Pawn Stars: TOP 7 SAMURAI SWORDS | History

hi looking to see if maybe you'd be interested in purchasing this sword oh wow are you a closet samurai or something like that no i'm here at the pawn shop today hopefully to sell my 16th century katana ceremonial sword my father-in-law brought it back from world war ii when he was stationed in japan i think this sword is really cool and i'm looking to get ten thousand it's a great piece of history during world war ii there was this whole thing called the spoils of war and war prizes might sound a little strange now but it just goes back from thousands of years i mean that was part of a soldier's pay if you went to battle you got take a few prizes home generally out of europe they would take flutes i've seen lugers i've seen all these other things one of the big things guys brought back from japan was samurai swords wow can you tell me what this says right here well he actually did ask a japanese kid to tell him what the writings meant the kid said it was a sword used for beheading christians um i mean i have never heard of the japanese beheading christians okay can we see the blade on this thing do you mind if i take it apart absolutely please it's a little excitement in here ooh check out the blade on that sword don't be touching that rick you know better than that what have i tell you over the years what if you taught me yeah not to touch that with your hands so what can you tell me about this job humor what do you know about it uh let's see here it's pretty old it looks pretty nice definitely looks like it was used probably beheaded you know an out of line boston once or twice in its time i definitely find it interesting what were you looking to do with it sell it okay how much you want for it ten thousand okay uh to be perfectly honest i have no idea what it's worth it's in need of some reconditioning i'll tell you that yes with these things i i have a friend who knows everything about them when they come in that's who i call so if you don't mind hanging out for a little bit i'll give them a call i'll have them come down check it out and um great that's give us a much better idea what it's worth here it is so what do you think well let me take a look at the hello with your permission absolutely [Music] that was slick that's got some writing on the blade huh you seen anything good down there so this blade is actually very interesting because during the 1800s there was a great rebellion and a civil war going on and many factions were trying to take over japan this blade was made in 1863 by nagahiro and was given to the lord of choshu to protect japan against enemies of the emperor the imperial family and especially against the tokugawa the military leader so this is quite an important sort historically she was told a story that it was used for beheading christians which i said probably not there is a term called joy that's written on the tang which means protecting or reverence to the imperial family so not literally beheading christians but just anybody who was considered an enemy of the emperor at the time okay so the question what's it worth well in this prison condition and the fact that it has very high historical value i'd say this sword is probably worth about ten thousand dollars wow all right thanks man okay this sword is a very good buy for the shop because it's a very unique item anytime you get a sword that was actually owned personally by the lord that's gotta be something special all right so what are you willing to take for it i have to make money on it oh i realize that five can you make money at that yeah i can i make a little too much money at that the fact of the matter is i i'm not i don't i don't take advantage of people uh 5 000 is just too low i will give you six thousand dollars for it i would go more but this is a multi-year project here most likely uh so i'm assuming six thousand is fine since you wanted five yes six thousand is great okay all right thank you chum will you write her up i'm gonna write this ticket up and then i might be hedging with this sword rick oh oh i'm amazed i asked for 5 000 for the sword and rick cut me some slack and actually gave me six it's awesome rick rick rick i got something for you davey f and deals what's up the oldest samurai sword you've had in the shop the case and the paperwork it's all a japanese yeah i couldn't read it good luck with that i own a small car dealership and i took this crazy samurai sword in on trade i need to turn it into cash asap i went for my heart i trusted the guy that i was talking with he seemed like a straight shooter and we're here to find out if i was right or wrong where'd you get this thing i took it in trade on a vehicle which i hope i didn't hurt myself too bad well the paperwork looks awfully official it's like 1500 era okay guy was really old to traded it in so i kind of tend to believe him but it's a lot of money a lot of money how much you want for it eighteen thousand eighteen thousand dollars eighteen thousand dollars do you know how to open this thing you gotta push a button of some sort with this cause usually they just slide out i know the other ones i have up there do the pin you have to push the pin out the guy showed me but i didn't really pay much attention you didn't pay much attention but you gave a lot of money for it well yeah not the brightest move but rocco yes sir how does this thing open typical davey he did a trade on this sword and had no idea anything about it he should have had it checked out especially when there's so much money on the line luckily i have rocco he's like my best