- How you doing? - Good.
How are you today? - Pretty good.
What do you have here?
Um, I have something interesting
for you to look at today.
Wow, this is pretty cool.
It looks like a tanto, which is basically a Japanese sword.
But it's not a sword because a tanto is much shorter.
A lot of times they would battle on horse.
And you know, if you were able to knock someone off the horse,
you would jump off, pull up their helmet,
and slice their neck because it would
be much easier than pulling out your long sword
and stabbing them.
[blade shing]
CHRISTINA: I have a Japanese wooden sheath
that I'm trying to sell today.
This sheath has a few marks, but overall it looks
like it's in good condition.
I'm hoping to get about $500.
This was a very useful tool in war.
It's weird because it's not sharp at all.
Look. - Hm, that's interesting.
Oh, there we go.
It's a little sharp, I guess.
It's just dull.
Where did you get it at?
CHRISTINA: I got it in a garage sale,
thought it'd be interesting for my husband's office,
and then I spoke to the older gentleman
and found out that he was in the Air Force at one time,
and my husband was as well.
That's pretty cool.
Think you got a really good find right here.
Things like this would have been brought
over from Japan after the war.
It seems like it's in good condition, you know.
Do you know how old this is?
I do not.
Yeah, I don't either.
It's-- literally, these have been around thousand years.
This could be a couple hundred years old.
It could be--
Oh, wow.
--a thousand years old.
I don't know.
Do you know how much you're looking to get for it?
Um, I was thinking about $500.
OK.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to come off too easy.
This handle should come off, and there should hopefully
be some markings on the blade, which would tell us
a lot more about the story of this,
and maybe where it was from, and possibly even
who could have maybe owned it.
But I'm not really qualified to take that off,
even though I do know there should
be something under there, because I
don't want to break it.
And if it is 500 years old, I'd hate
to be the one to damage it.
Could I get my guy Mike down here
to come take a look at this?
He specializes in all types of swords,
and this would be right up his alley.
If you have a few minutes, I can give him a call,
see if he can come take a look.
He'll let us know if this thing is worth $500 or $5,000.
- Yeah, I'd appreciate that. - All right.
Give me just a minute, all right?
Thank you. [ka-ching]
MIKE: Oh.
What do you think?
I haven't seen one of those for a long time.
Truth is, I know very little about it,
so I called you down here because I
just want you to look at it and see what you know about it.
Do you have any idea what this really is?
It's a tanto, right?
Not really.
OK.
If you notice, on tanto, the edge would be on this side
and would have a point, right?
I thought it looked a little different.
What you have here is a very unusual piece.
It has its own classification, actually,
not as a tanto or wakizashi, but this is called a hana katana.
There was another type of art that the samurai used to create
peace and tranquility in their life,
and that was a flower arrangement called ikebana.
And this is called a hana katana,
which is used for cutting the stems
of the flowers for arrangement.
It's not a war knife?
No, not for war.
I thought that was a tanto.
So this is more for peace, not for war.
That sounds more appealing to me.
[laughter]
But what I did notice--
see the pin is in here, and usually we
could take it out to see if it's signed by the maker.
Unfortunately, sometimes when people saw that something
was loose or falling apart, in America
the favorite tool is glue.
No.
[sighs] That's the enemy of all swords.
So we might possibly damage the item by removing
the pin because it's glued in.
So as is, what could I sell this for here in the store?
You could sell it for anywhere from 15 to 2,000
if we don't do anything to it.
OK.
Yeah.
But is it possible to restore and get more money for it?
It's possible.
A lot is going to depend on if it's signed and who signed it.
So you're telling me I could buy this, spend a couple grand,
find out there's no signature, and just be deeper and deeper
in the hole with Rick?
It's risky, just like Las Vegas.
Hey.
[laughs]
I appreciate you, Mike.
Thank you.
All right, you heard what he had to say.
What do you want now?
Do you think you could do 2,000?
I definitely can't do 2,000.
I mean, we're still looking at below the 1,500 mark for sure
because if I did sell in this condition,
that's what I'd get for it.
Would you take the 500 for it?
Well, not after I heard that, but I'm
willing to go for about 1,000.
I can give you 1,000 for it.
Great.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
Let's come up here and do some paperwork.
Great.
I was really surprised that I got $1,000 for it,
and I'm very excited.
And I'll probably use that money and put it into my classroom.