapped just like the handle is. The wood in the scabbard is very old, just from looking at it, one can tell it is quite old.

we talked a bit more and it was time for me to go.... other things to do. He handed me the old sword and told me..... this is a gift to you, from me.

Here it is.  I polished the blade a bit and oiled the metal. The blade had some very fine rusted places.... if you look close you can see the marks where it was really bad on the blade.

Its 36" tip to hilt with a 26" blade. All the trim is brass. The strap on the scabbard is leather.

Mmm nice GH! Being into Martial arts myself since I was about 6, I have a nice little collection of these. That's the perfect Ninja weapon right there. Small and effective! I dig the handle wrap on that....never seen one quite like that before. Most of them are coil wrapped or strand wrapped so to speak. That wrapping almost appears to be a foam-like substance...is it? Tough to tell from the pic. It's a pretty high honor when someone in martial arts gives you a sword of any kind. It may not seem like that big a deal to most people, but for those really into martial arts, when you give away a weapon, it's like giving away a piece of yourself. Congrats man...nice piece there and thanks for sharing it! :)