weapons guy at the store and he specializes in swords oh boy so what is it it appears to be a samurai sword find out if it's real i actually have to pull the handle off here this is what matters right here this is the name of the master here yoshigu and then it matches the signature here yep he was a prominent sword maker from the late 1500s japan's metals were very limited so they would pound and fold and make the strongest blades ever compared to the poured steel from medieval europe yoshosugu is a master that's pretty well known he made a really good sword all right and big question is this dog thinks it's worth 18 000 because someone told them that and what's it worth that's an actual samurai sword it's got all the paperwork it's an excellent condition [Music] it's a 15 to 20 thousand dollar sword told ya thanks rocco i'll deal with it from here right on guys thanks davey i am walking out of here with 18 000 today come hell or high water this is gonna be a battle of the salesman he does it all the time but i am davey deals so we are definitely gonna go at it what do you think so i'll give you 10 grand for it 18. 10 grand can you take it to an auction or something is there some way i can get 15 000 out of this come on um not for me i mean even if you bring it to an auction you get 15 grand they're still gonna take like fifteen twenty percent i mean i go like 12 grand man i gotta resell it well let's trade something what are you gonna trade for you got all the tacky jewelry i've been eye hustling your sand rail since you got it can we do something with the sand rail and then i'll get a good fuzzy feeling like i didn't get burned on the sword i took in a four-seater sand rail about a year ago i paid a little over 18 grand for it had the transmission rebuilt and put hours and hours of fun into this thing let's go take a look at it yeah let's take a look at it you better have rock put that thing back together before somebody gets cut there it is ben my buddy davey is trying to sell me a really rare samurai sword he wants 18 grand but i'm not paying that much now he wants to try and trade it for my sand rail i love the cooler up in the front can you get it in to reverse your son keeps reminding me about when you broke down the train went out on it i had the completely rebuilt right so call it idle it it sort of idles you know what i mean it's got a big blower on it and everything else so it's built right so it's good yeah so when you cruise around it's fine it's in great shape i've had it blasted i've had it for over a year now yeah should we start it jump in all right i have a little over twenty thousand dollars invested in this thing but i know when i fire this thing up davey is gonna give me anything i ask for it [Music] now that i have davey hooked on this thing i got to make sure i get my money out of it no matter how bad i want that sword well i definitely want to make a deal so let's make it happen okay so give me the samurai sword and 10 grand samurai sword three grand fifteen three eight that gives you eighteen for this that's what i paid for it so you've had it for a year you're you break even i mean that's it we'll still have no no no no i'm not in business to break even what do you mean this is our deal not no no it's like four grand to get the rebuilt so i'll go five g's i'll split the half of the with it five grand samurai sword puts you at 20 g's no no after you 12 grand so that makes me a 17 g's i'm still losing money so give me the samurai sword nate grand that's like the best i could do all right you got a deal all right man all right i appreciate it it'll stay in the family you know that okay all right let's do some paperwork all right so i walked in here trying to get 18 000 cash in my pocket i ended up giving them 8 000 cash out of my pocket i don't know how they do this to me but they do i guess he is the better salesman hey how's it going hey great i've got this ancient japanese katana signed by koida ishida himself and i'm interested in selling it all right yeah i definitely wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of it that's for sure well i've displayed the sword in my office and here comes this japanese guy and he says oh my goodness that's worth a lot of money and i knew then that i had something that was really valuable i've been told the value is anywhere from twenty thousand to a hundred thousand dollars and so the sky's the limit so what can you tell me about it i have been in sorts for quite a few years i like reproductions and i've never had an original okay and when i seen this one here that was it i wanted it all right and you mentioned the name that's signed by a gentleman by the name of koida ashida and who is he he could be the descendant of mitsunari ashida the colonel and the war the battle of sakigahara does that make it special i've never seen anything like this one here anywhere you got a few man you got a couple but you notice nothing like this we picked up one of our japanese swords for 4 500 bucks and after having it restored it's worth 15 grand if i can make that sort of profit on this thing i've got to have it you say it has markings in it signed where are they the swordsmith usually puts his signature on it on the tank so if we remove this handle we'll see the signature underneath right this was all deciphered by a japanese lady kuita ashida right that's what's on the tank okay so some guy we don't know right that's useless to me i'm not trying to be a jerk to this guy but i do need to be extremely careful there's a ton of fakes out there some stranger appraised it and no one even