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"masayuki" katana in shin-gunto mountings


kusunokimasahige

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Hello all, Well i have finally picked up the katana of which i asked in a previous posting wether or not it was gimei...

 

I have discovered a few things about the blade since, and pictures of it will follow soon..

 

the length of the cutting edge is 63 cm, which would make it about 2 shaku 2 bun...

 

the strange thing is that it seems to have been re-tanged in a very skilfull manner! when you slide your finger from nakago hole to the blade, you feel a raised part coming up at a bout 3 cm from the cutting edge...

also a straight line/indentation is visible between the two parts, but i will post scanned photos as soon as i can.

 

This leads me to believe the gimei might actually be a mei denominating the sword after re-tanging... and since the work has been so skilfully done, which must have cost a lot! i am inclined to say the blade is either a repaired masayuki, or an older one.

 

gendaito could also be very well possible! however i do not have any idea on why some officer would go through the length of first having his (old) blade re-tanged in this skilfull manner, and then having a masayuki gimei put on the tang by the smith if it was not a masayuki after all...... especially since he could have easily asked for a more improtant name.

 

the only reason it might not be masayuki or older is the fact that the sword has the 1.5 cm slight blunting just above the habaki... however the hamon traces are visible also on this part of the sword.

 

the tang tip's shape is in between hira-yamagata and ha-agari.

 

the kissaki is O-kissaki as far as i can see.

 

the yasurime on the tang are ichi-monji, HOWEVER!!! on the upper part of the tang where the old polish begins, just above the ridge i mentioned earlier, the yasurime(what remains of it) are suji-chigai... only visible on one side of the blade..

 

there is a trace of Hamon, bute due to the "wrong" way of polishing, being out of polish or war-time polishing, the sword blade only has slight colour differences, ie the hamon top line nie nioi etc become visible under a certain angle and with a certain light.

 

there is rust-pitting on one side of the blade/ kissaki cutting edge which strangely enough seems to be only on the area normally covered by the Hamon.

 

The mount type is 94 aluminium scabbard with wood inside, and the removeable second carrying point is missing. however if you slide your fingers over the spot where it would have been attached you feel the slight indentation of the two copper bands...The release button on the hilt is made of silver / silver plated which also strikes me as not a common feature.

 

the habaki is made of silver folded around a copper core.

 

again, pictures etcetera will follow.

 

I am thinking of saving up for a full polish on this blade, which in my eyes deserves it.

 

so far........

 

KM

 

(no loss for 400 Euros i think)

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ubu ba, meaning is has only been sharpened once and not all the way down to the hamachi, that's usually found on gendaito I have seen one or two shinshinto with this and have heard of on shinto which made it very valuable, the odds are the Masayuki is gendai-to.

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true indeed, that is what i mean, so therefore more investigation is needed, that is also why i would like to post the pics asap, so you could shed some light on it... it looks to me very well forged/smithed, however i would in the future like to know through shinsa who probably made it.... since it does not seem to be cheaply made like some of the other WWII ones i have seen.....!

 

i have heard that the aluminium scabbards are quite rare by the way... but i dont know for sure...

 

KM

 

PS I have just found some gendai smiths whose art-name is also masayuki !!

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Found this one..... but will keep searching......... and need to find the minamoto kanji combined with the masayuki in a gendai smith...

 

"Seki Kaji Tosho

 

The material on this page was researched, translated and programmed by Dr. Jinsoo Kim

 

During WWII more than 200 swordsmiths worked only at Seki province to supply qualified swords for their soldiers. Their names began to appear in Seki Tanrensho printed in 1939. Some smiths in this list worked as Rikugun Jumei Tosho and they produced "both good and poor blades together". However most of these smiths produced low grade Showato. This list shows their smith name and real name.

 

刀匠名Smith Name 本名Real Name

 

正行 (Masayuki) 三輪 友雄

 

"

 

KM

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Okay....... here we go!

 

I have taken a lot of photos of the sword, Macroed...

 

i will start with the tang, kissaki and blade pics, and will end with some of the fittings...

 

my questions are: (see last posting i made..)

 

I would appreciate any and all info and help you can provide me with since this is my first real sword ever... ( i do own a nice zink/alloy replica for iai and re-enactment but thats no niho-to of course)

 

KM

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DUDE thats a bit overkill we have members on dail up...they wont be looking ...rethink that and edit out some repeats, pluse some are way large like the mounts close ups....the tang sure looks older than showa, but that ubu ba?...too bad so many ware and pits...it may or may not polish out. the mei is cut nice with not too much of a showa feel...may be older ...cant tell yet.

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Hey Milt, i have 5 GB at photobucket.... so its okay.....

 

Peter here are the pictures of the nakago and mune, and underside.....

 

if it is a weld, could it be

 

a: a contemporary repair

 

b: a battle repair (i saw what looked like a small nick of a sword cut on the side near the tip)

 

c: a showa whatever you want to call it?

 

personally i do not think it is a modern repair/forgery at least.....i hope its not.... :lol:

 

it is definetely a WWII relic as far as i know

 

would the shinsa masters regard a repaired sword, even if the repair was contemporary a major flaw?

 

10.jpg

 

9.jpg

 

7.jpg

 

6.jpg

 

5.jpg

 

4.jpg

 

2.jpg

 

1.jpg

 

Underside..

 

11.jpg

 

KM

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well i have resized all pics, so that shouldnt be a problem anymore...

 

The hamachi sticks out a bit too much and the mekugiana doesn't look like it's spaced properly. Is it just me or does the nakago look a little "awkward"?

 

The hamachi is fairly sturdy, the habaki is larger due to the fact this might well be an old sword remounted in military settings...

