shinshinto era katana from @AshigaruArmory - details and experience
Sep 2, 2025
@AshigaruArmory is doing a unique thing for the sword world. providing us with dojo level katana that he inspects and gets ready for use. these are not museum artifacts they are weapons to train with.
Hello YouTube, I thought I would do a video talking a little bit about Ashigara Armory
and kind of what this antique Nihonto is all about. So Chris from Ashigara Armory,
previously known as Studio GT, hit me up and told me about this opportunity to pick up a Nihonto.
Now, one of the things he's trying to do is get dojo-grade Nihonto, whether that be for light
cutting, heavy Tamashigiri, or just Iaito. I'd been wanting an antique for a while,
so when I saw this one posted, what stuck out to me was the suba. It has just a very unique design
that I had never seen ever, and I love green silk Ito over black Sanmigawa. This was the style of
my first production Chinese-made katana. It had a brass hibaki and green Ito with black. I just
thought it looked really cool, very elegant and classy, and more nature-themed. This here has a
very cool crane theme, which I really like because I've been very drawn to cranes.
The various kimono things I buy have cranes on them. Something about that animal kind of speaks
to me. Going into the blade, this is a Shinshinto-era blade, which means late 1700s
into the 1800s, I believe. I could be wrong on that. I'll have details in the description
exactly what this sword is, but I just wanted to kind of talk a little bit about the experience
with Ashigara Armory and what it's about. It is built more for the people who want to use their
sword. This isn't a high-level $30,000 antique. This is a mumei, which is known as an unsigned
blade, but that doesn't mean it's not real. It is tamahagane. It is from Japan,
but it's just more on the simple kind of practical side. All the fittings are tight.
The Ito doesn't move. It's very well put together, so it's usable. You can go out and use it just
like any production katana from China that you would use, but it does feel very cool to have a
piece of history and to have something that is a little bit more something I can pass on. That
was one of the other things I really liked about this sword was that it's quite nice. The homone
on it is very active. It's got a little bit of just presence to it. The blade is 28 inches,
and it's actually quite a thick blade. There's not much taper on it. It kind of starts and ends
as the same size, which I quite like because it is a heavy blade, so when you cut through things,
it glides through very easily. So far, I've only used it for pool noodles and one milk jug. I'm
probably only going to keep using it for pool noodles just because I can get a much better
feedback off of them, and they don't damage the blade pretty much at all. So yeah, this is my
antique Shinshinto-era katana, unsigned, but it is usable. I can use this, and it feels pretty cool
to be able to go out and swing this around a little bit and just practice the Ito with it.
The Seigeio is just kind of a standard style Seigeio. Nothing fancy about it,
but it does the job, and I like it quite a bit. If you want to get something from Ashigara Armory,
go to their YouTube. They have a website as well, which I will link in the description.
You have to be a member to purchase from them. It is not a website like a store, so it is
something you're going to have to take a little bit more time to touch base with Chris about,
but he's very easy to work with. If you are looking into getting one of these, just
know that right now he has one up for sale, and I would jump on the opportunity.