# Communities > Modern-era Swords and Collecting Community > Modern Production Katanas >  Awesome Hamon

## J.Williams

pretty cool website with some nice shinken and nihonto

but the hamon on this one is outstanding
especially the turnback on the kisaki

just thought you guys might enjoy the view

http://www.japanesesword.co.kr/board...2=00000&lock=N

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## Alex Carranza

Neat sword.

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## Gyan G.

Cool looking hamon, definately. It's almost like the clay was real runny and ran down the blade. 

ON the other hand they ruined that sword with the engravings, they are hidious IMHO.

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## J.Williams

I'm not much of a fan of horimono carvings either, but these are not so bad and they are very very well done. The burnishing time alone on all those carvings deserves a nod~


here is another amazing hamon
when looked at with the Ha up, it looks just like a rolling ocean wave
in fact I think I see a little surfer in the curl detail of the boshi~    LOL

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## Alex Carranza

The engravings remind me of Muramasa swords.

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## Anders Backlund

Me, I love horimono. We need more of those, dammit.

This one is particularly nice. I haven't seen something quite like it before.

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## Gyan G.

They are very well executed, and burnished very well. On a technical basis, they are really nice and done well. But for my personal aesthetics, I don't like it.

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## Seth Borland

you are right. the hamon is indeed beautiful. im just blown away by the polish job... the lines are so straight and done so perfect! 

As anotehr member has already said, the carvings ruin it for me. they are so loud and distracting. im not one for carvings on blades anyway for various reasons. apart from fullers on western and near/middle east swords, im not really into any sort of blade alterations.. especially if said blade is meant for rough use... that would only ruin the carvings. now on hilts and guards? all for em! just as long as they dont engulf the sword in such a way that it looks ridiculous

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## les yeich

my only problem with the horimono is that the dragon is a little too stylized next to that ken, in my opinion. that's my favorite horimono theme, though. i prefer a more subtle hamon, although that one is pretty sweet, especially the boshi.

i really like that mount, too, although it looks like they could have done better integrating the hishi-gami.

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## J.Williams

I didn't chalk that up to bad hishigama placement but that this is paneled samegawa, but you would know far better than I

I think what I like best is how prominent the ashi lines are, really 
helps set apart the billowing clouds in the hamon, don't usually see that as they are polished out and fade right at the edge

to bad there is no procetag, it would be nice to know what something from this site costs. I have been flipping thru a lot 
of the blades they have listed and there are really great shinken in there

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## Paul Loatman

Nice sword, i really like the cha-ishime saya. You really have to appreciate that horimono too, carving steel isn't easy.

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## les yeich

hard to say what it costs. i'm not familiar with many modern smiths, so it's hard for me to put a pricetag on it. the mount is of a certain quality i've always associated with "export" dealers. swordstore used to have a section with "ready to order" shinsakuto that were very similar. with horimono i'd hazard a *guess* that it's twixt $7k and $10k... just a guess, though.

i'm actually betting that's a full samé wrap. we see the same poorly (relative term) integrated hishi-gami on panel wraps, but it actually has to do with there being no transitioning "buttress" (see this pic) of rice paper. think of it as the hishi-gami basically sitting on a flat surface; it will cause a relief, you know? i've seen a few antique tsuka where it was built up quite thick, although i have no idea if that was due to ito material, hishi-gami, or just reaching a desired profile for the tsuka. if i were doing a panel job, i would make sure the samé was rather deeply recessed, as this could actually achieve a similar function.*shrug*.

in any case, i'm feeling very silly for nit-picking on this blade, as it's a pretty impressive piece. compared to some of the stuff we accept on the production market the wow factor here should silence us all, right? hehe.

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## Aaron Justice

It's also the leather. Leather is very hard to hide hishigame with in my experience, silk can flatten and conform better than leather will when it comes to hishigame. Sometimes even rayskin nodes show in a leather wrap.





> hard to say what it costs. i'm not familiar with many modern smiths, so it's hard for me to put a pricetag on it. the mount is of a certain quality i've always associated with "export" dealers. swordstore used to have a section with "ready to order" shinsakuto that were very similar. with horimono i'd hazard a *guess* that it's twixt $7k and $10k... just a guess, though.
> 
> i'm actually betting that's a full samé wrap. we see the same poorly (relative term) integrated hishi-gami on panel wraps, but it actually has to do with there being no transitioning "buttress" (see this pic) of rice paper. think of it as the hishi-gami basically sitting on a flat surface; it will cause a relief, you know? i've seen a few antique tsuka where it was built up quite thick, although i have no idea if that was due to ito material, hishi-gami, or just reaching a desired profile for the tsuka. if i were doing a panel job, i would make sure the samé was rather deeply recessed, as this could actually achieve a similar function.*shrug*.
> 
> in any case, i'm feeling very silly for nit-picking on this blade, as it's a pretty impressive piece. compared to some of the stuff we accept on the production market the wow factor here should silence us all, right? hehe.

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