knows who kawita ashida is but the markings on the sword are fairly unique so i think it's worth having someone take a look at it how much are you looking to get well a million bucks [Music] you mind if i have a buddy of mine come check it out um welcome nick all right let me go give him a call all right thank you but i'm excited because now i got a professional that knows what he's doing and by golly that's what i've been looking for what you got today got a katana sword for you may i take a look at your sword oh absolutely right ahead [Music] you know swords like this they're laminated and they're made with like about 33 000 layers of steel so their cutting ability is unparalleled during world war ii there was footage of one that cut through a machine gun barrel wow this was very prominent around 1002 around the late 1200s and swords in that time period are well worth anywhere from 50 000 up to 4 million it is really rare to find a sword from the 1200s in fully intact condition getting a sword like that is kind of like winning the lotto so tell me is it real we have to remove the handle to take a look at the signature so what this says is actually shin he's a very famous maker iwama shinzo but there is no such maker as ishida koeda unfortunately and swords from the kamakura period were worn opposite so the signature would actually be on this side of the tank okay what we have here is actually a reproduction of a kamakura period sword wow these swords were actually made in china about 15 years ago i've seen this go for anywhere from 50 to 200 well man unfortunately we're not gonna be able to make a deal i got no room for 50 swords so uh mike you might give him my hand no problem appreciate it all right thank you yeah i'm disappointed because it looks real it fooled me and i was really looking forward to this but i learned a lot hey what's up how you doing i have a samurai sword that my family's had for a long long time i really don't know much about it why is it made out of wood got me on that one i mean it wouldn't really do a lot of damage giant toothpick [Music] i'm here today at the pawn shop to sell my sword my grandfather brought the sword back from world war ii and it's been in the family ever since i was looking to get eight thousand dollars for the sword if i walk out of the pawn shop today with eight thousand dollars i will take my family on vacation to a theme park in florida so it looks like you have a scabbard here um but not the sword i mean the handle looks pretty legit um do you know much about it at all no it's just for my grandfather he picked it up during the war and i really don't know anything more than that i deal with samurai swords all the time but i've never really dealt with just a case and a handle for one it definitely looks japanese but you know one of the big problems with stuff like this is these things were passed down from generation to generation it could be 500 years old it could be a hundred years old i have no idea they really do range from that kind of time period i really don't understand why there's not a sword attached to it i mean it definitely looks like a mounting for a actual sword i just want to know where the real sword's at the handle looks like it's made of silk the scabbard i don't know what material it is that they used i mean it looks like wood maybe so we don't know how old it is it looks like it could actually be something here i just don't know exactly what it is so what are you looking to do with it to sell it okay any idea what you're looking to get eight thousand would you mind if i have a buddy come in and take a look at it no i welcome me great okay hang out i'll be right back i'm totally fine with someone coming in today look at the sword i really would like to have more information about where it came from how old it is and what its value is hey mike what's going on man hey what's up corey how you been doing good oh what you got today uh weird one it's what appears to be an old uh scabbard okay well actually this is common believe it or not in japan after world war ii the occupation macarthur ordered all the swords to get collected so that means all the blades were turned in but the mountains were okay to keep because these were not against law they're not a weapon okay and this is quite old actually how do we know how old it is well this style of mount is made in southern japan and this is known as a hugo mount which is from the area of kumamoto modern day japan and they were very particular to make this style of gold inlay work judging from the style we can pretty much determine that this whole package was from the early 1800s oh wow so what else can you tell me about it interesting this is very interesting maybe you get lucky it's a hidden coin pocket no way these are very rare to find intact now i i am a little bit of an expert those aren't gold no no these are not gold unfortunately somebody put some reproductions in here and obviously kept the real gold so why would they hide it inside their sword like that you would be afraid to get robbed so this was the best place to actually hide your money in that sense gotcha a little holder like this could hold up to ten thousand dollars worth of coins okay um well too bad we didn't get that lucky right but because of the rarity of this this makes this set very highly collectible okay how collectible well i mean an excellent condition like this especially with the addition of the hidden coin pocket now you're talking something very very rare and special so this thing would be worth an easy eight thousand dollars all right well appreciate