Legal to Export Nihonto out of Japan?

I live in Canada and I was told by my local knifeshop that it is Illegal to export authentic nihonto (daisho, tanto) out of Japan.

They said that a company named CS Hanway has employed many Japanese swordsmiths who left Japan for the mainland after this ban was created, and are now located in China and producing authentic katanas for sale internationally.

Does anyone know anything about this topic?

In the meantime you will have found out that old and new NIHONTO are indeed being exported from Japan in many countries around the globe. The only exception are National treasures (KOKUHO).

HANWEI is a China based industrial firm and they produce Chinese copies of NIHONTO. It is not known wether Japanese swordsmiths are really involved in the production.

Traditional Japanese KATANA are only made in Japan. Some individual swordsmiths around the world have studied and adopted the traditional techniques and forge acceptable single blades.

You decide if you want to buy an industrially made wallhanger/lookalike or a blade that has the features of a traditional weapon of the SAMURAI era.

Greetz

ROKUJURO

Yes I was told by a different knifestore that while nihonto Are able to be exported out of Japan, that the import tax is so high (he mentioned a figure like a thousand percent) so that it makes it difficult or nearly impossible.

Who are these individual swordsmiths around the globe? If you had a list of them I'd be interested to know. Are you suggesting that Hanwei is one of these companies that is capable of forging 'acceptable' blades? I spoke to an individual who talked about being able to slice through stone with his blade.