I just want to give you another short update on my upcoming Gendaito book. As some of you already know via direct correspondence with me, I had to rethink and postpone the project due to an unexpected “setback” when it comes to references. This of course does not apply do those who already and unhesitantly shared their information with me and who offered me further support when the project is entering the final and crucial phase of writing. But I have collected enough so far and kind of started to sort out data a while ago. After finishing my revised Swordsmiths of Japan and taking the info on the gendai guys therein as a basis, I arrived at about 1,100 smiths for the upcoming book. Of course I will not have pictures and reference blades/oshigata for all of them. Also I had to sort out whom to include and whom not and came to the following conclusion: Included will only be smiths whose career (or major part of the career) started after the ban on wearing swords (1876) as there were just too many shinshintô smiths active who were still making swords in the early years of the Meiji era and who I don’t want to include as they really don’t classify as gendaitô smiths. Also I will not include smiths whose career only started after WWII. But there might be some exceptions to these limits. Apart from that, I was experimenting with the layout and came to the conslusion that the book has to be two-part, that means it will consist of a large picture reference part and a part with basic info on those smiths of whom I don’t have any blade pictures of. Both parts will be structured alphabetically and aim of the second part is, as good as possible, not to leave any smith out. So the two pictures below are a very first attempt to see how this all might look like in the end. So to all of the gendaitô collectors out there, there is still enough time to give me feedback and forward me material as the crucial writing phase will not be started for a while. Also please note that in case you send me files, descriptions and further info to “gendaitoproject@gmail.com” (and I would appreciate that everything is going there and not to my regular address), everything is gathered there fore the time being and I will only reply later on to say thank you (and if there are further questions). Oh, and if anybody wants to financially support the preparative work on this project in the form of a small donation, what would be very very much appreciated, there is a humble button at the very end of this site for this 😉 Thank you all for your attention!