An almost total noob to sword collecting wondering about a model 19 autentic or repro?

[MacTheWhopper]

Hello everyone. I am very new to Japanese sword collecting. Having only ever bought a a type 32 (long blade) sword, I thought i might add another less expensive sword to my collection. I found this sword which i believe is a model 19 army kyo-gunto sword. The biggest issue I have with it is the markings on the blade. They don't seem to be very common at all which makes me think its a reproduction but before I buy it, could someone help me and let me know what they think. 

[Peter Bleed]

this is not Japanese -etched chinoiserie!

P

[MacTheWhopper]

and so its probably not from WWII either than is it? The seller said its a WWII sword and either Japanese or chinese.

[Bruce Pennington]

No, even the handle is a fake.

[lonely panet]

everyones stated the very obviuous, 

 

so ill post a webpage that many peaple use. please compare

http://ohmura-study.net/988.html

 

you sword saldy has no theme to it, apart from trying to copy the crossed flag on the back of handle, like the manchuko occupation swords.

[Stopper37]

That is actually a repro of a Chinese dress sword, the "wheel" was an early Chinese Republican era symbol.

 

Here are some pics of the sword I had years ago. The better ones were said to be Japanese made and actually harder to find than a IJA dress Saber. You even get kyu Guntos like that (people often think that wheel looking thingie is a Mon)

 

The full brass cast handle is a dead giveaway, they are not even trying......

[lonely panet]

IMHO what you speak of is a UNICORN,

 

with very little ways of written documents or proof.  all the photos showing chinese solders under Japanese control in uniform are displaying Japanese swords.

 

but happy to open a can of worms and be proven wrong.

 

but i will say this, the sword your showing IMHO is extremely suspect 

[Dave R]

 From what I have found out, most if not all Nationalist Chinese regalia was destroyed by the communists and people fearing communist reprisals. Perhaps some survived on Taiwan....

 

 As for collaborator troops..... 

[Stopper37]

I was not talking about Chinese collaborator swords, the style I refered to was the early 1910s Chinese sword. I am holding a copy of Chinese Swords vol 2: Beiyang/Republican & Warlord by Jan E. Culbertson in front of me at the moment. They are not unicorns. The cross swords were usually "five race" flag and Republican war flag (what I called the wheel thingie) As for my sword being suspect, I have had a few email exchanges with Jan some years back about it and he seemed to think it was legit. Of course we could be both wrong. My point was merely that they counterfeiter copied a non Japanese sword by making a solid cast repro of a Chinese sword, so it is a beyond lousy job. Whether my sword was legit was not relevant.

 

Edit: Attached is a low res pic that Jan sent me before it went into his book, the "wheel thingie"  is just one of the many variants of the republican flags. In the book, there were also Chinese contract (not Japanese occupation) Kyu guntos with the war flag where cherry blossom is usually found. 

[lonely panet]

there yo go, happy to be proved wrong.

 

I was of the understanding that with only Japanese influence in regards to swords was when Chiang Kai-shek was in control of the military, and I assume his love of Japanese uniforms was due to his short term military education in Japan in his youth, as the date you provided was in the same time frame.

 

but to another point approx. 200,000 Chinese fought under Japanese control, from what I have read, and the Chinese goverment had evan purchased panzer-2 of the Germans to fight the Japanese.

 

so anything is possible 

[Stopper37]

Without hijack the OP's topic too much,

China was in a political mess, many factions were friendly to many different countries. Along with Panzer II, they also had 300000 M35 German helmets, South West regions had Tommy guns yet did a local copy of the IJA type 38 rifle.... Anything was possible there. I collect Mauser (at least half of the post ww1 C96 went to China) so read up about these things. Sorry guys, this is actually way out of the scope of this site, I will stop now