As the years tick by on ebay we are seeing a greater effort by the Chinese factories to copy the looks of the Japanese swords, primarily the Showa military swords. This is however not limited to swords but also Tsubas, and now small Tantos. I can not stress enough to the new sword lovers, to follow some simple steps before buying a sword. Join a sword society, buy a book like "The connoisseur's book of Japanese swords" by Kokan Nagayama, or "An Oshigata book of Modern Japanese swordsmiths 1868-1945 by John Scott Slough, and advance into the hardcore books later when you have some basic understanding. Collect information and pictures of swordsmiths, google swordsmiths before buying a sword that has a signed mei. compare the signatures to those found in your books, email the pictures to your sensei's of your sword societies or other students or officials. Eventualy learn the characteristics of the major schools, then characterists of your favorite sword smiths. I persoanlly like the Gassan students.

Feedback: Take the time to read all negative feedback of the sellers, see if you can figure whos the bad guy. Does the seller hide his feedback as private? Is the seller changing his name, opening up new accounts that are laid out/formatted exactly like he did with other seller name. I have not found a seller from China yet that sells real Japanese swords, though they claim to be Japanese. Yes it is true that they made swords in China long before Japan was a country, but Japanese swordsmith mastered the art of the sword, not only in the material used, but the process and maticulous workmanship and time spent on each sword. To a trained eye there is not even a shred of similiarity, these sellers bring chuckles to some, and pray on the rookie sword buyers, its realy a trajedy that ebay should address, I volunteer to help. I have been collecting information on all chinese sellers and saved pictures of their swords and furniture (Koshirae), I also know who the legit sellers on ebay are and I wish to mention a few because they deserve the credit: Historian555, Satcho (for books), Candelaria2007, showa22, fujisanblack, fwic2803, kanetoyo2666, katana.jap, possservice, and a few others. If requested I will give my personal opinion on sellers not listed by simply emailing me.

Last year I had caculated that almost 60% of all swords sold on ebay were fake (meaning sold as japanese), this year that has decreased, as the guys I listed above have put out some wonderful swords. Thats my two cents.