Quick post. Wanted to share something I came across a while ago whilst looking up a blade in Satō Kanzan’s Shintō Oshigata. The book features a blade by Hizen Tadakuni (肥前忠国), which shows a hardening pattern in the form of the Kanji characters for “tiger” (虎) and “dragon” (龍), plus the shape of a dragon as well. Just thought you might find this interesting, as I did.

Continuing from the previous post, we have now reached Volume 3 of Honma Junji’s Appraisal Diary.Volume 3 covers the year 1974 and introduces in about 350 pages roughly 255 blades. Total for Volume 3 is $99, which includes shipping.

With Volume 3, we have arrived at about 1,200 pages of text and almost 1,000 blades! Please let me know if you have any questions.