L6 katana being finished now

Polished in shirasaya with Solid Silver habaki (February 2008): $6885.00 USD

This is a 28-1/8" shinogi zukuri katana already started in the polish and in shirasaya. These are very hard to get right now. When Howard Clark reopened his queue briefly earlier this year all his slots sold out virtually instantly. And I'm not taking on new commissions, so... Here's the specs.

Motohaba: 31mm
Sakihaba: 22mm
Kasane: 7mm
Sakikasane: 5mm

The sword has a very gentle 5/8 of tori zori with an extended chu kissaki. The shinogi is somewhat high as is normal for Howard Clark's work.

The owner of this word has a new baby and has decided that the kid stuff is more important. So I'm helping him out.

It is being polished now. It will *probably* be done in January 2008, but lately my back has been very temperamental affecting my work and I have a lot of projects I'm working on concurrently. So it may get shifted to February 2008 dependant on the "back-pain gods".

As I said it is already started. It has a solid sterling habaki by Howard Clark already and is in shirasaya. The original foundation polish you see here was done by Howard Clark. I've since redone the entire foundation (not pictured). But these are close enough to get the idea...

If you would like to have this piece fully mounted, well, now would be the time to tell me if you want to buy it. Because I would rather mount a sword before the polish is complete instead of afterwards. I'm right now repolishing a few scratches I managed to put into a really nice sword due to a slip on my part in mounting. And I can't afford to redo work like that. So... If you would like this sword and would like to have it mounted, well, speak up now... I'm all ears. Once I get through the kaisei stone, well, I'm going to be a lot less open to mounting. ;)

This will make an excellent sword for iai or tameshigiri. And being one of Howard Clark's very highly prized bainite swords, well, they're just near impossible to get nowadays anyway.

If you're interested in buying the sword now or reserving this piece for February of 2008, contact me asap. First come first served and all that.

The final price will be $6885 fully polished in shirasaya. Since the sword is in process the terms of payment will be $5900 up front with the balance due on completion.

I will accept paypal for the customer's convenience but I will have to ask that the customer add 3% to cover the paypal fees if applicable. Otherwise check, money order or wire transfer are the best means of payment.

ON HOLD (Feb 2008)

28-1/8" Nagasa L6 "Bainite" katana by Howard Clark