best thing for sam with that weapon is royal jelly's bcnm40 hands down can work out any combination of melee set ups and its a very very very easy bcnm :P have fun.
The darn thing went for 200k a few weeks ago when I first needed it, and I just now looked at it again. 230k.. >< Graah. That BCNM Royal Sucession is a pain in the butt too unless you have the perfect party for it. Undying Promise is just hard to get to, I haven't tried it yet but I plan on it soon. (Soon being when I can find a level 70+ WHM or RDM to escort me through Fei'Yen..) XD Good luck to whoever decides to try and fight in a BCNM for it. I'll be go camping Spook now. :P
EDIT: I finally got this thing at level 40 still and I have to say it works great. If I want faster attacks I switch to this sword rather then my AF GKT, with the delay of 450. I'll be posting up a glamour shot soon, though it looks identical to the Hosodachi.
Edited, Wed Nov 23 20:22:19 2005
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Kuroaya - Retired. Kurohoshi - Mithra, Sylph Server http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/profile.xml?139948
Excellent sword! Bought it last nite on Ragnarok for 24k! Seems very underrated to me but I see myself using it for a long time! +2 VIT to a Galka just adds more of a good thing! ^^
If you plan on doing BCNM40 fights, I heavily recommend this sword. It is hands down the strongest, fastest weapon that a Samurai can wield and still take part in the the BCNM40s. It runs for 50K on my server (Seraph), but it often gets overlooked because the AF1 Great Katana, Magoroku, comes just two levels later.
However, the Magoroku cannot be used in the BCNM40 fights, where a lot of other highly desirable items drop. Incidentally, if you want to try to earn the Kagehide yourself, it drops from a BCNM40 called Royal Sucession. Be warned, this is a 3 person BCNM40!