it mike all right take care thank you see you later well i mean you kind of hit the nail on the head of what it was worth um that being said i've got to make some money um i'd like to give you four because you come up a little bit more than four can you go down from eight six and a half i'll tell you what i'll do five five seems fair all right deal thank you meet me over there let's do some paperwork yeah i am thrilled to make a deal today for five thousand dollars it wasn't quite the eight thousand i was asking for but i will certainly be able to take my family on a nice vacation we got something for you oh sweet a ninja sword no that's a samurai sword same thing i came down to the pawn shop today to sell my 1600 samurai sward i got the sword because the client owed me about 300 bucks i like to sell it because when my wife when she's angry at me she kind of looks at it you mind if i open it up be very careful though it's pretty sharp oh that's nice man what do you know about it well this is a yatsuru sword made in about 1600. okay so where'd you get this at man well i'm a lawyer and my client you see he owed me some money on a case i'd done for him and uh he left the sword with me he never came back towards mine i think it's something that you probably would like to have look at this blade all right that's the real deal take special people to do this you know i'm wondering if these are blood stains on here they could be blood stains they could be rust one of the things about these swords and one of the ways you can kind of tell that it's old is that they didn't have stainless steel back then they had carbon steel so when you touch it it will actually rust in the spot where you touch it that's why they had to keep them in the sheaths and probably most of these are from spots where it's actually been touched okay samurais were a highly skilled japanese warriors and their main weapon was their sword the master swordsmans who made them really had to make them perfect so it could take over six months to finish one one of the problems that we have with these type of swords is that they never really changed the design of them because the original design was the best design this sword could be 100 years old it could be a thousand years old okay i mean it looks as old as you're saying it is i just wish i knew more about them it's a shame too because i do know a guy who would be able to tell me everything there is to know about this but he's actually in another state right now lately i've really been trying to prove to my dad that i deserve to be part owner of the shop but this is a tough call if i buy this sword without getting it checked out it could really backfire but i've seen a few of these sell for thousands of dollars if this one's legit it might be just the thing to show them i'm capable of handling risk in a bigger way around here any idea what you're looking to get out of it five thousand dollars probably my biggest concern is whether or not this could be restored in the states that being said my man i'm seeing like 800 bucks that's not even a hundred dollars a century on this thing it's worth every bit of five thousand dollars the problem i have is that i don't know enough about it to pay you that much i'll go up to 12. i'll come down to four if you're gonna hold my feet to the fire make me pay as much as i can it's gonna be 1500 bucks i'll come down to 2 000. i've got five of them right there 1500 bucks my man that's all i'm willing to risk deal deal all right tell me you want to take care of him hell yeah meet me at the counter all right when he offered me 800 i was ready to jump and do a dance but i had to keep my cool because the price was still going up dude i could slice the apple right out of the air with that samurai sword no you couldn't earlier a guy brought in a cool old samurai sword our sword guy wasn't able to come in and tell us what it's worth so i took a guess and bought it for fifteen hundred dollars and of course chum won't stop talking about it he's obsessed with being a ninja as we all saw from the security video a while ago so i'm not letting him anywhere near this one you would have to throw the apple down i'll take the sword back chocolate chum it'll be full it'll be dope i'm telling you what sort are we talking about i was talking just in general cory tell the old man what the hell you did this time i bought an old samurai sword from like the 1500s and who checked it out it was legit i was there so you checked it out well with corey uh oh hell we're in trouble cory you realize that there is fake samurai swords out there obviously well i mean there's companies that make them just to look like they're old i mean they actually aged them and everything else you bought it from the same dude that sold you that grammy shut up really did we all somehow forget that i've been doing this a long time no but you got my money out in the wind you're spending money like you own the place look dude if i see an opportunity i'm gonna take it that's what you do that's what you taught me i only do it if i have a basic understanding of what i'm looking at you don't know anything about a samurai sword i'm not worried about it guys it's i got everybody coming down to check it out all right corey don't let chum which slice any apples with it all right you guys want to leave so we can get back to work thank you hey mike how you doing buddy hey what's up cory how you doing i got this for you to take a look at man i took a shot on it for like 1500 bucks and i'm baffled man i couldn't tell you what i bought it's a samurai sword shut up chum i am