My name is Darcy Brockbank and I am a life member of the Nippon Bijutsu Token Hozon Kyokai (NBTHK). I collect and buy Japanese swords and related items, and I am also an author and photographer. I'm also writing a series of books documenting the great swords in North American collections. I maintain a small, but high quality collection of swords and my own interest lies primarily in the Yamashiro and Soshu traditions. If you have a sword or a collection you wish to sell, feel free to contact me to discuss.

You can contact me by using the Email button on the upper right hand corner of this website.

Most importantly, if you have a family sword or found a piece somewhere and need help appraising it and coming to grips with "what to do," I take pride on giving straight and honest advice to the best of my ability in regards to your property or discovery. Feel free to write to me and ask me for assistance, I will be glad to help you out. Please note that this is a service intended to help collectors and families. If you are looking for a commercial evaluation because you are actively engaged in related activities buying and selling, then you should be looking for a paid consultation. I can help you with this, and also recommend others who can help.

Current inventory:

Click here for current inventory of swords for sale.

I've added a Go Yoshihiro Juyo Token and a Bizen Ko-Osafune Norimitsu. More high end Juyo will be coming soon.

Note for Candian residents: should you purchase from any of the parties advertising in this site you will be responsible for your own importation into Canada as I am not an importer.

See full Terms and Conditions for Sales.

After getting a lot of requests for swords for sale, I have decided to allow collectors to advertise their swords on my website. The way it works is as follows: the seller of the sword sends me photographs and a description of the piece, and I will review and add additional research notes, and create a listing on my site for the sword and the asking price.

When a buyer is interested, I put the buyer and seller in touch, and they negotiate the terms of their transaction directly. If necessary, I act as an escrow agent, holding funds until the sword is accepted. When the transaction completes, a 10% commission is due after the transaction is completed, charged on top of the negotiated price (on the honor system). The goal of this service is to provide a low-commission option (usually dealers charge 20% commission) for people to market and find buyers for their swords, and to make swords available to the visitors of my site.

I do not take consignments from Canadian residents at this time.

See full Terms and Conditions for Sales.

For collectors interested in buying pieces at the Juyo level, I am available to help structure your collection, to find pieces meeting your criteria, and to make sure that you get into the right pieces at the right prices... as well as have proper exit strategies in place should you need to unwind items from your collection.

I can acquire for you through my network of contacts and clients, and often have access to pieces not offered for sale in public. The goal in offering this service is to help people who have interest in building high level collections without the available time to become experts in the field. There are many pitfalls in collecting Japanese Swords, and many such interested people otherwise would not be able to establish themselves in this field because of the time investment it requires. So I am here to advise and assist, feel free to contact me for details.

See full Terms and Conditions for Sales.

Bob Benson and I are collaborating on a series of books, featuring swords owned by North American collectors, with additional articles provided by past or present collectors and experts in our community.

The series will comprise several volumes, the first of which is Japanese Swords of the Bizen Tradition, which is currently available for purchase! Click on the book cover to the right for more information about the book and purchasing it.

Japanese Swords of the Bizen Tradition

If you want to find out more about me, try this:

Bio: About Me

Sword library:

Swords: Available For Purchase
Swords: Reference Archive

Additional links of commercial interest:

Info on Buying, Selling, Trading and Consignment

If you want to read some articles or maybe pick up some information:

Recommended Books
Sword Study Page
Sword and Smith Classification
Ratings Systems for Swords and Swordsmiths
My 2004 Japan Trip -or- Death by Envy for Sword Lovers

Fun stuff and other links:

A Nihonto Screensaver
Hocho: Japanese Kitchen Knives
Useful Links to Other Sites

The Nihonto Knowledge Base is a web application I wrote for people to research smiths. I donated the use of code to the JSSUS and they are currently running it on their website under "Research." Only guaranteed to work under IE and Mozilla Firefox as it uses all kinds of funky tricks, but should work mostly right I think on anything.

Nihonto Knowledge Base