 

The mekugiana is in my view okay, its located at the same spot as in a lot of other swords as far as i can measure it, and even a new peg fits perfectly and makes the construction of the hilt sturdy. ie the sword doesnt move when moving it around.

 

i am really eager and curious to learn more about your opinions on this katana from any of you!...

 

KM 8)

 

my questions are: (and i am relying heavily on your trained eyes!)

 

1. What is the estimated age of this blade, if gendaito, or if not, nihon-to

 

2. Do you think the blade was re-tanged? especially note the difference in

yasurime.

 

3. what do you think of the mei? (close ups!)

 

4. what do you think of the visible "damage" ? (there is no rust pitting

deeper than 1 mm by the way.

 

5. do you think the blade is worth (deserves) sending to a togishi for a full

polish/remount in koshirae/shirasaya ?

 

6. even though there is ubu-ha, do the file marks on the blunt part

maybe indicate this was done later? ie that this is indeed an old blade

which was worked on to get it in shin-gunto mountings....\

 

7. (the mounting itself, saya etc have low numbers, and are highly

detailed/high quality, would this indicate an early type of shin-gunto

mounting?) ie made around 1935...

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I wouldnt dare try that myself.......... I mean, how would i bring out the hamon, i am untrained in polishing Japanese swords.... have polished Roman replica gladii and medieval replica's though.....

KM

 

10-15 minutes with a hazuya fingerstone, concentrate on a small area and you'll bring out the hamon (if it has one). Use water with a small amount of sodium bicarbonate as a lubricant.

You can't do any real damage as the stone is removing virtually no steel.

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if i would do that, would i move left right only on the hamon area, or up down? do i only do 5 cm? or the whole length of the cutting edge? and where do i get such stones?

 

isnt sodium bicarbonate just as damaging to the blade like salt?

 

i am very weary since i dont want to damage anything...

 

Btw i am not taking any action yet untill i am convinced (by the members or a shinsa master) that it is an unimportant useless showato... which it most likely isnt....... ;)

 

hope you understand and could answer these questions for me Peter,

 

Best wishes,

 

KM

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You need to work in small strokes parallel to the edge of the blade. The sodium bicarbonate prevents the blade from rusting. After finishing with the finger stone I just uchiko and oil.

 

I've done it regularly on a out of polish koto sukesada wak. Suffered no ill effects and I can see the entire hamon clearly, including some activity such as kinsuji that wasnt visible before I started. Now I've satisfied myself its worth the expense of polishing I'll pass it on to my polisher on my next slot.

 

A friend who has a business in the UK once told me of a Japanese dealer that came to his shop. Went outside to find a piece of brick, spat on the brick and proceeded to clean the rust from a katana he was selling.

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Just thought I might put my two cents in. I think that this is a kindai gimei, as explained in vol. 5 of the Koza, of Masayuki who of course later went on to become Kiyomaro. I think gimei because it seems to incorporate enough of the spacing and kanji characteristics that I don't think are conicidence. I say kindai or around the 1930's because of these gimei I have seen they seem to almost deliberately make enough "mistakes" if you will that they strike me as the effort of someone who is trying to deceive, but guilt (or maybe lack of skill) is keeping them from taking the ruse too far.

I have a gimei Hizen Tadayoshi very similar to this in that it shares the same kind of "christmas bulb" tagane mannerism on the ends and has the same weird rust; too much and too dark for Showa but not really mellow enough for even Meiji. That said, it's a nice looking gendaito and I suspect in polish this one would be the same.

I know this seems a sacrilege but I use 1500 grit sandpaper followed by oil/uchiko on deeply pitted blades like this because your scratches are so far above what will have to be removed that as long as you work carefully and stay off the shinogi line I doubt you could do much damage. This will give you as previously stated a good idea if you really want to throw in for polish as well a humbling lesson as to why good polishers are worth every penny of their asking price. Sorry for the newbie rant and before anyone jumps me too bad I want to emphasize that I only use the sandpaper on intermediate blades with deep polishing needs.

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i agree that this blade and all its deep pits can stand a light sanding to see what can be done...plenty of meat on it....better yet let a pro look at it and he can tell you to cut and run or drop you life savings on it. What would i do? send it to Bob Benson and let him tell you whats what.

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Bear in mind that the biggest issue in the Nihonto community is unqualified people trying to polish swords. With this in mind, I would like to caution you about any form of home polishing attempts. I know it does happen a lot, but it leads to many swords being damaged. The best thing is to see if you can get a qualified polisher open up a window and see what lies underneath as Stephen recommended. Sometimes regular uchiko application or a bit of a light metal polish like nev-r-dull can bring up some of the activity, but I would caution against any use of sandpaper or stones. Yes...it is done, and can enhance the hamon on totally out of polish blades, but I would hate for the forum to be seen as advocating something that is so strongly lectured against.

 

Refer to the following pages, as they contain sensible advice to live by:

http://www.jssus.org/index.html

http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/care.htm

http://swordforum.com/swords/nihonto/togi.html

 

Brian

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I will listen to your advice and will have someone open a window... btw, i also noticed today that someone in the past has delt a severe blow with it... the blade is slightly warped/bent to the right looking from the back of the sword, cutting edge outwards... a little above the center... so a straightening job also would probably be needed....

 

Thank you for your advice, it is all very very welcome...

 

someone said it wouldnt be meiji, but later, and before 1930... i wonder if a polisher also could shed some light on it..

 

KM

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

You mean this image.........

 

20.jpg

 

It indeed looks like the same technique!

 

it might be that it is the technique of a laminated blade... i have seen cross sections of swords in which it looks as if there first was a soft core, after which harder steel was in a way folded over the core lengthwise...

 

very similar indeed, also the kissaki shape.... bummer i dont have the money to make it a pair then... but i would only do that if i would know it was definetely by the same smith....

 

KM

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