If you are buying a katana this week, this is not the right address. If you have been considering a first piece for six months, or an additional piece for two years, please write.

The useful first message contains, briefly: how you came to the subject, what you have handled, what you have read. Price is the last conversation, not the first.

Replies arrive within seven days. Some are honest recommendations to look elsewhere, with names of dealers and shinsa members better placed than I am. Others begin a longer correspondence that may or may not end in a transaction.