a japanese sword appraiser and dealer the guys call me up whenever they get something new or interesting and i help them determine what its current value is after world war ii it's estimated about three million japanese swords came out of japan that were confiscated by the occupation forces most likely this is something like that okay samurais are pretty badass well samurai were very honorable very determined warriors so even if you and i were fighting and i admit defeat i would even ask you honorably to cut off my head and assist me they wanted to basically show that okay i'm a man this is it it's my time and can you help me not the way i'd play it but okay the japanese warrior also known as the samurai was pretty much the professional warrior of the day the japanese sword is what gave the samurai his status you could not be a samurai without the samurai sword so do you have any concerns about this sword pretty much i spent 1500 bucks on something i really don't know that much about well let's see if you got lucky this is the proper way to take apart a japanese sword they've been doing this style for centuries we take off the handle so we can see if it's signed and it does have a signature is it yasugu yes that's right okay this maker did not work for merchants he only worked for high-level samurai oh wow you see this mark right here this is the family crest of the tokugawa family who ruled for 250 years from 1596 all the way down until the 1800s and the generations of the swordsmen kept the use of this mark in japan if you were caught using this mark without any permission you could be beheaded and your entire family as well oh wow the two symbols that had the most meaning were the imperial families and the tokugawa family which is the symbol that's on corey's sword and because of this it's a very rare source okay good what year was it made in the late 1600s the sword smith is the fifth generation what do you think it's worth well in as is condition it's probably worth about five to six thousand right now oh it's a score big horse so you can take it and restore it for me right well i can take care of it for you gonna be about three thousand dollars and what's it worth after that oh this sword because he's a rare maker you're looking at probably about fifteen thousand take it appreciate it mike all right i had a knot in my stomach waiting for mike to get here but that was exactly the news i needed i definitely took a bit of a risk on this one but sometimes you just got to go for it and i really can't wait to rub it in my dad's face hey mike what's going on buddy hey corey well you remember that sword is that the sword this is it aw sweet let me grab everybody real quick pops chum mike's here with the sword all right the one you paid too much for feast your eyes on this wow when you hand the sword to somebody you do it with respect to show trust and the edges to me so i'm trusting you and give her to you like so so this is it huh that looks awesome man sweet that is pretty you can't get this type of workmanship by using machines it was all done by hand i mean it looks great mike how'd you do it well i sent the blade to my friend who's a japanese professionally trained polisher then the handle was re-wrapped by another friend of mine [Music] and now it's in 100 restored condition so this sword actually belonged to a samurai oh a real samurai this maker did not work for merchants he only worked for high-level samurai so this is a real samurai sword let me check it out no no so how sharp is it it's basically a 28-inch razor blade um usually i don't do this but do you have a piece of paper yeah hold this for me here we go here's some paper oh wow so if you notice that's pretty clean and i didn't swing very hard yeah that's uh it's better than i could do with a pair of scissors did my idiot grandson make any money off of this you realize i'm holding like a razor sharp sword right now right oh shut up so what's something like this worth the sword is not worth about fifteen thousand dollars fifteen thousand dollars what am i paying you it's 3 300 for all the restoration work we did so when was last time you tripled your money dad grandpa oh shut up chum anybody every dog gets lucky every once in a while yeah i just remember you screwing up a lot lately thanks mike all right thank you thanks a lot better see you later you have a good day my friend i'm getting really tired of being treated like this i just made a lot of money for this shop and they're still giving me crap if they don't start realizing i'm an important part of this company i might have to go somewhere where i could be appreciated let me check it out john this is for real ninjas bro come on we just surprised chum with a brand new bike for his 30th birthday and now we're heading to the biggest motorcycle rally in the world sturgis it only happens once a year and it's in south dakota 1100 miles away from vegas if i have to turn 30 this is the way to do it i can't believe i fell for it when the guys told me i couldn't come i should be plotting some type of revenge or something but i'm having way too much fun i'm the kind of guy that likes to just cruise and enjoy the ride so i'm in no hurry i'm just bummed that you know rick decided to take a motor home as opposed to being out in the wind with us i've been driving for a couple hours now and with no one to bug me it has been the best just crossed into utah and i pulled into a little town named hurricane to look for some food what do we have here and i noticed a little antique shop with a weird trailer up front so i'm gonna go inside and see