On japanese collector's community:
It seems that I have some like minded people around good to know. The thing that ticked me off the most, was that constantly while buying a sword or simply asking something I would receive an absolutely unprovoked responce of this style:
"I've been studied Nihonto for the past 120 years, and only in the past 5 months I became worthy of considering myself a collector. Nihonto is the best sword in the world. Every Nihonto is a completely unique historic piece. Every Nihonto has a spiritual side, that is infinitely complex". I mean why I can buy a Klingenthal sword without such lectures, but a cheapy-crappy gendai - hell no !
And then there are John Does from Iowa who just happened to discover the secrets of the ninjas, and also gained the secret knowledge of nihonto (that they can convey to friendly, lower-ranking, Iowa-ninjas for 200$ an hour).
The thing most surprising to me was that these people needed to be addressed somehow else rather than "Dear Sir". Well, or may be they just start every email with a lecture on how great scholars they are, and how dare some shmucks to actually ask them questions.
Fuh, off the topic, so now back to shinsa:
I would say that ranks, cutting tests and papers is what make a really well developed sword society.
i still see the reason for papers - even big specialists not always can authenticate the item based on photographs, so what to do if you've been offered an item for 3000$, it kind of looks kosher, but the seller does not offer an inspection period ? In Nihonto it's hard to convince people that >2000$ sword is just happened not to have papers.
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