Topic: Dodgy dealers - 15 replies

Missing Trevor's warnings regarding the less than honest items regularly offered for sale by various people.

I would steer well clear of armour from DAIMYOU.

Yes I know about him and it is good to see his name mentioned again for other collectors. His stuff is so common on both Ebay and Yahoo Japan and his feedback is not a good indication of what he provides. I have purchased a Jingasa from him and I must say he was very very good at taking photo's in such a way to ensure that the numerous cracks that were present on this item did not show up in the photo's.

Evening Katchubunnies,

The above example is an excellent reason why each of us should take advantage of this forum and help each other. Sadly due to the nature of the internet is it easy to get burnt. Although it may only happen once to you personally if a bugger like the man in the above link is smart he can do alot of damage to alot of people before he starts to run out of suckers.

This guy could be a fraud operating in mainland China using Taiwan as a front to land some credibilities. I will not buy anything from him.

Im of the same thought, anything from China is suspect.

No doubt he is dodgy, obviously he is aware of peoples attitude to such items coming from China as he tries very hard to explain away the reason he is operating from that country. In addition to this he has the stock standard photo of his "collection" to give himself creditability! My personal favourite trick on Ebay at the moment is a dude who includes a Japanese women in all his photo's of stuff for sale. This same man had 2 massive Edo period komainu for sale from a Shinto/Buddhist temple!!!!

Thanks.  Actually this piece was specially made by a local Chinese friend for him.  This guy makes some very nice armour, but still cannot compare with those from Japan.  The two behind him were from Marutake (bought thru' Samurai Store) and Toraba.

Looks great, I would love to get something like that for my son. I would really appreciate a better picture if I may. 18 months ago I got my young bloke a Gogatsu ningyo but there is no comparison.

Leroy,

Give me your email address so that I could send you some pictures.

Evening Katchubunnies,

I had a Dou from Daiymo Photoshop man a few years back and a saihai.

I've bought peices from him in the past and needless to say he's good at taking pictures to hide faults with what ever piece he sells. I ended up geting some nice Sode and when it came through the mail he didnt mention they had dry rot for the majority of the lacing. Concerning many of the sellers out there i tend to ask for more pictures concerning a peice i have in mind. I also asked him where he got the majority of the peices he sells and he told me that with the recession hitting Japan alot of people are selling Armor off to make a few more yen. Granted i feel bad but i guess i'm giving them a good home and trying to have many of them restored. Lastly i would like to thank sellers like Trevor out there who do us all a great service which makes up for all the bad sellers out there...

Damyou runs a sort of mini Ebay-flea market....there is a lot of stuff (junk?) and your never quite sure what your getting......lately I have noticed some formally decent dealers that all of a sudden cant seem to recognize a fake item and have sold it as authentic...its getting worse all the time...

Daimyou gets the scraps the other dealers can't do anything with. Quite literially there is one dealer who buys all the broken things, strips what he needs for his repairs and what he can flog to others for their restorations and then dumps it on Daimyou, who know foriengers will buy this stuff, which in Japan has no monetary value other than it metal weight perhaps. And I am not being cold to old authentic items. But the truth fo the matter is the cost of properly restoring many items exceeds the inital cost to buy the piece many man times over, unless black spray paint is acceptable. Yes, he might have something better than scrap once in a while but he know nothing about the subject regardless of his made up credentials. So I guess he is not being dishonest when he sell a fake menpo as a real one, or can't identify the age of it.

The unwritten truth about some of these fomrally decent dealers would floor people if they only knew. But this is lawsuit stuff so...you'll just have to use your imaginations.