what they got hello hey how's it going good how are you all right just looking around sure unfortunately even when i'm on vacation i can't help myself i'm always looking for deals one of the weird things about random antique shop you'll never know what you'll find it might just be completely full of chunk might be full of treasures might be overpriced might be underpriced is the player piano for sale well everything has its price what year is it it's 110 years old and it works and everything like that yeah here try it it's the hit of the store okay what do you think so what would you take for it it'd have to be more than 10 000. that's a little more than i want to pay well i'd be in trouble if i sold it i'd give it to my wife for her birthday how much do you love your wife [Laughter] a lot okay what this place has got going for it it's pretty damn big so there might be that one little treasure stash in the corner somewhere this is definitely pretty cool excuse me question yeah do you know anything about this it's on consignment i don't know anything about it looks like some sort of helmet samurai helmet it looks like you're asking 300 bucks for it i probably shouldn't tell you this but you're not asking nearly enough for this thing he had a price for 300. i have a conscience i believe in karma i had to tell him what it was worth um because it could retail for as much as 2 500 bucks really yeah wow i own the ugly trailer antiques in hurricane utah with the samurai helmet i was really surprised that it was worth that much that blew me away i think the customer that has it on consignment will be thrilled this is actually really cool this is a samurai helmet from late edo period when is that early 1600s to basically 1868 i believe somewhere right around in there you know you had the emperor who was like the king and then you had the samurai which was sort of like the royal court they're basically the equivalent of like dukes and earls in england over the years i've seen a few samurai helmets i've seen a lot of samurai swords so when you get those things in your store you try and do a lot of research on them that way you know next time they come in what to look for i mean everything on this thing looks right so how much would you take for it what will you give me 12.50 i gotta do a little better than that you only wanted 300 to start with [Laughter] um so what would you take for it well i think after what i've learned about it today i think we've got to have at least two for it um 1500 uh come on you can do better than that 17. i'll go 16. 16.50 all right 16.50 all right let's go write it up usually i say that just goes to show when you go into an antique store in a small town every once in a while you can find something i think i could sell it quick sturgis here i come got some help this summer i swear hey how you doing pretty good how's it going this one right here yeah that one all right all right check it out be careful with it it's really sharp i guess if you needed some type of home defense and you couldn't own a gun this would be the thing to have yeah exactly there's nothing in the world quite like a chinese sword and that's why this company makes replicas swords like this aren't made with a machine they're hand-forged they're works of art and thanks to movies like the last samurai and kill bill they've become really hot with collectors i mean that's how old this one is actually it was only made in 2006 but it's a little different it's made exact specifications as the old ones are oh it's not one of those 19 dollar cheap swap meet ones i could tell the brass fitting and that boot is very nice it comes with the case we got the scroll here which is the significant authenticity so that's what you want let's let you know that it's real really the only way you're going to be able to tell the difference is just the quality of steel that they're able to make now you know they just got whatever they got out of the ground back then and now they've got the best steel they could possibly make in these it's not controlled right away it's fine carbon steel the craftsmanship of the blade so it's the thickness and the sharpness of it is second to none we asked were you asking for it right now we're asking 12.50 we bought this sword about five months ago for 500 so we have some time and money invested in it i'm gonna have to play hardball to make sure we turn a profit wow i saw a few of these online going street but like 800 850. thing is is i've got it here and now a lot of these guys online they'll charge 800 for it and then they'll hit you with a few hundred bucks on shipping stuff like that if you want to make me an offer i could probably do a little better is a thousand dollars work yeah i can go down to a thousand sounds great you got a deal all right thanks we always talk about waiting for the right customer to walk in i knew he wasn't going home without it and we doubled our money so everybody won you

Channel: Pawn Stars

Views: 610,598

Rating: 4.8637929 out of 5

Keywords: pawn, pawn stars, pawn stars episode, pawn stars full episode, the pawn stars, pawn star, pawn stars episodes, pawn stars chumlee, pawn shop, pawnstars, pawn stars old man, pawn stars full episodes, chumlee, history, history channel, history shows, history channel shows, Pawn Stars, Pawn Stars clips, Pawn Stars full episodes, las vegas, gold & silver pawn shop, gold and silver, rick harrison, corey harrison, rare, pawn stars swords, swords, samurai swords, top 7 samurai swords

Id: 58ZW4CdU4P8

Length: 37min 55sec (2275 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 06 2021